The notice period in Germany works both ways. Your employer must meet the notice period, and so do you.

You can ask your employer to let you go sooner if you want to leave, and they may ask you to leave sooner if they want you to leave (and pay you as an incentive). But it has to be by mutual agreement.

Usually they’d let you go sooner rather than later because they know you’ve already left mentally and they don’t want to pay for that. But they might also not, not necessarily out of spite but because they have a deadline and they think they still need your warm body.

It's pretty common in Germany. Three months is standard; longer is possible. I worked as a researcher for a German university and had a six-month notice period. You can imagine how productive most people are during that time.

I am in Sweden, it's 3 months of notice here as well.

It's reasonably common in the UK for senior staff (although 1 month is standard), but it's often negotiable. It's not law though, it's just the standard work contract.

Germany. I once had a 3 month notice to the end of the quarter. It's not like everyone gets these but they're also not super-exotic.

I had it in two last jobs in Germany (and had to wait them and also when we hire and do roadmaps we know that the person will not start before the next or the quarter after the next) as all of my coworkers, except few. These were executive and had 6 months notice periods.

Not that I complain, six months of rest and vest life wasn’t bad :-)

My friend in Germany got that and had to pay a large fee to leave early to move to the US.

I've had it in the UK and Sweden.