Professor John FitzGerald:

I am old enough to have lived through a regime before united Germany. The other thing about Germany is the impact of the fall of the Wall on the increased security of Europe, moving the Russian threat 1,000 miles to the east. Germany had a huge expenditure on defence because the Russian army was right in the middle of them.

That benefit was really important and Germany dramatically saved on defence over the subsequent 30 years, which they are now having to ramp up.