Data to back up your assertion that it’s only Berlin? I can speak for Düsseldorf, which is a total nightmare. Literally everything folks talk about regarding issues in Berlin also happens as a matter of course in Düsseldorf.
A friend of mine is high up in the NRW civil servants apparatus and he confirms it’s fucked across the board in NRW.
There are issues everywhere but Berlin is particularly bad. We weren't even able to hold a regular election without messing it up.
However, this is understandable given German history.
> However, this is understandable given German history.
So tired of this apologetics, modern German bureaucracy has been built exactly by former Nazis and Stasi agents.
How frustrating for London and Washington to fight and win a war against the Nazis, then occupy (the Western half of) Germany for 7 years, imposing a new government on the country -- all to no effect.
The modern US was founded by slave owners, Spain was a dictatorship for longer than most of Germany, Poland was sliding into illiberal democracy until very recently, most of Latin America seems one recession away from a coup or revolution, ... there is a lot of continuity between liberal democracies and authoritarian governments. The roots of German bureaucracy also go much further back than the Nazi era (at least to Prussia).
I'm not really sure what using loaded language like this accomplished, though.
Sorry, I didn't mean it as an apology, it's more that I understand the historical context (at least that's what several Germans have told me).
I strongly prefer the system where I live, where I can pretty much arrange everything government-related from behind a keyboard and a universal authenticator (DigiD).
I would argue that they are the best then to design something private :)
Seriously though if you're allowed to corner part of the population and brutally vent on them, next you'll need "privacy" to avoid consequences and revenge.