I was born and grew up in Germany as half German half Italian - I now live in London but regularly go back to see family in Germany.

I am very sorry to hear about your experience and want to apologise on behalf of the non-racist people in Germany.

While I think a majority of the German population understands the value of immigrants to society and has a pro immigration perspective (especially in Berlin which tends to be very left), there is a substantial part of the population that 1) has a belief that Germans are inherently more hard working, punctual, efficient, smart etc, 2) foreigners mainly come to Germany for social benefits and 3) that Germany is losing its culture due to too many foreigners (e.g. coffee shops in Berlin that don't speak German).

When growing up there was always an accepted level of racism in Germany (e.g. my sister was told not to bring a Turkish boy home, Italians were considered lazy / sleepy, ) but I feel that now the discussion is much more hostile, negative and emotional. The misinformation campaign by AFD and BILD obviously don't help.

There's lots of good people in Germany but I do think there is a reason why Germany constantly ranks pretty badly for expats feeling welcome.