>when I visited Germany, granted this was in the 80's, I found that if I was polite and pleasant, so was everyone else I came into contact with.

when encountered in private some of as are pleasant (or try to be),
but it is a far cry from the (to our perception forced) pleasantness encountered in biz/shopping/service.
Couple that with a tendency to get to the point and not dress it up as much in PC
and any discussion sounds harsh to US citizens at first.

TX might be in some ways (like speaking your mind) more along our way of thinking,
in others even further away (being proud not to hide your accomplishments) than the typical US citizen,
if such can be estimated IAC ;-)