Why weren’t Germany and Italy as aggressive in overseas colonization compared to countries like Britain, France, Portugal and Spain?
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Well the main problem was that germany and italy didn’t exist at the time, they weren’t united countries. But there were smaller powers within what we now call ‘germany’ and ‘italy’. The venetians for example controlled a small maritime empire in the Mediterranean – why didn’t they sail out and grab some of the Carribean? Well, most of their money was coming from the spice trade out of Alexandria and across the Mediterranean, so they just weren’t interested. And there were Germans who were part of the early rush of colonization – in 1526 the Holy Roman Emperor (who was also the King of Spain) invited south German merchants to colonize parts of Venezuela. It just didn’t end up going very well.
But that last note kind of points to a bigger reason why some countries colonized the new world and some didn’t – it was an extremely risky prospect that frequently failed. The countries that succeeded had the resources to throw at it (and no more sure prospects to send those resources to instead.) For example the Duchy of Tuscany attempted to create a colony in present-day French Guiana, but it failed, and the Knights Hospitaller of Malta attempted to colonize the Antilles. The Danish also had a colony that was moderately successful in the Virgin Islands, but wasn’t successful enough, apparently, to lead to more colonies. And famously the independent Kingdom of Scotland invested hugely in a scheme to establish New Caledonia in Panama, which went very poorly indeed
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