Really depends on where you are in Germany.

Overall, DB Regio (the regional trains which are covered by the Deutschlandticket) has around a 89% punctuality score[1], which is very comparable to the Dutch numbers. There are certain hotspot regions though where the regional trains are truly fucked, but for most of the country they're totally fine and quite reliable.

It's mostly Germany's long-distance high-speed ICE trains which have punctuality problems (the much discussed 60% punctuality [2] score), but those are not covered by the Deutschland ticket, and the Netherlands has no comparable service to these trains anyways, so if one is envious of the state of Dutch trains, they can happily pretend that German ICE trains simply don't exist. In my experience though, the ICE's are a pleasure to ride.

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[1] https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2025/de/zusammengefasster-lage...

[2] https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2025/de/zusammengefasster-lage...

Sidenote, but the ICE punctuality score is not really directly comparable with the Regional train scores, since they measure different things. The ICE score is about the passenger arriving at their final destination with less than a 15 minute delay including connections, whereas with the regional trains they don't have granular passenger level data, so they measure whether or not a train gets to the platform within 6 minutes of the scheduled time.

The Netherlands runs around 3000 trains a day vs. 50k in Germany. That doesn't excuse Germany's problems which were also predicted years in advance when they stopped investing in maintenance and infrastructure but also shows that the comparison is not entirely fair.