It looks like Germany put lockdown measures in place about a week earlier than France, Belgium or the Netherlands, if you compare the number of deaths at the time the mesures were enforced.

Getting a lockdown in place a week earlier mathematically translates in a 4x reduction in deaths a few weeks later, which is more or less what we see when comparing France and Germany.

Likewise the UK enforced the lockdown a few days later than France (proportionally to the state of the pendemic at the time of the measures), more or less like Spain. Looks like they are both heading towards 30k or 40k deaths until the pendemic gets under control. A few days really matter when you're fighting a pendemic that double in size every 3 days.