There is an irony that Brits is now owned by a German company.
As Hanginginthere says, they went into Germany full of ambition. Britannia GmbH was a great little outfit thanks in no small way to the enthusiastic and highly professional German crew members (they also were great fun).
Unfortunately, Thomson Travel Group never got its act together to get a piece of the German action - all Brits plans for expansion really hinged on TTG taking a part in the market. TTG looked at FTi (GmbH's charterer) and didn't like what they saw (perhaps Airtours subsequent experience with FTi justifies TTG's caution). With TTG focussing on its own flotation, they dropped the ball and never came close to securing a deal with a major German operator.
After the floatation proved such a disaster, making just a few TTG Directors VERY comfortable thank you, the whole Group including Britannia began to flounder around unsure of which way to go.
Meanwhile, in its short life Britannia GmbH, seemed to be going down very well with its passengers despite being constrained by size through lack of TTG backing. They certainly frightened the likes of Condor for a while but you can't mess with the Germans without having a very clear plan and the determination to see things through.
Now the tables are turned, probably with the end result being a better (if not cheaper) deal for the customer - compare and contrast German and British package holidays.
The Brits name and identity sadly was probably going to disappear anyway - the Thomsons marketing types never could stand it. Now it will become subsumed into the TUI identity - the crappy new look being just the first step.
Let's hope that as many of staff as possible who made Britannia what was get to keep their jobs and have a rosier future to look forward to than the misdirection and wasted chances of the last few years.