I agree it's poorly worded. When I read that, I took it to mean there wasn't enough of a market in Germany to justify a new German translation because of the expense of such a translation, so an American company financed it.
I couldn't quickly find the number of Christians in Germany in 1983. According to Wikipedia, Germany as of 2017 was 57% Christian and as of 2018 had a population of ~83 million... If there weren't many Christians there in the 80's, it seems there are plenty there now.
How complicated can a new translation be? Harry Potter was officially translated into Ancient Greek and Latin and was unofficially translated into Esperanto.
I couldn't quickly find the number of Christians in Germany in 1983. According to Wikipedia, Germany as of 2017 was 57% Christian and as of 2018 had a population of ~83 million... If there weren't many Christians there in the 80's, it seems there are plenty there now.