Really? I'm a German working in Germany and if you look at the timestamps on my comments, you'll see that a fairly significant proportion of those are made during work.

I've seen plenty of coworkers trading Facebook or whatever, and people chit-chat all the time. Well, not everybody of course, but for example, my own morning routine involves visiting the coworkers at their desks to check on their work and coordinate, and that includes some friendly banter, of course.