Romanian ethnic here. There is no place in germany I can walk safely without feeling that if they hear me speak romanian I won't be verbally abused or looked down upon. Naturally there are exceptions, and there are many romanians in germany, but all of those I spoke with told me that at some point in time they have been racially profiled or outright abused. Their skill ranges from medical PhD, scientists, software developers, or workers, so status is not a factor. Furthermore there have been cases where hotels and resorts were asked to report all romanians to the police because apparently some dudes did some petty crime previous years and as such they had to "keep and eye on all" - and all was according to the german law. In Romania any time the government tries to raise the minimum wage, the german chamber of commerce tries to block it. All the while american, or british companies, have no issue paying a very decent salary - up to point where tech pay is rather high. Again, all those I spoke with told me that german and austrian companies outright insulted them with their pay offer because "romania is cheap". Again, there are exceptions to all this - see liverail, a partnership between german and romanian business people that was sold for 500mil to facebook. There are success stories, but much more horrible stories.

It goes well beyond politics, as you can see.

I'm sorry that you and your colleagues/friends were treated badly. I know that the pain is real and I can't do anything but apologize for it.

And I obviously won't defend German businesses (or for that matter businesses in general).

But believe me when I say that the average German has no problems with Eastern Europeans. Funny that you mention Romania, I work in a decent sized software company and my team lead is from Romania and beloved by us all and the company (and, as a team lead, better payed than most German engineers in the company). However, even among normal citizens, stereotypes and a sense of superiority can be found in certain circles. But I gurantee you it is a (vocal) minority. Salary for tech workers is generally low in Germany (and maybe the EU as a whole?) especially compared to the UK or US.

Racial profiling of the kind you describe is definitely not "according to German law", we have several anti-discriminatory laws on the books. But, of course, reality can't live up the ideals.

If you need help regarding those clearly illegal circumstances or situations (especially regarding police and lodging) there is the Federal Anti-Discriminatory Agency [1], which has guidelines.

1: https://www.antidiskriminierungsstelle.de/EN/about-discrimin...