I think that's vastly overstating how bad it is. Maybe it's different if you are a German citizen. Just as an example, I never did anything other than signing the contract to get a job. I filled in a single form for each of my two kids when they were born. We got the forms in the hospital and just left them there. Similarly for registering a car -- there was a single simple form.
I disagree. This is not in any way overstating the state of things.
Have you ever changed cities and needed to change Finanzbehörde? Have you ever registered for driving school? Have you ever tried changing from one driving instructor to another? Have you ever got married in a district where there are no appointments for marriage? Have you ever been unable to take your children out of school to attend a family funeral in a different country? Have you ever purchased a car in a State different from the one that you live in? Have you ever had to experience the nightmare of applying for unemployment money? Have you ever tried picking up your child's sick notice without their insurance card, but just only your own ID?
I could go on and on... Not all of these are on the same level of annoyance/senselessness but there are countless more examples. The bureaucracy and stiff insistence on following processes and rules at the expense of common sense are everyday occurrences.
In my experience what is most amazing is how most citizens of this country just accept this and don't find it unusual.
What's so difficult about that? That was 10 minutes long process for me. I changed cities so I had to change the driving school as well and there were no issues at all.
> Have you ever tried changing from one driving instructor to another?
I haven't but my school encourages people to do that if they find that they don't click with their instructor.
When I was in school, we went to Spain on a vacation that cut a bit into school days (= after the end of the school vacation). So my mom told the teacher, and it was fine. The teacher said the holiday will be a lifetime memory and great learning experience, too.
However, I read several more recent stories where parents in the UK got into trouble (had to pay fine, or got in contact with the police) because their kid did not attend a few school days, but with the parent's consent.
Both countries have mandatory school laws.
> In my experience what is most amazing is how most citizens of this country just accept this and don't find it unusual.
Most Germans are obedient to authority, which seems one of the main reasons why the holocaust could happen (read about Milgram's 1961 obedience experiments worldwide, Munich "scored" top on this sad metric).
Also, people that have only lived in one country don't know it any other way. Perhaps everyone should move to Estonia for a year to open eyes...
It’s much less of a problem for people born in Germany because the burden is spread out over many years of their lives.
If you immigrate to Germany then you need to instantiate yourself in the German bureaucracy everywhere at once, and that bureaucracy has a hostile indifference to the concept of immigrants.
