14 of the first 31 Nobel prizes in chemistry went to Germans, lets not forget the likes of Plank, Schrodinger and Einstein. What were the conditions that contributed to this?
I'd suggest a look at their education in the 19th c.
Pages 3 and 4.
"Despite the fact that Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and Baden did not form a unified political entity until 1871, they followed parallel paths in their scientific development. It is a very familiar narrative the one that describes how Germanic science followed a meteoric rise during this period, which in turn caused at first the surprise and later the consternation of French and English scientists and politicians (Knight 2009, 196-219)."