alt Hacker NewsI'm from Poland, but my grandma was living in Germany (Essen). When I was (rarely, she was visiting Poland much more often) visiting her I definitely experienced similar behaviour from Germans.
My German is very poor, I used to somewhat understand what was spoken to me (if simple language was used), and to speak is short, basic sentences with shortage of vocabulary. This is just to provide some context - I never actually tried to learn German.
So I was trying to use English as often as possible. A lot of people - and I mean persons like clerks, salespersons, not random passers-by - either straight-up ignored me, or issuing comments like "Du solltest Sprachen lernen".
On the other hand, I never had similar experience when I was speaking broken French in France (or Marocco).
Please note that I don't want to bash Germans or to defend French. But it all depends on who you encounter - but these encounters might on some level shape your opinion on the whole nation no matter of you want it or not
Since I'm also from the region and familiar with local issues: are you sure this was not the good old anti-immigrant hostility? Germany has (or had) a lot of immigration from Poland and some locals could think you're an immigrant who refuses to learn the language. In my country I sometimes see similar behavior targeted specifically at Ukrainian speakers.
FWIW, I only ever experienced the discussed issue (locals who clearly understand English but refuse to acknowledge me or respond in their language) in France. I really suspect it's specific to french speakers. They uniquely feel that their language was lingua franca and lost the status to English.