Option one: Join private tracker communities, no need for a vpn here. You will find the majority of stuff here anyway, compared to public torrents.
Option two: Get and set up a vpn (preferable with port forwarding) in your bittorrent client. Bind your vpn connection to your network interface in qbittorrents advanced settings option page.
Option three: Use usenet, since there is no upload involved on your side you also need no vpn.
Piracy in Germany is kinda rare, don’t expect to find many pirates in your private sphere. However if you find some, chances are they will try to stop your from torrenting and advise file hosters like ddownload or rapidgator. It’s very common for German pirates, torrenting has a bad reputation due to law firms hunting down pirates.