They are smart, hard working, and diligent to a fault, but they seem to suffer from congenital myopia.
That's my observation of them too. They love themselves some strong man *FORCING* people to do what they want.
They tend to be very stubborn about how they think things should be.
One more thing: Germans carry a national guilt so powerful that they are terrified to appear to the world as less than über-compassionate. See where that’s gotten them?