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This post is based on a Vidoeo, which I discovered at Youtube. The Video is in German language, but you can active the subtitles in your prefered language.
We need your consent to load the content of YouTube.Germany behaves like a retired world champion who keeps replaying old victories while everyone else is training for the next tournament. The trophies are still in the cabinet. The self-image is still heroic. But the performance on the field? Increasingly mediocre.
For years, Germany has been resting comfortably on laurels that have long since turned to dust — while the rest of the world is sprinting ahead. And the most dangerous part: Germany still believes it is leading. One of the most curical phrases it “that’s the way, we’ve always done it“.
https://blog.timo-reymann.de/thats-the-way-weve-always-done-it-or-how-shit-sticks/
While the U.S., China, India, and large parts of Eastern Europe build AI ecosystems, modern infrastructure, and future-ready education systems, Germany is busy fighting cultural proxy wars, perfecting bureaucracy, and regulating itself into technological irrelevance.
The world is not waiting. It is accelerating.
Germany, meanwhile, is debating.
From Engineering Nation to Regulation Nation
Germany once exported machines, innovation, and productivity. Today, it mainly exports rules, moral instruction, and process fetishism.
Instead of asking:
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How fast can we innovate?
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How quickly can we scale?
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How do we win the next technological wave?
Germany asks:
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Is it compliant?
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Is it perfectly risk-free?
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Has every moral checkbox been ticked?
Other countries prototype first and regulate later. Germany regulates first — and then wonders why nothing happens.
Innovation without friction does not exist. Germany, however, tries to engineer a world without friction — and ends up without innovation.
The Illusion of Moral Superiority
Germany still speaks with enormous moral confidence. Yet morally elevated rhetoric does not build bridges, power grids, data centers, or semiconductor fabs.
While others invest massively into:
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AI infrastructure
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Robotics
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Energy grids
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Advanced manufacturing
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Defense and digital sovereignty
Germany invests massive amounts of energy into symbolic politics and inner-German moral choreography.
The world is designing the future.
Germany is auditing intentions.
The Dangerous Comfort of Past Success
Germany’s biggest enemy is not populism.
Not globalization.
Not even demographic decline.
Germany’s biggest enemy is comfort.
Decades of wealth created the illusion that prosperity is a natural state — not the fragile result of competitiveness, risk-taking, and brutal self-honesty.
Many institutions still behave as if:
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The export miracle is guaranteed.
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Industrial dominance is automatic.
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Global respect is permanent.
None of that is true anymore.
History has already moved on. Germany just hasn’t caught up mentally.
The World Is Watching — And Shaking Its Head
Internationally, the perception has shifted dramatically:
Once: “Look at Germany — precision, reliability, engineering excellence.”
Now: “What happened to Germany?”
The question is no longer:
How can we become like Germany?
It is increasingly:
How can we avoid becoming like Germany?
That should be a national alarm bell.
The Core Problem Is Not Money. It’s Courage.
Germany does not lack:
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Capital
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Talent
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Research institutions
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Industrial know-how
Germany lacks the courage to break with its own myths.
The courage to admit:
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That old success models no longer work.
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That regulatory overreach is killing speed.
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That technology leadership is being lost in real time.
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That moral certainty is no substitute for economic and technological reality.
Real transformation hurts. Germany has been trying to transform without pain. That never works.
A Blunt Truth
You cannot regulate your way into the future.
You cannot moralize your way into competitiveness.
You cannot commemorate your way into innovation.
Either Germany rediscovers:
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Speed over perfection
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Experimentation over control
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Technology over symbolism
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Courage over comfort
Or it will continue its slow, well-documented slide from global benchmark to well-organized museum of past success.
When criticism comes from one person, you can ignore it.
When it comes from many independent sources across countries, industries, and disciplines, it becomes a signal.
Right now, the signal is deafening.
Germany is falling behind — and the world is not whispering this anymore. It is saying it out loud.
The only remaining question is whether Germany is still capable of listening.
