After World War II, the German state was utterly destroyed. It was split in four parts, and to top it all, coming face to face with the scale of the atrocities their government and armies committed through public events like the Nürnberg trials. This in combination with the process of de-nazification, which can be seen as a large-scale rehabilitation program, and the regaining of independence, albeit as two states, helped the German people in the 50s to begin looking towards the future, burying the past.
It was not just a lost war, which people can accept while still feeling proud about their deeds during it, as perhaps the French used to view Napoleon’s efforts which ended in defeat, or Austria’s defeats in the Seven Year War. Rather, in this case, the sensation after the war seems to have been similar to a person regaining their senses after having committed acts of violence under the influence akin to a crowd cheering for a football team or other such instances of mob mentality which all humans are susceptible.
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