Einstürzende Neubauten, innit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einst%C3%BCrzende_Neubauten

'Why, oh why, does Hobbit's cry?!'

A question that is begged. Thank you Kate Connolly:

//Germany, for decades Europe’s economic powerhouse, also has a reputation for being a land of skilful engineers and efficiency. What has gone wrong?//

//the problems lie not in a lack of public financing, but elsewhere: “The burden of bureaucracy, highly complex planning procedures and the lack of skilled people to carry out the work.”//

//“Holtemöller urged the government not to rush into fixing Germany...they should focus on long-term strategic planning.”//

Holtemöller has been promoted... to strategic planning.

After building them after the war, they did NOTHING, except some beating of students after they asked the question "was habt ihr im Krieg gemacht?"(What did you do in the war?) and some pet projects that showed an minimal care about schools.

Bridges got only inspections.

Germans generally say things like "politcians prefer to spend on building new things, not maintaining" and so on. In my impression, the deeper reason is that the voters' priorities have changed, and the politicians have sensed that and act accordingly.

German voters now aren't really eager to spend much money on things like that Ringbahnbrücke. Some people think that obviously should be put in order, and improved so it'll carry today's heavier cars too, but they're not a majority. Only a third of the households in the state that would pay for that bridge have a car, so for a majority of voters, that's tax money being spent so a minority can drive and not pay.

When the Ringbahnbrücke was built, many voters drove cars or expected to drive in the future and liked the idea of a nice Autobahn. Not any more, things have changed.

Similarly for the schools: I have children (I live in Germany, but am not German) and it seems to me that only a minority of Germans regard money spent on schools as money spent on themselves. There are majorities or near-majorities that regard pensions as money spent on themselves, ditto health care, ditto police, but schools? I don't see that. So politicians campaign on raising pensions and so on, what else could they do if their analysis matches mine.