Not all Germans wish to be useful, there are plenty of freeloaders. Assuming you've had a job, you get a good percentage of your salary for a while, and then once that's run out, you get a house deemed adequate for your family, health insurance, and about $500 a month. This is not enough for a great life, and no one with any ambition is going to accept that standard of living. That said, some do, and mostly, Germans are willing to live with paying for that. The flip side is that this is the worst your life can ever get. Having Hartz IV as a very deep backstop gives people a real confidence and peace about their lives that doesn't exist in the U.S.

>Even Americans don't glorify hard work for it's own sake.

This is a hard thing to argue about, but I think you could not be more wrong about this. Americans identify themselves very strongly with being productive at their jobs. They take few vacations. Any suggestion that people should be paid more or get more time off is denigrated as laziness. Unlike many other countries, having a gap in your work history is seen as a huge warning sign. You saved up money and took 2 years off? Good luck getting another job. America still has a tremendous amount of the Protestant Work Ethic in it. Why do you think America has stood by while companies got rid of pensions, and go decade after decade after decade not giving raises?

I wonder, who are all these people that would prefer to live close to the existence minimum, subsidizing off welfare, and not do anything productive? Is it you? Many of your friends? Do you actually know anyone that would prefer to not be useful?

Not to mention, that I think pretty much everywhere, the amount of resources society as a whole end up wasting on the idle rich in one form or another, probably makes that wasted on "freeloaders" and "those abusing the system" a rounding error.