It’s unlike for all countries to have equivalent transmission rates by default. Further, countries with younger populations (specifically vs 75+) would have fewer death even if their adage adjusted mortality rates are identical.

Italy has a much larger percentage of population over 80 than the rest of Europe due to climate, migration patterns, and WWII.

Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany#/media... vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Italy#/media/F...

Did you intentional link to "Population pyramid of Germany in 1933"? This is the most recent chart and it doesn't look that much better than Italy's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany#/media...

Yes, because it gave scale to just how big the WWI and WWII population impacts where. Click the right arrow shows the 1946 version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany#/media... and one more shows the 2019 version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany#/media... (It sadly groups the oldest population only really showing the male vs female ratio despite WWII having killed so many women in that generation.)

Both countries have a similar percentage of 65+ year olds, but COVID gets rapidly more deadly as you get older and Germany‘s very oldest generation is devastated. For comparison 31.30% of US covid deaths are from 85+ year olds.

Now take a look back at the male and female 90-94 and 95-99 year old slices of both of those charts you said looked similar.