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Since you specifically mention Germany: professors are incredibly well paid in Germany and also enjoy high social status. Of course, a lot of them don't do any science, they are the CEO equivalent of an institute.

Salaries for PhDs and PostDocs are a different story of course. They are alright in theory, but often you can only get a part time job, which in reality means a > full time job with a part time salary.

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I was specifically talking about the days of the founders of quantum mechanics or even the times of Teller et al.. Today professors are in fact not that incredibly paid anymore in Germany. Sure they still have reasonably high salaries but compared to junior developers they earn approximately the same. Regarding PhD students yes depending on field, you might get a half position, however I'm not aware that postdocs get low paid positions. Compared to the US differences between professor and PhD salaries are much lower AFAIK.

>professors are incredibly well paid in Germany and also enjoy high social status.

Around 80k €/year as W2 professor base salary

Post-tax 55k €

Guess that might be considered incredibly well paid in Germany

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