> But on the other hand that makes german much longer. Translations into german (e.g. SW or movie subtitles) are the longest in german than in any other major language.

I can believe that if you translate texts that are written in idiomatic English into German, they get longer. On the other hand, if you have a concisely written scientific text in German, translating it into English leads to something between gibberish and something barely readable. So you often have to completely rewrite/reexpress large parts of the text so that it looks like idiomatic English.