https://www.dw.com/en/why-german-trains-are-rarely-on-time/a-752
DW (Deutsche Welle) is a German news service that broadcasts in various languages.
There is little to add.
They let the Bundeswehr deteriorate as well, but that’s another story.
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The decline of DB is truly astonishing. And it’s more than just punctuality - often the bathrooms in the coaches are dirty, lacking toilet paper, and/or non-functional, for example.
The overall situation in Germany over the last 30 years showed what happened when they had to basically rebuild the Eastern half of the nation forgot about the west then imposed massive spending cuts and tax increases then realized oh crap we ignored basically everything important. The poured 2 trillion dollars into rebuilding the former East Germany then the bills came due and they couldn’t afford it.
Why all this exaggeration?
The approximately $2 trillion cost of reunification came from various sources. About 30% was raised by contributors to the social security system. The rest came from various taxes, including a 7.5% solidarity surcharge on income and an increase in VAT from 14% to 19%.
The rest was paid by the federal government, the states, and the municipalities from their various tax revenues. The perverse thing about this was that even highly indebted West German municipalities had to take out further loans in order to meet their obligations for the reconstruction of the East.
It is nonsense to say that Germany could not have afforded this.
Since there was no threat of war, savings were made in the armed forces and the so-called peace dividend was spent elsewhere.
The savings made by Deutsche Bahn were used to spruce up the bride before the IPO. After the IPO was canceled, the federal government, as owner, apparently no longer felt responsible for the company and allowed profits (which did exist in some areas) and subsidies to be used to purchase companies in Germany and abroad instead of investing in infrastructure. By 2022, more than 600 companies had been acquired. The result is well known.
In 2007, income tax was reduced by 8%. And then the US gave us the global economic crisis of 2007 and 2008, which cost the German state around €335 billion. In order to curb the spiraling debt, a debt brake was subsequently introduced into the constitution, which only allows new debt of 0.7% of GDP per year.
In 2025, a decisive move was necessary because the debt brake meant that investment costs could not be covered. Well-intentioned but poorly executed.
At the end of 2024, Germany’s national debt-to-GDP ratio was approximately 63%. In comparison, the federal debt-to-GDP ratio at the same time was 124%. I think the comparison shows that Germany was able to afford reunification. A reasonable process that avoided negative consequences for West Germany failed due to the German aversion to debt and inflation.
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Volkner after the reunification of Germany they made massive cuts to their defense spending to the point were Germany wasn’t meeting treaty obligations for NATO. Even before reunification the railroads were bad as witnessed when we needed to move the 7th Corp out of West Germany to Saudi Arabia for Desert Storm. A movement that in the USA would have taken weeks took months due to the poir conditions of the railroads in West Germany.
All those severe debt restrictions on your economy have led to a 42% income tax rate on those making just 66k a year or more plus the vat and other taxes. A normal person in Germany pays over 50 to 60 percent in taxes.
Sorry but I’ll keep my money away from the government as much as possible.
I thought Trabant’s would conquer the world. 
Savings in the German armed forces were not necessary in order to manage reunification. It was simply that the USSR and later Russia were so weakened in the 1990s that there was no threat of war. At that time, NATO did not require a percentage of GDP to be spent on defense.
The 2% was first discussed in 2006 without becoming binding. In 2014, the 2% was decided upon, but opinions differ as to whether it is binding. A transitional obligation until 2024 was agreed upon. The fact that the US felt it could not happen quickly enough is another matter.
I cannot verify your claim, but the facts are as follows (quote from Grok):
President George H.W. Bush announced the deployment on November 8, 1990. Movement began shortly thereafter, with the first units (such as elements of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment) starting rail loading in Germany on November 12, 1990.
The corps’ command staff arrived in Saudi Arabia on December 14, 1990, and advance elements began arriving in December. The full corps—including two heavy armored divisions and approximately 48,600 vehicles—was transported primarily by sea (109 ships from Europe) and air (435 aircraft), with the bulk achieving combat readiness in Saudi Arabia by late December 1990 to early January 1991.
So it was three month from beginning in Germany to the end in Saudi Arabia of which were at least 2 to 3 weeks sea time.
How long it it take to charter all the ships neededand bring them to Bremerhaven? I’m sure the didn’t have 109 in their fleet.
Here is the income tax tariff chart for 2023: https://www.juhn.com/wp-content/webp-express/webp-images/doc-root/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-7.png.webp.
We don’t pay taxes on the amount that is shown on your pay slip. Many things can be deducted from your salary to reduce your taxable income, such as work-related expenses, travel to work, health insurance costs, pension insurance costs, mortgage costs, and much more. On average, taxable income is around 20% lower than your salary.
We are glad that we live in a social market economy in which the poorest are provided with enough social benefits (money, rent payments) to survive.
We also have other demands on the state with regard to accessibility to cultural institutions, public transport, and other infrastructure.
Theater tickets at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, a very renowned theater, start at €9 for students and pensioners and €20 for ordinary citizens. In Germany, theaters are not just for the rich. All of this is paid for or subsidized by the state, and of course it gets its money back from us.
And yet the cost of living in Germany is on average between 20% and 30% lower than in the USA.
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It generally cheaper to live in Germany than the United States.
Germany dropped conscription (which we call the draft) and went to an all volunteer force. I believe they have further restrictions on enlistment as well. I think we allow residents to enlist in our volunteer force but the Germans do not? I think we also have an extensive enlistment waiver process in place that the Germans probably would not tolerate. Someone can look that up. So all volunteer force to all volunteer force comparisons between Germany and US do not really match up.
Want to mention as well that Germany provides a giant logistics boost to the U.S. Armed Forces via ports and military bases that we would never allow in the United States conversely. All the above is not always mentioned in the comparisons in the United States when it comes to NATO. That all said, they are working to increase their contribution and bring back conscription as well as other remediations.
Ahhhh, Volker beat me to it.
All those US bases and facilities provide quite a boost to the local economies in Germany, probably the main reason they’ve never asked us to leave.
I defer to Volker for up to date, accurate knowledge about his homeland. Much better than Google and AI summaries.
Here we go again with forum advice from the guy that doesn’t even follow his own forum advice.
True but there are also some items you can’t put a price on. Though I also think some might want us to leave just not the ruling or majority party.
It was late yesterday and my response was quite short.
The transfer to Saudi Arabia was not a competition to see how fast it could be done. The target was to complete the transfer to Saudi Arabia by January 15. This target was achieved despite severe winter storms that caused rivers to flood, meaning that barges could not be used to the extent planned. Convoys were delayed and ships were unable to enter or leave seaports.
DB transported around 17,500 pieces of freight (45% of the total load) in 339 trains to the seaports of Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, and Antwerp in 38 days.
Source, page 88: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA273988.pdf
In 1990 the DB ran about 30.000 to 35.000 passenger trains daily especially in the holiday season and about 3.000 to 4.000 freight trains. The additional trains for the US Army have caused considerable disruption to DB traffic and also led to significant losses in commercial transport.
The punctuality of DB passenger trains was around 85% in 1990. This cannot be achieved with a neglected rail network.
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From my own empirical observation, DB very much had a Swiss feel to it in terms of punctuality and service in the 80’s and 90’s. Now it feels closer to Hungary than Switzerland.
I remember that even back in the late 80’s, when I was stationed in Berlin and the Wall was still there, there was quite a bit of anti-Americanism in Germany — though in fairness the expressions of anti-Americanism were sometimes elicited by Americans behaving like jackasses.
Ah, so you got the WWII occupation medal if you were stationed in Berlin . I got flipped off once or twice in Lower Saxony. It was younger folks and the North I personally believe had more of the DKP members. It didn’t bother me at all.
The troop behavioral issue is true of most host countries including Japan and South Korea. Though the behavior aspect has more to do with putting someone fresh out of high school in a foreign culture that has never been away from home before (maturity). Also throw in some of the shotgun weddings that are part of our culture as well. When I was stationed over there some of the wives formed a prostitution ring and were busted.
I have a former work friend that is in Berlin now, he is Greens Party oriented and we do joke at times. Old German TV series (Guess Who is Back) below…Germans do have a satirical sense of humor on this stuff, it is not all serious but you have to initiate it and be careful that you know the audience. The context of the clip was a analogous discussion of recent actions of Senior political figure from the US on visiting another far right party in Germany…in that case both were kind of clueless on History.
Spot on!
A wise old owl taught me a valuable lesson. If you do not live there, do not comment on conditions you do not have first hand knowledge of.