In 2009 as H1N1 started ramping up the reserve had half a billion masks (and 100 million already ordered), the health minister launched buildup order to increase the stockpile to 1.7 billion (a billion surgigals and 700m N95/FFP2).
After H1N1 drew down, the health minister got greatly criticised for the expense, and following the event the agency got slowly starved out: the government decided to drop FFP2s entirely, and significantly draw down the stock of surgicals. In 2013 it moved the entire thing over to private entities (companies were supposed to stock up masks for employees, imagine how stupid that idea is).
Obviously this completely killed the domestic production in short order as companies were not doing jack shit, and even if they had they’d have bought chinese production. As soon as 2015 all the companies set up after 2006 had folded, and domestic production capabilities were essentially gone.
In 2016, the agency which had been specifically set up to oversee pandemic preparation and response to pandemics was killed, officially “folded” into a more general public health agency, after having been slowly starved of funds for years.
When COVID-19 hit, the country had no production capabilities (500 million masks a year) and the stock was essentially nil (about 150 million masks, 3 weeks worth of healthcare demand alone).
Prevention paradox.
Regarding the masks, at least in Germany the problem was different... politicians knew that masks were effective but, since the stockpiles of the Cold War era had been dismantled and domestic production all but non-existent because no matter what China is going to be at least 10x cheaper, they feared a "bank run" on the few masks that were still in the country.
Politicians didn't have the guts to come out and say "yes, we know that masks help, but please don't go on shopping sprees, we need every single mask there is for the hospitals".