Unification was underway prior to the EU, the EU is the eventual larger body but it took some steps to get to the point where it could be properly established, mostly on account of the various countries still reeling from WWII and being very busy with reconstruction efforts (and piss poor to boot, the first years after WWII were almost as bad as the last years of the war and in some places even worse besides the reduced immediate risk to life). Doubly so for those countries that ended up on the far side of the Iron Curtain, but then again, they weren't part of the EU for many years to come. But for many of them the only thing that changed is that German uniforms became Russian uniforms and usually that wasn't accompanied by a higher degree of civility by the occupiers.
Unification was underway prior to the EU, the EU is the eventual larger body but it took some steps to get to the point where it could be properly established, mostly on account of the various countries still reeling from WWII and being very busy with reconstruction efforts (and piss poor to boot, the first years after WWII were almost as bad as the last years of the war and in some places even worse besides the reduced immediate risk to life). Doubly so for those countries that ended up on the far side of the Iron Curtain, but then again, they weren't part of the EU for many years to come. But for many of them the only thing that changed is that German uniforms became Russian uniforms and usually that wasn't accompanied by a higher degree of civility by the occupiers.