I appreciate your perspective, but I was curious what B1 proficiency actually entails and this is what I found [1]:

- understand the main points of clear standard speech on familiar topics such as work, school, or leisure - manage most situations that occur while traveling in German-speaking areas - produce simple, connected text on familiar subjects - describe experiences, events, dreams, hopes, and ambitions, and briefly explain your opinions or plans

That seems like a reasonable standard of native language proficiency to ask of people who want to make the county with said language their permanent home.

[1] https://www.sprachenatelier-berlin.de/en/topic/3736.german-p...

My rule is that if you want to settle in the country, you ought to learn the local language and it doesn't really matter how much money you make in my opinion. I got to B2 and passed the test, but ultimately left Germany years ago. I don't intend to go back but I also don't regret learning the language.

FWIW, for Blue Card holders, after 27 months the language requirement drops to A1 and even if you don't have a Blue Card after five years you could also get an EU permanent residence without language requirement: https://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/visa-residence/living-...

Though I would recommend setting yourself a target of some small (≈10) number of new words to learn every day and practice them during your commute or so. B1 is achievable in under a year with consistent practice. The official word list has 2400 entries: https://www.goethe.de/pro/relaunch/prf/de/Goethe-Zertifikat_...

As a german living in spain, i feel your pain. While I do speak spanish around B1/B2 level, it took a lot of time and effort - probably the biggest effort in learning something after uni. People are often "you should speak the language if you life there" - yes, agreed. BUT: Hell, if you are a professional entrepreneur, you are already not working 40h week but way more. If in your day job you speak english anyway because it is international, you hardly practice it. Especially in the EU we are taught that we can move freely between nation states - but reality of learning a language takes years. I learned english at age 10, so am practicing for over 30 years now and still learning and anybody could spot that I am not a native speaker. Countries that rely on foreign labour and advertise agressively on skilled immigration (such as Germany does) should not have those strict language requirements. Especially since german itself is a very difficult language.

Genuinely happy to hear you're successful here! But, why would you expect there to be no drawback to not knowing the local language when moving to a foreign country?

So your complaint is you wanted permanent residence in Germany but did not want to learn to speak German?

You can get B1 with a bit of spare time. With kids, I understand it's a different situation; however, it took me about 2 years to get there, learning in my spare spare time (which after a certain point was just listening to audio books before bed). The compounding effect works.

BUUUUT, even with B2, it's just not enough for avoiding "the look", as you put it. I think you need flawless C1 or something, idk. Don't care anymore lol.

You're always going to be an outsider if you can't speak the language, no matter where you go in the world. B1 is a reasonable level, as it's the bare minimum for doing day-to-day tasks in the local language.

I honestly can't image planning to live in any country for the long term without learning the local language to at least this level.

Hey. I'm with you there. My German also kind of sucks, but I've had a very successful 15 years in Berlin. The best part is how easy it is to pick jobs from the neighboring countries, like France. You pay taxes here, you commute maybe once a month to Paris and enjoy the prices and quietness of Berlin. We are lucky with my partner, and bought finally our own apartment.

My partner, an American, is fluent with the language so it helps. My plan is to make a good amount of savings, take a year or so of sabbatical and finally learn the language. Until that, we go with bar Deutsch.

If you cannot be bothered with learning our language, and think that being rich somehow makes our country owe you its citizenship — then yeah, maybe Germany isn’t for you.

B1 German is about 1 year of intensive studying from zero. With immersion and part-time commitment, I'd say ~3 years is a comfortable timeline to learn B1 German.

I am basing this off my personal experience of going from A1 -> A2 -> half-way through B1 (I dropped after I decided against studying in Germany, but my classmates continued the course). Given that German companies are known for excellent work-life balance, there should be enough spare time to learn German by the 5 year point.

All that being said, I imagine it's harder to learn a language when you have kids and family responsibilities.

Well I am an Indian who lived in US and worked for top companies for 10 years and left back to my home country as I did not want to be beholden to the Green card waiting time or take some unethical pathways (I see a lot of abuse of O1 now). I find coworkers from smaller and friendlier countries sail through and become Americans.

The point is that immigration can never really become a true meritocracy and even I recognised the privileges I had to reach to US in the first place. The country's ethos, ideas are grandfathered into the law alongwith numerous loopholes or sneaky ways. There is never a social compact where I did X , I deserve Y coming true. I suspect globally we are at the tail end of this type of immigration from Global South to Global North as well

> Story 2: In an international working environment, German may not matter much at the IC level. But I’ve seen countless situations where Germans exchange a glance with each other, and suddenly the final decision is not what was agreed upon in the meeting. Over time, I’ve learned that there are many unwritten rules behind the scenes, and when you speak their language, you start to understand them.

I mean, how many CEOs of major German companies are non-German? The country does seem much more insular than the Anglosphere.

How do you live 6 years in a country without reaching B1?

Having B1 seems like a really lenient condition to get citizenship. I got B2 after 6 months of Erasmus, and I have B1 in Russian even though I never even stepped in the country.

Have you even tried to learn German, and if so what is so hard that you can't even get B1, although you stayed long enough to have kids speaking natively the language?

There is yet another angle that people don't like to discuss because it is uncomfortable. Every European nation state is built around ethnicity as the bedrock of society. This makes it nigh on impossible to integrate fully in these countries.

The way this manifests is different in each country, but the fundamental reason is the same. In the german case, take the words of Messut Ozil, the former footballer - when the German team wins, he is German. Lose, and he is the immigrant. He is ethnically Turkish, i.e. not ethnically German.

The same will apply to your kids as well.

I want to be clear, not every German person is a frothing racist, i would argue that the racists are a minority. It is, however, important to note that the reactions of the individual and the reactions of society can be different, sometimes polar opposites.

In sharp contrast to this are the US and Canada, where there is no shared definition of "white" even though the majority of their populations are ethnically European. In that case, "European" spans everything from Irish and Greek, to French and Austrian. Less than a hundred years back, Irish people were not seen as white. Today, that idea is laughable. The fundamental difference between the US and Canada on one side and German or european society on the other is that the old world is built around exclusion, while the new world is built around inclusion.

This is one important reason why skilled immigrants leave europe, and is also why i left.

> she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one

As a native German, I actually have difficulties with concepts like "identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]" or "naturalization". I really would say these are concepts that US-Americans (or people who were "shaped" by US mentality) seem to deeply care about, but Germans very typically don't.

So, my opinion/advice is: she should simply abandon such concepts ("identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]", "naturalization") that, as a native German, are simply far away from the mentality that I observe in daily life.

Don't forget that a unified Germany was a concept that only involved in the 19th century, so "Germany" is more of a somewhat "synthetic" unification of various historical, and very different, federal states where the unifying element is rather what is now considered to be a shared language, ethicity, culture and history.

With this in mind, the advice should be obvious:

This woman should concentrate on getting really good in German, and learn about the more than 1000 years of (what is now German) culture and history, and additionally learn about the laws and rules to survive daily life. Otherwise, she should live her life.

What she should not do, is caring about what "identifying as" or "feeling like a" German means - she should put this out of her mind, since modern Germany is a very synthetic unification of what were historically very different sovereign nations that share what is now considered to be a common language, ethicity, culture and history.

My prejudice is that there are only a few countries in the world (US, Canada, Australia, Mexico, possibly others I don't have experience with) where coming as an immigrant they take you in and you can be considered from that country.

It is an interesting divide. "German" is both an ethnicity and a citizenship, and it's possible to become one but not the other. "American" on the other hand is purely a citizenship, and so it is possible to become an American after immigrating.

There is deep history here. For most of the past centuries, most Europe was from where you immigrated FROM, not where you immigrated TO.

There just is not the kind of immigration culture as in America. Some people don’t even have a notion why anyone would want to come to Europe.

The oldest american "citizens" are merely 250yo. Like the country.

My point being, everyone in America is more or less an "immigrant" if you go back enough on their family tree, but the Native Americans.

>because nobody made her feel like one

I'm German. Very rarely is the issue that people will in principle treat her as foreign, there's sometimes still the stereotype that you "can never be German" but in most places in the country that's not my experience.

However what is important is that you need to elbow your way in. There's a saying "nur sprechenden Menschen kann geholfen werden*. (only people who speak up can be helped). If you think someone's gonna carry you in that's not gonna happen. That's the biggest mistake I see immigrants make. It's a private and personal culture but people respect someone from the outside who shows initiative, and nobody is easily offended by someone being assertive, that's seen as a good thing.

It's not the kind of place where you can just wait and people will read what you want off your face. Doesn't even work for Germans, if you feel left out, you'll have to stand up and say you want to be in.

Relative to South America, Germany is going to feel very unfriendly. I think it's a matter of perspective. Also, countries that are very homogeneous (ie everyone looks the same) are probably going to have some ethnic ideas built in their idea of citizenship so your citizenship will be question if you don't look like them or behave like them. South America and Germany are very different regions culturally sitting at opposite ends of most cultural traits so her experience isn't surprising.

As someone who lived in the US briefly, I found Americans are just a lot more hospitable to foreigners, than Germans and most other Europeans in general.

Probably because there's no such thing as an US-American ethnicity, but there definitely is at least one or more unique and very distinct ethnicities and cultures for every European country, and simply getting the passport as a foreign adult, does not also buy you into those clubs, you just got a piece of paper, not the culture and belonging the locals with ancestry there have.

It's not something you can learn as an adult living in a big international city with lots of expats and international companies, it's something you get from growing up there surrounded by that culture and ethnic ingroup created by your ancestors.

The equivalent for americans would probably be those whose ancestors were there before the civil war but that's a smaller % of the population today vs the more recent immigrants compared to Europe. Sure, there's as much immigration to Europe as well, per-capita as in the US, but a lot of it is undesired and the native Europeans have various cultural and bureaucratic glass ceilings to keep working class immigrants in the least desirable jobs, while they kept the more desirable governmental, academic and managerial jobs.

Not knocking them for it, they're free to run their societies the way they see fit, but then they also shouldn't be surprised when, unlike in the US, the second or third generation migrants growing up in the ghettos who are full citizens now, decide to blow themselves up, shoot up a cafe or drive a truck through a crowd, because of how unaccepted and held down they feel by the native European society.

The issue I see seems to be on how US and EU treat integration of migrants. In the US you ge equal opportunities and freedom to do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt anyone, while in the EU you get endless strict rules and welfare which not only don't compensate the glass ceilings and isolation, it also pisses off the locals to see their high taxes going to foreigners who don't integrate. The other reason might be that migration to the US is more from Canada and latin america which is culturally similar to the US, while EU migration is mostly from africa and middle east which are very different culturally.

>she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one

well, because she isn't one. had she moved to China, she wouldn't magically become Chinese.

One thing I will point out is that some of this partially due to coming to Germany with a US passport. Specifically, banks in Europe are increasingly weary of allowing US passport holders to open full account due to the international reach of the IRS and the additional bourdons it creates for banks. A US citizen living abroad still has a responsibilities with regard to reporting financial activities to the IRS. This is an extra liability and risk for foreign banks so in many cases they chose to simply not deal with Americans.

I was born in Germany and have a German passport. When I was a teen my family moved to the US and and have since also gotten my American citizenship. I have been considering moving back. I talked to my aunt who lives in Switzerland who told me not to bother trying to open a Swiss account it’s virtually impossible as long as you have a US passport. Germany is slightly better but at most there are 2-3 (mainly online only) banks where you might be able to get a basic (ie bare bones) account.

The IRS has the ability to compel foreign banks to freeze assets of US citizens living abroad or at least to make it a paperwork nightmare for them. I can understand why a company might not want to promote an individual to senior positions if banks are weary of dealing with them.

> hey need to do 10x more than someone who is simply "a native" to the country (or... you'll stay in a position and just rot until you move on).

Staying in a position for a long part of one's life is a very common situation for many Germans, too. The whole concept of that you must have a career seems to be deeply ingrained in US mentality.

So, I have a strong feeling that a lot of immigrants who feel they hit a glass ceiling are rather used to the USA understanding how a career works, and think because they are not promoted, they are discriminated against, when in reality it's rather that a promotion to a completely new role/title is much more uncommon in Germany than in the USA.

I think this is the biggest factor. Ambitious people who want to become rich do not have any opportunities in Germany. It is good for people who are content with a middling but comfortable life. That's why most ambitious people leave.

That sounds similar to what you experience in the US especially as a first gen immigrant. I see a glass ceiling (for the lack of a better word) here. Most of the leadership positions are occupied by US-born (mostly Caucasian) and/or to some degree, Indian immigrants. Sometimes, I truly wonder how/why this person got into the leadership role because it's fairly obvious that s/he lacks the essential qualities required for it. The only explanation is the politicking (typical in the corporate world) and somehow being able to impress others by talking fast and/or smooth (while giving false promises and failing upward).

All of this to say that your observation in Germany doesn't sound that different from mine in the US (been here for over 20+ years; been in a manager/director role in data for almost a decade).

Just to add, the experience can be quite different between Bundesland (for example the tech culture in Berlin can be really decent IMHO). And the Bewerbungsfoto is technically not allowed to be required (but often expected in practice, though I personally don’t remember sending one).

Overall that comment sounds quite true based on my experience. I had a way better time contracting for foreign companies from Germany

That resonates a lot with my experience in Netherlands. It's way friendlier for expats but the barrier is there

One thought I hate reading this is: do you need upward mobility?

It's a serious question because in an ideal (IMHO) society, people can have full and satisfying lives with security and family without becoming a CEO. In the US, for example, there's an obsession with "getting ahead" but, by definition, only so many people can get ahead. And why do they want to? Because, at least in part, a basic job in insufficient to make ends meet in most cases now. This is a form of coercion.

This is orthogonal to the issue of German social inclusion and forms of xenophobia (eg in the housing applications you mention).

Personally I'd rather in a society where everyone's needs are met and it's not a race against a rising tide where only 20% of the population are above it.

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> First, things are bad

As a German, it sounds like you integrated well.

there is no certificate higher than C2, so "minimum" C2 is ridicerlus, ackchyually...

I assume.thats your point here, but to bystanders: C2 is nearly native speaker language proficiency, nuanced, precise, eloquent.

if language production is the job, or impeccable understanding is a must have, like as a psychotherapist, then C2 is a reasonable requirement.

in contrast you can study in german language at a German university with C1 proficiency already.

What has kept you from achieving C2, you’ve been there for 10y+

>First, things are bad: trains are getting worse every year, the highways are in disrepair (ask me about Bonn!), overloaded doctors, impossibly slow bureaucracy, economic crisis, growing inequality, housing crisis, and so on.

Any minute now those millions of doctors, lawyers, and engineers from the MENA countries that flooded Germany the past decade will fix all that! Any minute!

There are sclerotic forces at work in Germany.

I sometimes wonder if the digestion of East-Germany hasn't somehow hurt a post-war rejuvenated Western&Southern German spirit.

Maybe it's just post-traumatic-stress from the Russian occupation still lingering: 1989 is not that far, generations-wise.

There is hope still... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT7MCko43YqeZ1x55O1DRtw

The issues you see now in Germany are the direct consequence of the Merkel era conservative government and its austerity policy. They really wanted to get the deficit down at all cost. And all cost included any sort of needed maintenance on public infrastructure.

I spent a day or so traveling through Germany with my parents a few weeks ago as part of a (much longer) trip and a common refrain during that day was, "So much for German efficiency." Frankfurt's airport was a tiring and frustrating experience, with long delays on the tarmac, at baggage claim, at the check-in counter, etc. One rest stop on the highway was half way dismantled, with restrooms filthy enough that everybody who got a look at them turned right around and went back to their cars. And so on. I was surprised, having expected that things would be generally more functional than in the States. (I will say that the roads were in a much better state of repair.)

> that you can pay by card at market vendors

When I (German) was on vacation in the Netherlands, I found it dystopic that you could often not pay cash, but had to use card. This "I don't want to be tracked" mentality is deeply ingrained into the feeling of many Germans.

So, I would rather call this not a bug, but a feature.

where do you live now?

Your first sentence is a bold claim considering the current state of the housing market

Where do the German coders go though?

Will this overall sentiment actually be confirmed with migration numbers if we check them?

I'm from Switzerland and live in Germany and I think it is very relaxed. Too relaxed for my liking to be honest. Sometimes the bins are still out in the evening??? What kind of anarchy is this ;-)

Really, it's just what you are accustomed with.

Stores closing on Sunday is a good thing I think, it makes it easier for families to have a day together and kind of resets the week. On Saturdays they are also open until 8pm, some even until 10pm or so.

>I remember once I waved at my neighbours who were sitting eating in a common garden area and they acted super confused that I would wave to them.

You need to yell "Moin" very loudly. If you are in Southern Germany, you need to yell "MOIN" twice as loud to establish dominance.

Supermarket opening times are definitely not that restrictive (these days, but I don't recall it ever being like you mentioned & I moved to Berlin in 2013). The ones near me are usually open early morning till late evening (8-10pm), monday to saturday.

to quote a relative "Germany is a great country to live in, except for all of the Germans"

It’s funny you give out about supermarket opening hours when being English - Sunday trading laws are arcane in England too!

This is funny because when I moved from the USA to UK I was caught off guard by "Sunday trading laws"[0] and even where not legally prohibited, it seems like most retailers other than vape stores or corner shops close at 5:30 or 6 pm, Since covid, we have to book an appointment in advance to go to the tip.

I think things have improved a little bit over the past few years – one large retail park near us advertises "late opening" (7 pm! ha!) on Thursdays — but it's still difficult to run errands during the week. I don't understand why it makes sense economically to only have your store open when no one with a 9-5 job can shop there.

[0] https://www.gov.uk/trading-hours-for-retailers-the-law

>But even as an Englishman, it was very different to home. I remember the supermarket was shut all Sunday and was only open until 12 on the Saturday, and it shut early in the week too (at like 5pm or 6pm or something?) so by the time I'd got the train back home from work it was already closed. I had to get up early every Saturday just to make sure I could get the shopping done.

If it were the Anglosphere that had very restrictive laws about store hours/days of operation, and Germany/Austria with pretty much unlimited hours, this would be the #1 topic brought up in any online discussion whatsoever about the US/UK/etc. But because of DACH's smaller cultural visibility, it isn't brought up nearly so often in actuality.

Have you visited London recently? Particularly east. It's got the unfriendliness but also complete total breakdown of the social contract and social decency

Music and video calls without headphones on all transport all the time. Shoes and socks off on train seats. Zombies barging into you constantly. Nobody letting people off the train.

Throwing rubbish on the ground. Leaving it on trains and buses.

Vaping on the tube

Pushing through the barriers at stations is normalised

Everyone does whatever the hell they like everywhere all the time. Constant antisocial behaviour. It's hell. An absolute epicenter of selfishness

I dream of a rule based society like Germany or UK of years ago

Edit: am a Brit but wouldn't live in London for love nor money. Obviously a lot of those issues aren't just in London. This isn't "foreigner repeating right wing talking points" people love trying here

I know the US gets a lot of flak due to the current administration's policies and actions. Despite that it is still the best country for immigrants with the caveat 'Assuming the immigrant makes every effort to integrate (learning the language, respecting local people/customs etc)'

Yes. The United States.

Despite the whirlwind of media to the contrary, the US is very welcoming to foreigners who follow the laws (that is, don't enter illegally) and make an effort to integrate by learning the language and customs.

Much more than any other country on Earth.

> It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general

Not the concept itself, but the insane numbers. Even South Africa is having "anti-migrant" protests (by the _black_ population; important detail, due to history).

Having 1-2% of your population come in as migrants* is pretty nuts; no negative migration afterwards; number only goes up. I cannot see how this is going to end well in the long run.

*: This is for the Netherlands, for the last 5 years since 2024 (that's the latest numbers I got from our Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS)). That is _just_ economic migration. It's insane. I made some visualizations: https://tbataafschebroederschap.nl/projects/autochtoonse-ned...

It's the impression you get from media.

Get born outside the western world and migrate to Europe as a skilled worker and your live increases significantly as well as that it your family. Same goes for the society you live in.

> is there any country an immigrant can move to, and better their lives as well as the locals' life/economy?

The United States.

> It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general - or maybe it is just the impression I get from the media?

The world is turning hostile to immigration because the media (and social media sites) highlight and repeat the bad anecdotes, while barely mentioning the actual data showing positive outcomes.

For better their lives as well as the locals' life I think it is most of them. For feeling rewarded or fulfilled for doing that, I think depends on both the person and the country, but probably quite rare.

I tried two countries so far (>5 year in both) and there were pluses and minuses in each. Which are different to the pluses and minuses in my home country.

I think that one will (generally) evolve and adopt some habits of the country you immigrated too, while giving up some habits you had before. The result? You might be a more complete person (because you become aware of the habits, and can choose to some extent) but on the other hand you will not belong anywhere any-more (you will not adopt some stupid habits of the new country, but you did gave up some stupid habits that you had).

That really depends on what country are they coming from, and how established they are in life. As an extreme example, someone from Sudan would benefit by moving out, if only by being in a stable place that's not being ravaged by civil war.

Lots of people want to migrate from one country to another, so they clearly think their own lives would be improved (bar a few doing it altruistically).

As for including the locals lives, how? You might be bringing skills they need, or money. Do you mean purely socially? That is very subjective.

I think the media exaggerate the hostility. IMO most of the hostility here in the UK is aimed at 1) illegal immigrants and asylum seekers and 2) Muslims. There is also rising hostility to Jews, but usually from an entirely different group to those hostile to Muslims.

Immigration does generally improve the economy, but it doesn't happen overnight, and this is an incredibly easy anxiety to exploit for short-term political gain.

pretty much anywhere in America (the continent) you're welcome to migrate to. We don't care as long as you respect the locals and the local culture

We aren't really talking about this loneliness epidemic that is not contained to any one particular country. I can imagine how difficult it is to move to a new place now, no matter where it is, and especially in the future if the trend continues.

There's been a lot of pressure to break the EU for quite some time, and now even the US is also aiming for this.

It's a lot of misinformation and funding from too many countries, for a long time.

What's impressive is how much this tension had actually been holding on, which goes to show that education actually plays an important role when dealing with misinformation.

Sadly it was successful in the UK.

> is there any country an immigrant can move to, and better their lives as well as the locals' life/economy?

Not really anymore. All the good ponds have all been fished out by now.

Housing is in short supply in every livable city in the western world and the job market is tight right now, so if you move there now, you're one, increasing labor competition for the locals, and two, rising housing prices for the locals. THe only locals happy with this arrangement are the corporation hiring you and the landlord taking your money.

The world has min-maxed itself into oblivion that it's already reached saturation point. We're way passed the balance point, everything is fucked, there's no magic place on the planet where things are nice for everyone.

> If you are not an engineer you must have an almost excellent level of local language --> an excellent level of a language is only possible if you are immersed daily over a long time and have the time to study

I disagree: for many jobs, it is expected that you have a decent level of English, but at least in Germany, you are often not immersed a lot in English. So you have to get decent in English with barely any immersion.

I thus have a feeling that because many Germans had to learn hard to get somewhat decent in English on their own, they have the same expectation on immigrants to learn really hard on their own to get good in German fast (without demanding immersion).

Anecdotally I've noticed that among the coworkers I've had from other countries, the ones who manage to learn danish and stay, have generally been in areas with lower density of foreign workers.

My theory is that in areas with lower densities of foreign nationals, you'd benefit more socially form learning the local language.

In Germany, if you are an non-software Engineer, you MUST have an excellent level of the language. I have not seen a single Engineering position that doesn't require C1.

Germans tend to differentiate between getting takeout (something like kebab/pizza/asia box to go or delivered home) or eating out (going to a restaurant and eating there).

But I'd argue for most people getting into the car to get takeout is not very common.

clubs! yes! Vereine! they still are the heart and soul of Germany.

Are you in a big city? There is so much takeout food everywhere in Berlin.

> In Germany, there really are not so many places for quick food to grab, in general the food is actually quite poor, I don't find myself eating out at all.

That is wildly false. First of all the availability of eating out options is directly influenced by where you are (e.g. in Berlin there is incredible variety of cuisines, price ranges and healthiness), and secondly almost every food or grocery you buy in Germany is of higher quality than the US equivalent.

I remember my shock when every single food item I bought in the US had sugar in it.

I'm from a "southern" country and I lived in Germany for 10 years. My kids were born there.

Last year we decided to move to my home country because of "too many things" but also fed up of feeling an immigrant.

Few months ago I met a German family living around here in a coastal area. I asked them why they moved here and they answered me straight to my face "Because in Germany there are too many immigrants". I think the joke tells itself.

I moved to Germany 15 years ago from Scandinavia. Integrating here is really tough. The bureaucratic systems are very opaque and small mistakes in paperwork can cause a lot of problems...

I would hardly call it "world class". Most of the world is much harsher place to migrants than any EU member country. Privileged, well paid expats may be treated nicely in most of the world, but that does not apply to refugees and people who move for low-paid manual labor.

> Foreigners and native Germans 'unite' in discriminatory attitudes

I don't think it's just the Germans and there's definitely an additional factor at play.

Germany is a remarkably rural and insular country compared to the Netherlands whose foundational myth comes from bankers and merchants.

I mean... yes discrimination doesn't feel nice... but it's not as if people who come to Germany where forced to do so by the germans. I'm not from Germany, but the vibes in some of the high-muslim density parts of Germany I've been to have likewise felt unwelcome, unsafe and hostile (towards me as a scandinavian).

So it feel a bit more complicated than "germans are racist, BAD". Anecdotally I've heard that it's hard for any other nationality to do business in germany, simply because they prefer to do business with other germans. It's their country, we just need to accept those cultural differences, and their right to do as they please in their own country.

There's plenty of countries whose laws or attitudes I don't agree with, and that I just don't visit or have any ambition of staying in. China, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Chad are a few examples.

You might be thinking of immigrants.

Emigrants are those that left the country... so by definition, no emigrants stay in Germany.

In my case (not Germany but also in the EU), I just bought into European propaganda too much.

> and they end up alone with no friends

This sounds like a personal issue. Is Germany at fault here?

Various combinations of "they didn't know", "still better than the place they left", "their experience wasn't that bad", and "needed for their resume".

not to mention taxes the shit out of them with little to no return on their investment

Is Danish culture more flat in its organization?

They joined verein but didn't notice it's two years contract with auto renewal, cancellation three months in advance by letter. Left the country after receiving Mahnbescheid. Have fun in this asshole-verein.

errr, no? when you work here for long enough you accrue pension benefits which are paid out wherever you live.

if you retire abroad you spend the pension abroad. that's a net loss for the nation.

You are (as am I) in the 30% of Germans (40% in major cities) with a Migrationshintergrund.

At that point, it barely makes sense to call that a minority, it's just normalcy. If you find yourself in a pocket of unusual backwardness where it feels otherwise, you should probably leave.

I pass as German based on looks, but my name is weird and my wife doesn't look or sound German at all. I don't think her or I have ever noticed any adverse consequences from that.

If your German is good, you can just act and feel like you belong here and no one will challenge that.

The people saying they're having trouble getting by with just English though are weird to me. What did they expect? Different countries are different, that's sort of the point.

I do actually agree that Germany isn't the best country when you're looking for economic opportunity, but that isn't really what people are optimizing for here. You might disagree with this, but it's mostly not directed against immigrants.

Regarding your political points: Ironically, they sound very German to me. Yours is a standard left of center critique in German politics. The countries that have a long history of being targets for immigration largely don't work that way, probably because extensive social safety nets are bad for the acceptance of recent immigrants by locals.

I couldn't help but notice that your post also contains bias against German people.

> It's gotten to the point where I've now lost faith in democracy. Things aren't getting better...

"it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" - unknown, often attributed to Churchill

Rah-rah democracy advocates, and patriots of countries which imagine themselves democratic, often attribute all sort of mythical virtues to democracy.

But the reality is no more than "statistically less bad than the alternatives".

These days, the by-far worst problem for most supposed democracies is the excessive financialization of wealth. A century ago, the personal fortunes of most better-off people were tied to the overall fortunes of the country, the province, the city, and the neighborhood in which they lived - giving them huge incentives to care about those collective fortunes. Vs. now, the prevailing attitude seems far closer to "when this place goes to shit, I'll just pack up and leave".