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Germany isn't and wasn't "One small country."
It had a MASSIVE population of 70 - 80 million people in the 1930s. At the height of Germany's military strength, it had over 10 million men in its armed forces (though this included Czechs, Slovaks [or dare I say - Czechoslovakians] and Austrians who were drafted into the German military, not to mention the forced labour imposed by Germany upon conquered populations. While these slaves didn't serve in the military directly, the labour they provided meant that a German or an Austrian working in a non-military field could  be replaced by slaves, thus freeing him up to join the Wehrmacht/ etc). There aren't many nations that could mobilise so many men!

My dad fought in WW2 with the 147th combat engineers. He often spoke highly of the german's intelligence & technology.

Fun fact that is always overlooked about the early dominant German Army. They took over 500 thousand HORSES into Poland. Most people think of just panzers but early on they had an enormous amount of troops on horses!!!

Germany prepared for war. Germany attached countries that were not.

The financial aspect of all this is fascinating and very rarely spoken of.  Going from crippling debt and ridiculously high inflation to arming, training, feeding, and clothing a military force strong enough to conquer Europe in so short a time is quite the financial feat.

Saying that Denmark capitulated in a day is really rather generous; we were overrun by the Germans in less than two hours, mostly due to it being a surprise attack on a neutral nation that only partially had an expectation of any sort of aggression until a few minutes until the actual occupation occurred.

I think one often overlooked or underestimated factor of the early superiority of the german forces was a lack of "leftovers", so to speak. The entire military had to be rebuilt basically from the ground up - no outdated services (like a cavallery with ages of tradition and influential staff) still existed and therefore couldn't seriously hamper the introduction of modern tactics and weapons for fear of loosing their time-honored status (and with it, budget).
Same goes for kit, from simple handguns all the way to tanks and airplanes. There was simply no huge stock of "will do"-weaponry from the last big war that was kept in use due to better successors being deemed too expensive. The german army had the challenge to produce nearly every single bit of kit completely anew, which in return yielded the benefit of having an up-to-date inventory across the board.
This was surely no war-winning advantage on it's own, but I believe it played a noteworthy role in the bigger picture.

One other less talked about advantage they had was the use of radio for interunit communication to coordinate formation movement and tactics. Radio was obviously something every side had but Germany used it extensively on a micro scale. Throughout history it can be said that one of the biggest reasons armies underperformed was lack of coordination and cohesion owing to bad communication😊

They were highly trained professionals with advanced tactics. The Auftragstaktik was groundbreaking and is adapted till today

Not since Napoleon has the world seen this level of tactical dominance.

Why am I seeing Arte Johnson on Laugh-In in a German helmet saying "verrry interesting — but schneaky?

That bit about the disproportionately high casualties inflicted on adversaries was exactly right, as well as the superior training of German soldiers.  They were the best soldiers in the world then, though sadly, in the service of a criminal regime.

Im proud of both sets of my great grandparents. They saw what was happening and decided to leave in the early 30s. It would take years for them to leave but they resettled in the US by 1943. My grandfather's parents had a hard time since their oldest son was in the Hitler youth. Practically kept him drugged or drunk until they were on the ship to the US 😅 they first lived in Florida then San Antonio. Then finally settling in New Orleans. My great grandmother was something else though.. she dipped powered tobacco and carried a double barrel shotgun all while wearing a dress and apron. My grandfather said one of his first memories of his mom was her fishing on the banks of a river and shooting a snake 👀

To me it is stunning how similar WWII and the Napoleonic Wars were. Maybe in a weird way history kind of repeats

First off, they weren’t scared to ask a question.

I think the best answer as to WHY the Axis powers and specifically the German military performed so well in WWII is also the most simple answer: they were the ones who started it.

They started the war and for years they were preparing for THEIR war, while the Allies, although not caught by surprise or were wildly unprepared, were still unprepared, especially for what was to come.

To help put into perspective how massive militaries were back then - the Luftwaffe had 900,00 servicemen and around 4000 aircraft.  Compare that to the RAF today that has around 550 fixed wing aircraft and 35,000 personnel.  The UK army currently has around 75,000.  The German army in 1939 was over 2.5 million.  Those numbers are just truly mind-boggling.

It wasn't the tactics, it was the drip.

Recommendable literature on this topic:
"Fighting Power: German and US Army performance, 1939–1945" by Martin van Creveld