When I read about some of the most crucial inventions, I found that many of them were German. Fritz Haber/Carl Bosch invented fertilizers. I mean, the Wikipedia list of German inventors is quite long [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_German\_inventors\_and\_discoverers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_inventors_and_discoverers). While there are still a lot of brilliant people in the country, people working on important stuff sometimes have to go to the US or depend on US investors for serious funding. The country has no single University in the top 50 research Universities in the world. The wealthy private sector is reluctant to sponsor research. Look at a recent example, Stable Diffusion (an artificial intelligence model) was developed by researchers from LMU, but they got funded by an American company, which is now the one commercializing the product.
2 comments
1. WWII
2. Braindrain after WWII (e.g. von Braun etc)
3. Language barrier – the scientific relevance of German has greatly diminished –> Resulting in less attractivness for foreign talent
4. Career paths are shit -> German talent might move abroad or leave science.
It did not. Germany specializes in the design and production of intermediate goods. These goods are not usually visible to consumers. However almost the half of hi-tech product critical parts are made in Germany. Now tell me about Germany lagging as research country.