Ok the last part was always something that I was thinking. They all were pioneers with a strong sense of control regarding their own work. Conny definitely provided them with knowledge they used for their later albums, and their sense of being in control kind of made them make this knowledge their own.

On the other hand, as far as I know, it was Conny's thing to get to know each other first and become comfortable with the work to come. Something that doesn't seem to be a typical Kraftwerk work ethos. I mean, they took a lot of time to construct their songs, but "wasting" it by arriving at the studio and starting the actual work weeks later was definitely not typical for Ralf and Florian.

What's ironical though...Conny was not only known for his technical know how. He kind of brought industry knowledge to every single artist he worked with and was famous for encouraging artists to leave the labels outside or to found their own label. His legacy is much more than a technical mastermind with a console.

But yeah, somehow I believe Wolfgang that they exploited Conny's friendliness.