German SF has chronically been overshadowed by SF (that is, foreign SF) in Germany (above all US/UK SF, but also Russian and, in the person of S. Lem, Polish SF). Results:
1) non-German SF captured (and still holds) a large part of the SF market, to the discouragement of young native writers;
2) German SF itself had a weak sense of "home" in its fictions: characters (and even authors) were given English-sounding (pen)names, and settings were often either in the Anglo-Saxon world or in some undefined place;
3) Several German SF writers had to earn their daily bread as translators and editors of English-language SF for publication in German;
4) an understandable resentment and a thirst for recognition.
And yet, German SF DID get some "penetration" elsewhere - as literature, as inspiration for technology and other SF, and by way of film.
There will be more examples.
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