So much in German work culture - and also culture in general - is about covering your own arse. If you follow the procedure, even if the outcome is disaster, you are not at fault; you were just implementing the rules, and you cannot be held accountable. It's the fault of whoever came up with the rules, except that is usually not a single person, but some amorphous entity that ran through some decision making process years in the past. So, no one is really at fault or can be held accountable.

It's always some magical higher power preventing you from doing the sensible thing. One favourite excuse is insurance liability. We can't do the sensible thing, because the insurance wouldn't pay if something bad were to happen, even though the odds of something bad happening are virtually nil.

You can also observe this in German politics. "Oh, we absolutely cannot do <common sense thing> because the rules won't allow it." Well, you could change the rules, but then you would have to take some actual responsibility, and we can't have that.

As far as DB goes, I'm pretty sure it's mostly an issue of systemic technical and consequently social collapse.

The system runs beyond its limits and consequently the culture collapses because the people inside learn they have no agency.

The German rail network is quite good on paper, with dense and high frequency connections even to relatively remote locations.

But keeping that functional (particularly with constantly rising demand) requires far more investment than it receives.

All the examples of great rail systems (France, Switzerland, Japan) are both simpler in network structure and invest more relative to their passenger load.

The general reason is, the rule exists for a reason, and the "low worker" does not understand the bigger picture, so you should follow it blindly before doing something harmful you can't foresee. It's not always working well, but to be fair, also not always bad. Knowing how much you can stretch the rules can be an art which takes a long time to acquire.

Yeah, I think people who have not experienced the system have no idea how absurd the German process mindset is. If it's not part of the process, it's impossible - damned what the reality on the ground is

Frenchman here and so true. I was taking the bus and it was stuck in traffic and I was like "hey can you let me out I life right in that street and shit aint moving" .... no fucking way. had to wait 10 minutes and then walk back to my place... driver was completly ghostinh me after he said the magic german words " I am not allowed to do this".

In france they Busdrivers let me out between stops if I ask them before.

Germany is crazy rule obsessed. they also have the crazy mentality that if you put it into rule problem is solved xD

Although Germans are famously methodical, my experience with German bureaucracy was that it's quite flexible. They will break you, and when you finally give up and seem like you're about to cry, they will roll their eyes, and oblige you, stressing how exceptional and magnanimous they are for letting you get what you want. In reality, they were rooting for you the whole time, but did not want their flexibility to be taken for granted.

I document German bureaucracy for a living. I cannot stress enough how "vibes-based" the entire thing is. Half the job is convincing bureaucrats that you're either overprepared or litigious to be worth the trouble.

Reminds me of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3EBs7sCOzo

What really ought to bother people more than it does is that within just about any white western country/culture you can run the same comparison with "decently well off" being the german side and "everyone else" being the english side.

i love that meme which shows three identical paper clips in a row but one is upside down relative to the others which is a minute difference. the caption reads “chaos German style”

> "[...] this sounds more like the typical German philosophy of strictly following the process -- as absurd as it might be -- and refusing to take initiative for anything that is not explicitly defined as one's responsibility."

Neither absurdity nor "German philosophy", but just stock-standard safety and security culture in action. Or more specifically in this case: generelle and objektspezifische Dienstanweisungen (general and location-specific administrative instructions or regulations) [1]. You don't follow them, it's you who's on the hook. :)

And when was the last time anyone here visited a railway control centre in a metropolitan area? Yeah.

1. [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dienstanweisung]

The German philosophy is also very much prevalent in Sweden.

If you don't know german culture, this story might be hard for you to imagine. Fact is, germany has a massive stick up its ass. If there is a written rule, they will follow it, no matter what.

I worked for a company where we brought in teams from a couple European countries after a merger.

The absolute "I won't do anything more than I explicitly have to." was brutal. It was hard to even talk to them as they seemed terrified / constantly defensive of being asked to do something outside their typical process. They never were asked as long as I was there but man they were on a knifes edge about it at all times.

I'd even be on the phone with folks I met and got along with and I'd ask them about what they saw on a ticket they used to own, and I'd get angry made up rules about "I don't have to tell you anything because that ticket doesn't belong to me anymore!" Like bro ... we had a good time having beers together, I'm not your boss I'm a peer asking, it's still both our work hours ...

They were smart folks, got along with them otherwise, but it was just a horrible experience working with those folks when it came to work. Company eventually just shut down those offices, complied with whatever local laws were required to do so and washed their hands of those locations. I didn't blame them.

<the typical German philosophy of strictly following the process -- as absurd as it might be -- and refusing to take initiative for anything that is not explicitly defined as one's responsibility>

you summarized my 5+ year experience living in Germany with one sentence in a way that I have never found the words for - thank you, really, thank you

I feel that in Germany, the original intent of the many rules, processes, and procedures has been lost. Employees are trained to operate such that every situation is governed by a rule/process/procedure, and their job is to look up the situation in a massive leather-bound book of branching rules, see which rule applies in the given situation, and then… apply the rule. But, they will do this only if they assess that helping you falls under their job’s responsibilities. Sometimes your situation is neat and clean, and was what the rule-writers thought about when they wrote the rules. Sometimes, not.

TLDR: if you have an edge case in the German bureaucratic system (forms at the doctor’s office, Deutsche Bahn travel troubles, closing a bank account), you are f***

For anyone who likes trains I can recommend The Train (1964), it's a fun little war movie with Burt Lancaster about French resistance in 1944

A German saying "I was just following orders" sounds scary if you think of certain olden times.