I remember years ago writing an article for a German legal publication. Although the topic was a serious one and my treatment of it was appropriately serious, I tried, as I usually do, to lead into the discussion with a little mild humor. The editor took it all out. He apologized, but he said his readers would never understand it and would be offended by it.
"One thing you need to keep in mind is that the current Pope is a German. Germans are known for many things, good and bad, but a well developed sense of humor is unfortunately not one of them."
That must explain why the shortest book ever written is
"Ten Thousand Years of German Humor".