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There was a swath of many inventions and other great advances in music, literature, architecture etc in that area. World War One kinda destroyed all that. Britain, France, Italy were no slouches either. Hungary for a time had some of the finest schools.

Germany was paid royalties or sued for patent infringement on their Mauser rifle bolt design, the US government paid. I think that was actually during the first World War. By the 2nd nobody paid any attention to that sort of thing. At the end of the war all of the technological advancements were confiscated and were considered a form of war reparations by the allies. One notable example, I guess, were wire and magnetic tape recording. Music fidelity and broadcast took a noticeable leap right after the war, acetates and such from the 1930s and 1940s sound very bandwidth limited and tinny, by the 1950s that had changed a great deal.

Many people are aware of the “Paperclip” rocket scientists imported to the US right after. Unfortunately less well known are thousands of propaganda specialists, and chemical warfare guys too. Ostensibly to fight “the cold war”, but in hindsight this helps explain a lot of the otherwise inexplicable turmoil America has been subjected in the last 60 years.