> Speaking of which, a lot of German natives complain and some are even leaving the country (around 100k left last year), but honestly I have visited / lived in nine countries, and people have no idea how good they have it here.

The grass is always greener on the other side ... until you actually dare to find out. Having lived and worked in many a country, I second your opinion that it is often about trade offs. Problems will come and go. You have to choose the problem you want to work with.

Germany certainly is one of the top countries to live in.

Well, same here. I hate living here to be sure because of the slowness and the way future looks bleak because of inability to change. But.... I am pretty sure I would hate living in other places even more. And the only reason I hate it here is because I see how good we have it here, and how much better it could be if we just got off our fear of change and actually tried to move with times.

Also, Germany is one of the few countries where I have rarely been told to go back to my own country when I criticize something here, instead people say "Yeah, it is shit, but it is what it is eh?"

I think a lot of the complaining comes from high taxes, remembering the "good old times" and just from being German. Germans love to complain.

I left Germany for a few years and came back. There are very few other places I could imagine to live in. Maybe Norway, Canada or Switzerland. I hope Germany gets its things together, the recent uprise of xenophobia and social polarization is concerning. I grew up in a Germany where it didn't matter where you came from or what you looked like.

I'm living in Berlin for 13/45 of my life, but I don't think I will ever feel integrated. As much as I tried to get around and adapt to the local culture, I quickly found myself only connecting with non-Germans, most of them from Southern Europe, and on a smaller scale from Poland and the Balkans.

> a lot of German natives complain and some are even leaving the country (around 100k left last year)

It's actually 300k, but 200k also returned. The "funny" part is, there is even a long-running TV-show (20th season this year) about people leaving the country, not sure if other countries have something similar. But realistically, expats seems like a common phenomenon in rich countries. Some people just seek the adventure.

Easier said than done, but don't let the racists take your enjoyment of being here or anywhere in the world, for that fact.

I've found that the rule-following in Germany is way more consistent than in the country I grew up at in Latin America, plus people is much more willing to help you actually follow those rules. This helps reduce the amount of (bad) chaos in your daily life tremendously.

It is because of you guys, who love rules so much, that the poor Germans get such a bad reputation. ;)

Yes, if one compares in the downward direction of living standards, there are many countries doing worse, no doubt. It is also a fact however, that we massively neglect our education system, and have good grades inflation in many places. Record numbers of 1.0 (best grade) students, while secondary schools ("Gymnasiums") and universities complain about the quality of students, despite their grades, with the gap widening.

And the education system is not the only thing that is down in the drain and worsening. Take Deutsche Bahn for example. Its management levels paid themselves millions in boni, while at the same time the infrastructure is kept at a minimum repair and renew level. Literally every time I take a high speed train (ICE) it is hours late, so much so, that I am even discouraged visiting people, because I already am traumatized from trains being late and spending the whole day on trains, when I should only need 4h. Infrastructure inside cities is also in many places waaay behind what it could be and already is in many other countries, while being hopelessly expensive to use. Countries with much fewer people and GDP have managed to build better and more affordable infrastructure in their capitols. Check out Madrid for example. Metro there is great, and comparatively cheap to use.

The job market situation is really bad currently as well. Even highly skilled people cannot get a job now. Unemployment benefits have been massively reduced lately. The people who do get a job or have one face stagnation in salary, while there is inflation, and this has been going on for a decade or so. Purchasing power of the people is diminishing. Groceries and staples are getting more expensive. In short, most people's economic situation is worsening.

For young people it is almost impossible now to buy a house in many places. What our parents could afford and realistically pay back in loans has become a distant dream for the current generation. Only with 2 solid and good incomes one might dare it in some more rural area perhaps.

The point is that our living standards are decreasing, due to the global economy situation and mostly due to massive mismanagement of the reality in politics, corruption, money pocketing. Soon we are at real risk to lose even democracy.

Digitization is also lagging way behind. The stereotype is, that we still use fax. Well, it's not too far off.

Do we have it better than people in many other places? Still yes. But there are also countries now laughing about us and our stupidity, who have managed to overtake us, or maybe I should say we have managed to fall behind them. It is really no wonder skilled people are leaving Germany left and right, front and back, when they are much better paid elsewhere. Now people, who originally came from Poland to Germany, due to better living and better prospects, are returning to Poland Warsaw.

I think it depends on the job one has. Working as senior software engineer for international companies? Any western european country is nice and all. Top p90 salary. English only needed. Working as a bank cashier? Well, then you will notice the difference between let say Germany and Portugal. Low salary. Need proficiency in the local language, etc.

The driver is not allowed to open the door anywhere but at a bus stop, the company running the bus forbids it. Quite strictly, actually. I think it is mainly because of insurance things. It is the same in a traffic jam when you are on the bus and the next bus stop is just a few meters away, and the bus is stuck and nothing moves -- impatient people will get angry because they want to leave the bus, but the driver is just not allowed to open the door except when the bus has properly reached the next bus stop.

Some bus drivers do open the door on some such occasion, but they can really get into trouble if they are caught doing that.

If you get run over by a car or bicycle while trying to board a bus outside an official station, or if you trip, the bus company is liable, and the driver will be in very big trouble. Also, wehret den Anfängen! If they started doing this, it would set an example: it would make it very difficult to keep the schedule, and would invite people to just walk into traffic to busses stopping at a red light.

For context in Paris (and probably other French cities) you would try that and the result would heavily depends on the driver and their mood of the day ! Because they too are not allowed to do it, but of course France is all about flexing the rules (a bit, not so much, and after some pleading)

> Being French, I have a hard time understanding why you wouldn't.

I too am French and I’m more puzzled by you than by the driver. Am I secretly German?

This was such an unusual thing for me coming from Germany to Italy. The Bus driver would stop at seemingly random places to pick up or drop people off. Once he stopped at the cafe to pick up his newspaper!

It is actually an insurance kind of thing as far as I understand. I've had plenty of cases where the bus couldn't continue due to being in a traffic jam, and people who would have happily get off the bus couldn't either.

Because you did something very weird ;)

- for insurance reasons it's not allowed for them to let you one once they "departed" from the curb, even if just by 20cm. They can literally lose their job over it and while it is a very exhausting job it doesn't pay that badly. (This wasn't always this way).

- due to how Berlin has historically grown and the congestion issues that brought with it the buses have a hard time being on time(1) on the 6,589 bus stops across 152 (day) lines (~40-45 stops per line). So they try to avoid any additional delays, especially if this delay might cause them to miss a green light.

(1): Berlins love to blame the public transportation provider(s) for this delays. And in some cases (S-Bahn) this is partially true, but for the busses it is much more on the "actual hard problem" side then for S-Bahn. And some of the other problems also go back to politics, like so often.

Meanwhile, here in the UK we had the bus with no door at all that you could just jump on and off from in moving traffic. People trusted to manage their own risk. I remember this vividly from my childhood, in the 80s and 90s, in London. Not anymore though, sadly.

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/blog/routemaster-design-icon

In Germany everything has rules and most things have mandatory insurance. It‘s usually not covered by insurance to stop outside of a bus stop to take passengers. Rudeness or inflexibility is mostly caused by rules to limit liability. Bus drivers are not allowed to drive backwards with passengers e.g on a road blockage. There are several stories about 30+ min delay until a second driver was summoned to help.

I arrived at fish selling place at 15:00, he was collecting fishes back. I laughed and said something like “oh I thought I missed closing time!”. No answer, waited a minute, still no answer, then I left :( (Sweden)

I mean it isn’t the bus case, and I can understand the reasons, still may be put a sticker around telling the rules. But this kind of experience is there, no denying it…

That’s entirely normal to me, a Pole. I wouldn’t even expect it to work any other way anywhere.

No, it is because in Berlin you do not run for a bus and trying to get onboard if you missed it, you just wait for the next one which arrives usually a few min later, so yes, from a Berliners perspective, this is really wierd, because nobody does this usually :-)

If it counts no Bucharest bus driver would let you board at the semaphore either, they may not lough at you because they're generally too busy speaking with one of their friends on WhatsApp (via audio-call) or trying and navigate the crazy traffic in here, but for sure they won't open the doors for you. I would have expected for this to be a common thing all throughout Europe.

I laugh the same at their imploding automotive industry. Nothing ironic, nothing mean. They missed the stop and it's funny how they're not in the bus.

You make a good point about cultural things that would make one excited to learn a language. But I really struggle to imagine what could be done to fix that? Injecting more money into the film industry would just lead it to the same people at the top of it where they'll produce the same mediocre output as they have for ages. hmm

May I ask where in Germany you live? It’s a fairly diverse country and your location would help for context.

> Culturally, it is hard not feel detached when Germans themselves seem uninterested in cultural aspects that are normally a reason to want to learn a language (literature, films, etc).

I rather disagree:

Many German movies that are produced don't fit my taste (the reasons are a little bit off-topic), and there exist quite a few Germans who think similarly. I could come up with a list of German movies that I like, but this is something that would take a little bit of thinking/effort.

On the other hand, in my experience/observation/bubble many Germans are quite interested in German literature. I could very easily come up with dozens of books of German authors that I like (of course, such a list would be strongly biased by my own taste).

Thus I would claim that (native German) literature is much more deeply ingrained in German culture than (native German) movies, and I am really surprised that you seem to live in a strange bubble where nobody in it seems to be interested in reading belletristic books.

I also enjoy reading about how the colleagues and him genuinely like each other. So often on US forums I read a sentiment along the lines of "shut up and just do your work", but since I spend 8 hours with these people each day I prefer us to be as close to friends as possible.

> It shouldn't be too hard for the gov to commission a RosettaStone like german learning app ((suboptimal, i know)) that works somewhat well and give it out for free, right?)

Deutsche Welle (DW) is funded by German taxes and has materials for learning German: https://learngerman.dw.com/ as well as regular new materials aimed at learners, such as the news spoken slowly https://learngerman.dw.com/de/langsam-gesprochene-nachrichte... -- although I found it easier to listen to the normal news (e.g. tagesschau) slowed down slightly. (W-h-e-n p-e-o-p-l-e s-p-e-a-k s-l-o-w-l-y i-t c-a-n b-e h-a-r-d-e-r t-o l-i-s-t-e-n t-o!)

Not state-funded, but I recommend https://www.easygerman.org/ -- they have lots of good youtube material, a nice podcast, and an app I've not used. Most of the material is free with bonus materials for supporters.

> It's a prime breeding ground for scapegoat politics. It's probably one of the cognitive "exploits" in the human mind, that finding a scapegoat (the foreigners) to blame for everything being such an effective tool to rally people with grievances behind yourself and slowly turning them into hateful monsters.

The Rene Girard special

When I discussed voting with Germans (looking forward to my first), the reaction has mostly been about not voting for the party that they are unhappy with. I even have an immigrant friend telling me he will vote for the AfD and could not answer me why he's voting for the party that will kick him out of the country. His reason was more because he's unhappy with how the current situation is and wants changes and doesn't really think what change will help.

>But a struggling economy, questionable planning for many years now, the "educated middle class" he mentioned in the post shrinking don't bode well for it. It's a prime breeding ground for scapegoat politics.

I think one of the issues is that for the past 2 decades over here in Belgium as I think in Germany and other places there has been no middle ground left for people who didn't want this to the current extent. I feel that way even tho i meet lots of people like the blog writer and I meet lots of people who aren't like him too. I've met the average religious ultraconservative erdogan voting turk in w-europe, the quick money wanabe hoodlum who mostly hangs out with maghrebis but who can be quite friendly if you get to know him well, the Turk who feels integrated but to me always feels like an americanised cosmopolitan. I don't even blame some of them on that front. It's incredibly easy to not surround yourself with locals and local food, experiences, etc.

You have conservative parties who pay lip service but don't really make any effective change on the migration front and other parties who....act like there's no harm at all. Even the leftist framing where most migration leads to some wage supression is starkly absent. There is no option to say 'you either do it well or do a lot less of it' without getting pushed to the far right.

In the meantime i can go and visit mannheim and feel like i'm in a bad facsimile of germany. It's easier to find turkish food than german food. That one street with all the gathered Turkish wedding shops starkly reminds me of a similar central spot in Istanbul.

In Brussels where my grandparents lived and my dad was born I am routinely the only local at parties. When I walk the streets I routinely feel like a foreigner. Numbers that were called fear mongering a decade or 2 ago are just reality. My grandmother cried seeing the changes done to the listed buildings she lived in and alongside. The migrants and people left there don't see the significance. She doesn't go to a specialist anymore because old people get targeted by pickpockets.

And it expands, it can no longer be stopped. Our politics are fragmented, migrants and descendants off don't vote similarly to the local ethnicities and with our fragmented politics the anti migration vote is a lost cause. Since it's a lot smaller than germany's my culture is waiting to die, when you notice it suddenly you start noticing it everywhere and for those that care about it it becomes something that draws single issue voting because all the other important things can be undone with some work but even their single issue voting will be drowned out eventually by the change set in motion.

When people came from Algeria, Jamaica and Suriname to Europe they were not foreigners they had French, British and Dutch passports.

Germany's lack of such a colonial empire kept the country from transitioning into a true multicultural society. It explains Germans special branch of racism.

Munich is what Germany should look like? May I ask where you are from/if you live in Germany/Munich? Munich feels absolutely dead and is culturally pretty dead compared to other big cities due to Munich's vast rich immigrant (most would call them "expats) population. Munich has no soul is a rich landlord's watering hole by now.

Scholz was also involved in cumex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CumEx-Files

> rules[...] have the potential to enable NPC like behaviour which is all too common

Would you mind explaining this? What is NPC-like behaviour?

UK and Australia are also very rule-loving and have their own problems, but not the same disease you’re describing here.

You'll find that Scandinavian countries are not readily welcoming foreigners into their social circles either.

There’s something I find very distasteful about the idea of abandoning a country that provided you opportunity exclusively in the name of your own happiness. I think it’s the kind of attitude from immigrants that is greatly increasing anti immigrant sentiment. Become part of an old world people takes generations. Even in America, the branches of my family came here four generations ago and I view myself as American and would be accepted as such, but I still hold a high amount of gratitude for the original founders of the country.

> As much as I adore Hamburg, I can't imagine growing old here.

Why not?

> Like many Germans, I see my future somewhere further north.

Is it similar to people moving from Berlin to Brandenburg...

What's driving that trend? And how do people who already live in those regions generally feel about the migration from big cities into more "rural" areas?

From their perspective, it probably isn't entirely positive. It can put pressure on housing prices, schools, traffic, and healthcare. There may also be political and cultural tensions as the population changes.

Sounds like the rule system worked in your example. What other better solution do you imagine?

> Try and figure out the rules for opening a GmbH by yourself (and the advantages over a Ug) and let me know if you feel comfortable in doing it without "finding someone who knows".

It's possible from the laws, but it's a complex topic. If you do not have the time to understand complex topics you get help...

> Rules are fine, but only when everyone follows them. Once the government starts ignoring them while demanding that everyone else follows them, every rule becomes a potential headache.

Nobody should ignore the rules including the government. But you could sue them successfully because there were rules in place for how a government can operate.

> Once the government starts ignoring them while demanding that everyone else follows them, every rule becomes a potential headache.

There is a reason why hardly any German person speaks of "unsere (Bundes-)Regierung" [our (federal) government], but nearly always about "die (Bundes-)Regierung" [the (federal) government] [1]. Indeed, the federal government is something that many Germans rather think of something like a catastrophic natural force than something where you have any sense of belonging. To further prove my point: what US-American jokes are about lawyers are jokes about politicians in Germany.

[1] That the German article "die" is a quite different verb in English makes this even nicer: if you know a little bit of English, you immediately think of "die, (federal) government", when you talk in German of "die Bundesregierung".

As a born German, I do not take most of these things for granted! And of course I complain about all the things that need to be better.

As a Norwegian working for a company that expanded into Germany, I also was a bit surprised about the author claiming Germany to have a flat structure. I found it very hierarchical compared to what I'm used to. Like, setting up a new business it's very all-hands-on-deck until established, but had people refuse to do stuff "beneath their role" or outside their responsibility, or to do anything unless explicitly ordered by their direct manager when asked by someone else.

Nothing wrong in that, really, just a bit of a culture shock when you're used to something working a certain way. It was on us to adjust.

I've not lived in Germany but visited routinely for longer periods when working for a company there, and the understanding I derived is that Germans have an expectation that the only things (with some exceptions like airport shops) that should be open on a Sunday are things you can do with your family and/or friends - museums, art galleries, restaurants, and, natürlich, stuff like city parks and things that facilitated Wandern machen (going for hikes), so while the grocery store in that small Alps town might be closed on a Sunday, the Seilbahn/cable car isn't.

It caught me out a few times when I'd go to buy a bulk of German confectionary from a Lidl or Aldi to take back home for colleagues and my kids, and of course, I was flying out on a Sunday, so they were closed, so I had to pay airport prices for them.

All that said though, even the stuff that was open on a Sunday would generally shut earlier than usual, because after all, it _is_ Sunday bru, and the trains ran on a sparser schedule which meant my attempt to go to the Eagle's Nest museum, ended up with me getting there just as it closed, and then realising that the next train back to Munich from Berchtesgarden was in 4 hours (IIRC), and my dinner with my colleagues was in 3 hours... But the locals were so lovely and patient with my poor German, and they directed me to catch the next bus to Salzburg, and then catch the ICE to Munich from there.

It blew my Kiwi mind that they're like "Oh yeah, the fastest way back to Munich is to just catch a bus into Austria" real casual like. Schengen is pretty awesome.

Aren't you reading it the other way around? (I'm from another EU country where this rule existed)

Other people have the right to rest on Sundays too, so you force as many activities to shutdown as possible to make it so.

I don't really agree with the rule, by the way. Same thing as (in my country) all schools closing the exact same weeks which causes terrible holiday peaks on a bunch of other activities. Something we're also timidly abandoning, to great results (IMO) but which is not a popular change.

Having lived in Germany (and Switzerland) for fifteen years, I've come to really appreciate the Ruhetag. Having Sunday off gives a real rhythm to the week, and I really appreciate that there is a day where I'm not going to be running around between stores.

Shop free Sunday is something to be protected. I visited my parents in Australia about two years back where shopping feels like a 24/s7 blood sport, relaxing on a Sunday to do non-shopping activities is really welcoming.

Not an immigrant, but I still have to get appointments :D

It really depends on where you are. In some parts you can do a lot online, in other places you have to do everything in person. Sometimes you can book an appointment online and something will be available today; sometimes no appointments are available at all. Sometimes you just show up. I'm from Berlin and it was absolutely awful for years - nowadays you can usually book an appointment within the same week.

Without writing my entire life story, here are some pointers.

Best city: Leverkusen. Easy to get appointments, incredibly friendly personnel. Honorable mention for Potsdam.

Worst city: Saarbrücken. I was undocumented a couple months because they couldn't get hold of my documents and refused to give me anything saying it wasn't my fault. They called security to bring me outside, too. When I pointed out that without documents I could be deported they laughed and said "that almost never happens".

Worst delay: Köln. They sat on my documents for two years - not because they had to, mind you, but partially because they decided to proof from scratch documents that had already been vetted by Leverkusen. In the end I had to sue them.

Most improved: Berlin. By the time I left they went from overworked to quite okay. They also used to offer a queue for those who needed an appointment right now but couldn't get one the official way.

Generally speaking big cities are a nightmare and small cities are a delight.

This was true about immigration offices because government did not invest in immigration offices, and when they did, in typical German fashion, they were very slow. Now, most cities are finally coming to terms with it. But in the mean time, the normal city services (not related to immigration services) are as bad as immigration service, because a lot of people are retiring and no one new to replace them.

It's both true and untrue.

It's true that finding appointments can be difficult if you just open the website once and see a calendar with no available slots for months; _but_; there are very frequent cancellations and some offices releases slots for the same day at midnight/7AM/etc; so if you're determined and flexible; it's quite doable to get an appointment ~soon.

For some things (apartment registration) you can also just show up on the day and just wait.

(My last interaction with a Bürgeramt was in Berlin in October 2023 though and was pretty similar for the previous ~8 years; things could have changed in the meantime!)

True but also each day they open slots due to cancelations or often have a system where you can just go in the morning and wait for somebody to not show up. Or allow things to be done online.

It is as with all bureaucracy: you got to be crafty to navigate it. For instance they will tell you exactely what you need to bring for each type of appointment but it still requires you to carefully read and do the work of preparing those things.

As an EU citizen, I can't tell you if it's true for the immigration office.

But for anything else? Kind of? If you want to move, you have to make an appointment in person to tell them. But it is also retroactive, so you can move and then make an appointment in 5 months and it's fine. The paper that says where you live is very important but it's also easy to get, you just have to show up. Not any time but the times for that are plentiful enough that it works out.

What makes my blood boil is the paperwork for when your kid is born. It feels like they should just be able to retrieve everything from their database but you have to submit a load of documents anyway and it has to be original.

Also, don't try to get married in Germany. Just go to Denmark, much easier, despite the delays if you get something wrong. You can do the whole thing in English and you don't have to translate anything for Germans after, if I recall correctly.

If you don't have to deal with the immigration office, it's fine. If you do, then good luck. I heard it's a pain. For example, in Bremen, it takes at least 2 years to process a citizenship application. It should take a year at most. So I guess if you ever wanted to sue someone and win a slam dunk case, you could do that in Bremen. In Berlin, the citizenship application takes only a few months.

Depends a lot on the period in the year, and which office you’re going to. You often have more than one location where you can go to, and the ones in less busy areas don’t have those long wait. But sometimes they do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Or you became a Berliner.

(There's a small part of me that wishes I could've naturalized as a Berliner, not German — many (though obviously not all!) things I love about it are really about Berlin specifically, not Germany. Seeing "waiting at traffic lights to cross even when there's no cars around" being described as a German thing always makes me smile a bit; having worked for ~3y near Kotti. Nobody does that there.)

To me that aspect is a symptom not of a rule-following culture, but of the favouritism given to cars. The car lobby has a lot of influence in Germany. It is why there are no speed limits on highways, trains are in a terrible condition, and finally pedestrians are made to obey rules optimised for car traffic. The rule could be different, like in UK where the rule is that the pedestrian is allowed to jaywalk and it is not breaking any law, and you would still get a rule-following society (in that respect at least). The difference is in the expectation of whether a car is a guest in a human environment or a human is a guest in a car environment.

The funniest situation is when you’re in a city (Berlin in my example) and one store accepts only cash, while the store next door only accepts cards.

Germany is definitely way behind on the digital front. Which is not always a bad thing…even if it’s usually an annoying one.

What?

Note that you need a B1 certificate, so it’s really better to take actual courses to be sure you know the actual grammar and vocabulary (including all the irregular verbs, uhrg…) you will face during the exam. The exam isn’t too hard but you need to be prepared, it covers reading, speaking, writing, and grammar exercises

This is a lower requirement than permanent residence in Switzerland for comparison.

pass score of 52%*

fully agree with this. class is a huge component, and i feel class in germany can be brutal. it starts with the education tracking system that, in practice, decides very early in life what your place in society will be. this creates a system where "social mobility in germany is lower than in most other developed economies" https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/new-evidence-social-mobility-... or https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-social-mobility-among-poorest...

the article is just sharing his positive personal experience... it’s not a sociological treatise. but i agree with you, he’s clearly talking from within a bubble.

I don't think Erdogans dictatorship can be classified as an aggressive military dictatorship.

I don't think neither German or Turkish is harsh to the ear.

Good catch. We almost forgot to inject skin color into this conversation. Only once people cannot discuss any topic at all anymore without mentioning or thinking about skin color, will we finally have solved racism.

Keep fighting the good fight.

You can look at his photo. In Germany, he is a person of color. In fact, he is from a group that is one of the specific targets of racism.

He is Turkish?

Would be the same.