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I count German reunification as something quite different from rebuilding from WWII.

By the mid-90s we were 50 years after the end of the war. It didn't take three generations to put the cities and infrastructure back together.

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It took about 2 trillion and maybe a couple of decades from 1990 onwards.

Okay, but it wasn't the thing we were talking about...

Sorry, I just tried to add that post cold war there was substantial rebuilding (again).

That's fair but I don't think it would have stopped a "Silicon Valley" effort, especially not across all of Europe.

Maybe not. As always, I think it's more complex: It certainly used a lot of funding, not just from and for Germany that wasn't available then for other things; at the same time there was not much defense spending (to go back to the origins of SV) either, there was also a lot of socio-politcal change binding change capacity, and in parts there has been a certain distrust/dislike of information technology in countries like Germany.

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