Then left? Well, considering the US has like 40 military bases in Germany, like almost 50.000 stationed personnel there, and there are still some restrictions on what Germany can or cannot do, I won't say they left. Heck, they can also bug the chancellor's phone for decades or blow up their energy infrastructure and nothing happens when it comes to light.
I'm sure Russia would be more than satisfied if they could have kept all of that in their former satellite states including Ukraine.
Left in the sense that Germans were allowed to govern themselves. Whereas countries reconquered by Russia were ruled by local cronies whose loyalty was to Moscow as much as to their home country. And, if those guys tried getting some independent ideas, Russian tanks rolled in to remove them from power (Budapest 1956, Prague 1968).
That's true, however we don't know what would happen if the German people elected somebody contrary to the interests of the US. To this date, no German government has implemented any "independent ideas" that bothered the US. When they tried, like with the NS2, they were warned of the consequences, and ultimately agreed to comply.
Germany or France didn't go to the Iraq war as a part of the "coalition of the willing", and said would vote against it in the UN. If Poland tried doing that to the USSR, there'd be a huge risk of Russian tanks in Warsaw and a government change. In fact, almost all major decisions Polish authorities made had to factor in the risk of Russian backlash and invasion. For example, they decided to institute martial law in 1981 and squash Solidarity, because they the alternative (Solidarity squashed by Russian tanks) would be much more bloody.
Then left? Well, considering the US has like 40 military bases in Germany, like almost 50.000 stationed personnel there, and there are still some restrictions on what Germany can or cannot do, I won't say they left. Heck, they can also bug the chancellor's phone for decades or blow up their energy infrastructure and nothing happens when it comes to light.
I'm sure Russia would be more than satisfied if they could have kept all of that in their former satellite states including Ukraine.