The German-Jewish journalist and writer Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935) once tried to point out the differences between the English, French and Germans by stating as follows:
“People in England want something to read, the French something to taste, and the Germans something to think about.”
Source
Watson, Peter. The German Genius: Europe’s Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution, and the Twentieth Century. London: Simon & Schuster, 2010.