There are variations on this that I've encountered in a number of history books that have bothered to deal with post-Westphalia Germany.
And, talking to older Germans about it (who had first-class private school educations) it's something either taught in school or discussed in school ~ even in Saxony.
I'm certainly not an expert on the matter ~ but we do have folks here who imagine that their inability to do research means something far more than that they don't know how to do research.