I think that is a very negative view on Germany and Europe that comes mainly from reading too many news. The media always report when something goes wrong, but rarely if something is working right.
One example: passenger aircraft. Boeing is struggling and China does not seem to be able to make the strong impact that was theorised. Europe is the global powerhouse in that regime. And especially Germany is really strong in a lot of areas that dont make the news regularly.
Also look at the transition to renewable energy in the last decade alone. We have a lot of ideas for the future, just not decided what we should do on a big scale.
Tech is just a market where the circumstances in the US and China with their huge domestic markets produce the biggest companies. Europe will probably always lack behind in that.
Europe is in a transition period right now into the 21st century. But both China and the US also have internal problems that will hold them back in the future.