Since the tone is hyperbolic, it's hard to discern how much it has been exaggerated/misrepresented (I suspect a lot).

For example, for someone who describes themselves as:

> I have learnt German. I speak fluent German. I am German.

The following:

> To have the Steuerberater file your tax returns on your behalf, you have to grant them Power of Attorney, so that is another nice form for you to fill out. I could have signed away one of my kidneys for all I know. It’s in German.

is grossly misrepresented. Power of attorney forms are generally easy to understand. Here's a sample one: https://www.vollmacht-muster.de/diverse-vollmachten/vollmach.... Anybody who's fluent in German could read and understand it, certainly not mistaking it for signing a kidney away. For those who don't, forms like this can be discussed with an English-speaking accountant (and there are), no reason to fuss about.

EDIT: No doubt that Germany has an English language problem - a significant part of the 40/45+ y.o. population speaks it poorly, so bureaucracy is definitely a problem. This also applies to the south of Europe, though.

No misrepresentation. Not even really any exaggeration I would say. Some attempts at humour, yes (like the PoA bit).ie I was aware the PoA would not affect my kidneys.

Sounds like you talked to a notary, talked to an accountant, opened a bank account and registered with a couple organizations. You never actually describe any difficulty you had registering with any of them other than like "it’s german" and "it took some time"