There’s something obsessive and neurotic about the record-keeping that went on. Germans ARE different! And I suspect that the obsession with getting every conceivable detail right, recording every louse picked off someone’s head, provided some kind of compensation or mask for the criminal nature of the whole enterprise. It meant “I am doing a GOOD job. I am doing everything RIGHT. Thus, I am a good person.”
Unfortunately, I agree with you. I worked in a plant in a heavily German-American community. The people I worked with took pride in following the bosses rules to the letter even when it made their work harder. If they would have just spoke up and suggested a better way, they could have produced more and made their own life easier. But, they didn’t. They told everyone around them how stupid the bosses were, but continued following orders no matter how difficult it made their work.