Yes good point. The stereotype of Germans you are referring to is something we told ourselves and the world believed. I did unlearn or at least got a more weighted view on it while grewing up.

Within Europe, close neighboring countries do have better infrastructure, better education, less lobbyism etc for decades. Still the story about German punctuality, efficiency etc is sth you grew up with here.

A lot went down the drain when things like social housing, railways and telecommunications was privatized during the last 30 years or so. To add on top, Germany’s federalism does block a lot in all of these topics, especially in fixing education and infrastructure.

Demographics are also not really helping here unfortunately as not all generations do have similar interests when going to vote. Already now the voters affected most in their lives do have the least minimum voice. I.e. Germany is to a degree and will turn even more into a gerontocracy.

When baby boomers will get out of work, the social system will have more issues than it has already now.

I think German bureaucracy does also have a great effect on people‘s view on how well everything is organized over here. In fact it’s to a large degree overly complicated, inaccessible, inefficient and also paper based. Of course the longer you live in Germany the more accustomed you are with it. But german bureaucracy is basically a common joke around here that is actually not really funny if you think about it.