Germany is a bit more complex, because historically speaking, there has been cultural separation.

In my experience:

  - middle aged people speak an ok english
  - elderly speak a poor or no english
  - young people speak a very good one

Something also worth considering is, as I've previously mentioned, the exposure to international traffic. In big German cities, there are a lot of foreigners; much less in Italy.

Finally, it's correct, as mentioned in a sibling post, that German has (some) roots in the English language.

Regarding Italians I've hardly met people who actively refuse (in the sense of "dislike") the language per se, but I can't exclude the option you've mentioned of "cultural laziness".

There's a cliche of the French culture being proud of their language, so I can imagine a sort of active refusal in this case.

> that German has (some) roots in the English language.

More accurately, English, like German, is a Germanic language. German doesn't have roots in English.

Also don't forget the east/west split. And while it's been 30 years (oh wow) some Germans who are now as young as 45 had Russian in school and not English.

I think that's also slowly changing as 10-15 years ago everyone was watching dubbed german TV shows on TV while now kids are just on social media with a lot more international content and influencers.

German language is much more similar to English language than Italian language