I'm an American that has lived in Berlin for over 3 years now, so I'm very used to the language (if not exactly fluent). And one of the early surprises for me was how soft and beautiful it can sound when spoken by a woman.

An example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEJDJnnfRc8

And this is more of a joke video, but it shows how most of the reputation of German being harsh comes more from its typical usage in movies than anything fundamentally harsh about the language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLvL7a8Y0pI