No surprise there. It was at least partially intentional that NATO supplanted the Bundeswehr so thoroughly in the defense of Germany, pretty much since it's inception. Germany had already been there at the birthing of two world wars; nobody wanted history to repeat itself a second time (least of all the German people).
Here in this day and age, that makes a huge hole that Germany has to crawl out of in shouldering responsibility for it's own defense, and it cannot happen in a day.
It's true that Germany was not in a position to advocate for and budget a strong military, especially after WWII. Their entire culture was patterned essentially to ignore WWII and what happened, and the idea to re-arm, even in the defense of NATO, was taken cautiously and definitely Germany was a back seat rider.
But then came the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. America drew down in Europe from well over 500,000 troops to something like 25-30K, a shadow of its former self. You'd think that would be enough to wake the Germans/Europeans up, that the U.S. bankrolling Europe's defense had come to an end -- but no.
Merkel's policies, in particular, shunned spending any more euros than absolutely necessary, and even then her with her miniscule defense spending, she sought to duck her agreements and responsibilities to her own country -- but Merkel, we should remember, is a socialist who grew up in the former East Germany and still harbors that cultural baggage.
As a good West German friend groused to me in 1992, when the flood of Eastie Beasties was an absolute torrent and they all had their hands out expecting the West German government to feed them, clothe them, house them, and care for their medical needs:
"Bau 'mal die verdammte Mauer noch auf."
"Put the damned Wall back up."
Bottom line is, the Germans in particular didn't and don't give a damn about their own defense, even if the U.S. doesn't write blank checks anymore. They rely -- stupidly -- on NATO, which is just a mini-version of the U.N. Corrupt to the core, NATO is a joke.