Sorry, if this is a stupid question, but I have been curious about how German culture became what is it is now.
I'm a south Asian foreigner, living in Germany for over a decade. One thing I really noticed here is that Germany has rules for almost everything. I have lived at least 3 years in 3 other countries, while also traveled in numerous other countries. I don't think I know of any other country which has more regulations and rules. So, I have wondering if there's a historical reason behind this.
From the humble knowledge I've about Germany, I know the fact during Roman era, Germany had many many tribes who were fighting among themselves all the time. They were difficult to rule, as Roman empire didn't manage to conquer beyond the southern part of the modern Germany. Until Prussia, there were never any united German land. They were usually divided and had battles and fights. Hence, my perception is that, in order to get united, they needed rules that ought to be followed orderly to maintain peace.
Is my perception correct?
Thanks.
Not really?
It's reductive, perhaps to a harmful degree, to reduce the nature of a modern country to what they were like two thousand years ago. Sure, 'Germany' at the time of the Romans was a mess of various tribes and small kingdoms-- but then again, that was more or less the default state of the world at the time.
Likewise, if it were Germany's factitious nature that led to an overly bureaucratic society, we might see something similar in modern Italy, which, like Germany, remained a hodgepodge of smaller kingdoms and principalities well into the 19th century.
In fact, the conception of German = Rules & Efficiency is a rather modern stereotype. Literary movements like Sturm & Drang and Romanticism were based around extremes of emotion, to the point where one popular tragic novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), was thought to cause a rash of lovesick copycat suicides among young German men.
If anything, I would imagine the German stereotype of rules and efficiency comes more from the rise of industrialization in the late 19th / early 20th century. But to to be honest, I don't think Germany has 'more rules' than any other developed country. In fact, someplace like the U.S. probably has an even larger library of laws and regulations, due to the split in authority on the state & federal level.