OK, I'll try to come up with an overview, since you asked nicely. As a point of reference I'm Romanian and have lived in the UK, the Netherlands, and Israel (and traveled to many more places).
Things I didn't like about Germany:
* they seem to like dogs more than they like children e.g.: random old man screamed at my wife on the street because my 2yo son was crying; the neighbours below us harassed us for a year until we moved, because of the noise my old son made walking around the house (never outside 8am-7pm, mind you); at most 10% of the people will smile at a baby on the street or interact with kids
* closed-mindedness; I can't describe very well what I mean by this, sorry, but it seems like there is this weird underlying mentality, that I haven't seen before yet I could consistently identify; in old people it's somewhat evident, but I was surprised to find this even in younger friends after I got to know them better
* generally, mean people – this is subjective, but I've never seen as many random acts of passive or outright aggression as I did in Germany; my short trip to (German) Switzerland sort of confirmed the rumours I heard, that Swiss people can be even meaner; looking back I realise this can be correlated to social status – most of my bad experiences happened in posh neighbourhoods
* companies will fuck you over at any chance they get – in Germany nobody seems to realise that 2 year contracts that you can't get out of are not normal; also I've been overcharged or plainly scammed by reputable utility companies; as an expat you have to be extremely careful not to get into a bad contract, and not to be taken advantage of; even my first landlord scammed me out of my deposit money
Things I did like in Germany:
* social system – each year we got a couple of thousand euros in tax refunds; I received a substantial amount of assistance when my startup failed; we had a baby in Germany, everything was covered by my insurance, and there was plenty of financial support for the new mum; setting up as a freelancer was extremely easy, and the taxes much lower – additionally it's easy to deduct a lot of the costs; public kindergartens are very good and very cheap; TL;DR "socialism" is awesome
* roads – hands down best road system, highways, and drivers I've seen
* parks, many of them with animals, farms where kids can interact with the animals, indoor playgrounds etc. – overall endless options for children, and either free or very accessible; additionally, the two areas I've been mainly in, NRW and Bavaria, were insanely beautiful with perhaps hundreds of places to visit and explore
* people follow the rules religiously a majority of the time – huge relief for someone who hates chaos
* there is a genuine care about social issues like privacy, refugees, ecology, etc. – I find this funny in contrast to the pettiness I've observed; in Munich people were welcoming refugees at the airport (as opposed to weird-ass stuff like this https://goo.gl/OEAkDW )
* good public transport, good infrastructure, hospitals, etc.
* the public healthcare is much better than the NHS and very cheap – contributions scale with your income and top out at about €700 (your employer pays half)
* great police – several instances where they were tremendously helpful, and overall very nice and trustworthy
* living costs – my conclusion is that Germany is one of the cheapest countries to have a decent standard of living; for reference I'm now back in Romania and overall things are much more expensive (example – huge markups on electronics, baby diapers, etc.)
I understand that I can't have an accurate picture of the whole 80+ million nation in my 2.5 years in Germany, and I might've been particularly unlucky. But overall my conclusion is that Germany is a great country, but it's not for me – and that's what I meant by my original comment.
I agree about the closed-mindedness. I see that also a lot in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland. One cause is being afraid of getting overwhelmed by things they don't know. This happens everywhere but German speaking countries seem to be more affected by it.
Things I didn't like about Germany:
* they seem to like dogs more than they like children e.g.: random old man screamed at my wife on the street because my 2yo son was crying; the neighbours below us harassed us for a year until we moved, because of the noise my old son made walking around the house (never outside 8am-7pm, mind you); at most 10% of the people will smile at a baby on the street or interact with kids
* closed-mindedness; I can't describe very well what I mean by this, sorry, but it seems like there is this weird underlying mentality, that I haven't seen before yet I could consistently identify; in old people it's somewhat evident, but I was surprised to find this even in younger friends after I got to know them better
* generally, mean people – this is subjective, but I've never seen as many random acts of passive or outright aggression as I did in Germany; my short trip to (German) Switzerland sort of confirmed the rumours I heard, that Swiss people can be even meaner; looking back I realise this can be correlated to social status – most of my bad experiences happened in posh neighbourhoods
* companies will fuck you over at any chance they get – in Germany nobody seems to realise that 2 year contracts that you can't get out of are not normal; also I've been overcharged or plainly scammed by reputable utility companies; as an expat you have to be extremely careful not to get into a bad contract, and not to be taken advantage of; even my first landlord scammed me out of my deposit money
Things I did like in Germany:
* social system – each year we got a couple of thousand euros in tax refunds; I received a substantial amount of assistance when my startup failed; we had a baby in Germany, everything was covered by my insurance, and there was plenty of financial support for the new mum; setting up as a freelancer was extremely easy, and the taxes much lower – additionally it's easy to deduct a lot of the costs; public kindergartens are very good and very cheap; TL;DR "socialism" is awesome
* roads – hands down best road system, highways, and drivers I've seen
* parks, many of them with animals, farms where kids can interact with the animals, indoor playgrounds etc. – overall endless options for children, and either free or very accessible; additionally, the two areas I've been mainly in, NRW and Bavaria, were insanely beautiful with perhaps hundreds of places to visit and explore
* people follow the rules religiously a majority of the time – huge relief for someone who hates chaos
* there is a genuine care about social issues like privacy, refugees, ecology, etc. – I find this funny in contrast to the pettiness I've observed; in Munich people were welcoming refugees at the airport (as opposed to weird-ass stuff like this https://goo.gl/OEAkDW )
* good public transport, good infrastructure, hospitals, etc.
* the public healthcare is much better than the NHS and very cheap – contributions scale with your income and top out at about €700 (your employer pays half)
* great police – several instances where they were tremendously helpful, and overall very nice and trustworthy
* living costs – my conclusion is that Germany is one of the cheapest countries to have a decent standard of living; for reference I'm now back in Romania and overall things are much more expensive (example – huge markups on electronics, baby diapers, etc.)
I understand that I can't have an accurate picture of the whole 80+ million nation in my 2.5 years in Germany, and I might've been particularly unlucky. But overall my conclusion is that Germany is a great country, but it's not for me – and that's what I meant by my original comment.