Germany, the world’s most functional dysfunction, is having an identity crisis. And not the cute kind that ends in a sabbatical in Bali. This is more like a national-level panic attack caused by groupthink and conformism, driven by mercantilism, tied up with red tape, and all of this while being 4 hours late because of Deutsche Bahn.

In their book Broken Republik—and in the excellent podcast episode on Part-Maven Part-Maverick—Bloomberg senior journalists and authors Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes peel back the layers of Germany’s malaise. What they uncover is less about policy and more about the soul of a nation that never quite figured out who it is.

Yes, Germany is an export powerhouse. Yes, it officially balances budgets like a kitty party of Swabian housewives (oh, let’s pretend those special funds and ballooning pension and healthcare social security problems don’t exist). But underneath the mechanical precision is a society that’s emotionally adrift. It knows what it does. It has no clue what it wants. And worse, it’s unwilling to have a serious open-minded discussion to define it’s own vision for the future based on national interests.

Let’s start with the obvious: infrastructure is falling apart, housing is unaffordable, and the dual track eduction system that is increasingly unfit for the data-driven digital paradigm. But these aren’t just technical failures. They’re symptoms of a deeper problem—Germany’s postwar identity vacuum.

The country has struggled with two traumas: the guilt of its Nazi past and the paralysis of Cold War division. The result? A culture that prizes order, avoids risk like the plague, and treats vision as something too vague to bother about.

You see it everywhere: a nation obsessed with cost-cutting but terrified of financial leverage. A welfare state designed to enslave, not empower. A citizenry that rents forever and owns little—modern-day serfs in subsidised housing.

And then there's the question of identity. Or rather, the avoidance of it.

Germany’s real crisis isn’t economic. It’s the inability to ask, “Who are we now?” without immediately spiraling into historical trauma or political binaries. You either follow the mainstream groupthink, or you get labeled: nazi, left lunatic, etc. The most important requirement to blend in is not to ask hard questions about what it means to belong.

Because belonging isn’t just a warm fuzzy feeling. It’s the bedrock of trust, risk-taking, and building things that last. As the podcast notes: you can't design policy, build housing, or even hope for a better future, on a shaky foundation of unresolved identity.

As Chris and Will argue, it’s time Germany embraced its inner Black Forest cake: messy, layered, contradictory, but still a magnificent whole.

A culture of civic imagination—rituals, stories, shared ambitions—might do more for Germany than another 200-page policy white paper. Because regulations don't make people feel seen. Community does.

Germany doesn’t need another commission or ministry. It needs courage. It needs chaos. Maybe even some good old-fashioned Keynesian animal spirits.

Or, to put it less academically: Germany needs to become a little more maverick again. Take risks. Dream big. Stop managing decline and start envisioning the future.

Because in the end, if you don’t know who you are, how do you know where you’re going?

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Watch the full video episode:

Get Broken Republik: https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Republik-Inside-Germanys-Descent-ebook/dp/B0DPML39R3

Follow Chris Reiter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-reiter-56780410/

Follow Will Wilkes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-wilkes-42294625/

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What does Agency mean in a German context?

While pondering about the necessity and implications of German identity, I came across this thoughtful post by product leader Jennifer Michelmann: Building Agency Within Cultural Constraints.

After a couple of comments — including by Christian Hansel — and some DMs with Jennifer, I committed to thinking more deeply about this question, and writing a my thoughts down. This is the outcome of that. Thank you Jennifer (and Christian) for showing agency by triggering this conversation and for making me embark on this intense but rewarding journey!

Jennifer’s post hit a deep nerve: the question of agency, the ability to act with intention, courage, and imagination within one’s cultural frame. And if there’s one thing Germany needs right now, it's a rediscovery of its own agency, not as management, not as process, but as a living, breathing national élan.

True agency in the German context isn’t about control or compliance. It’s about wild ambition. And Germany, for all its systems and structures, has lost touch with that sense of wild ambition. But this wasn't always the case.

Otto von Bismarck wielded agency with ruthless clarity, not because he sought power for himself, but because he envisioned a unified German state that could win on its own terms. His genius lay in realism married to vision: a willingness to make messy, imperfect decisions in service of something larger. It was not rigid groupthink ideology that drove him, it was bold and adaptive strategy.

Bertha Benz showed a different kind of agency. Hers was the quiet defiance of a woman who believed in the future of German technology and proved it with a 106-kilometer drive through unpaved roads and public skepticism. She didn’t wait for permission. She acted, knowing that action itself would generate belief. That’s what agency does: it pulls the future forward.

Einstein, too, embodied German agency, not through conformity, but through bold intelligent rebellion. His breakthroughs came from questioning the unquestionable, from imagining what others dismissed as impossible. He didn’t just solve equations. He redefined our view of the universe. That’s the apex of intellectual agency: challenging the rules because you understand them.

Germany today often confuses order with progress, compliance with trust. But agency lives in tension with uncertainty. It demands risk, and it thrives on discomfort. It means saying yes before you’re entirely ready. It means trusting in your ability to figure things out as you go.

So what does agency mean in a German context? It means reclaiming the spirit of Bismarck’s vision, Bertha’s daring, and Einstein’s imagination. It means replacing fear with courage, analysis with action, management with movement.

Germany doesn’t need more optimization. It needs orientation. It needs people who say, “This is what we believe and here’s what we’re building because of it.”

Because agency, in the end, is the opposite of drift. It's direction. It's momentum. And it’s high time Germany remembered that.

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Next on Part-Maven Part-Maverick, we will unpack with Luca Dellanna how life is primarily non-ergodic and what it takes to win long term games.

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