They do exist in Germany.
When I lived in the US I always found it unnecessary that everybody has to stop. In Germany we always have a "main" road and a "secondary" road, and those on the main road don't have to stop. That priority pattern is kept from major roads to tiny roads. Then there's the "right before left" rule when the roads are equal - creating a priority without signs and without "everybody has to stop" rule.
This makes sense to me, and I don't see how other systems would be anything but worse. A signal would have a short cycle and only delay people during large parts of the day, a two-way stop would cause problems in one direction, it seems excessive to tear out a bunch of road to put concrete in, etc.
It is of course very natural that the roads in the US are built to completely different standards than Germany, given how incredibly different the layout of US cities are from German ones, broadly speaking.
St Peter Strasse / Von der Tann Strasse in Rorhbach in Heidelberg.
Sorry for causing a stir with my bad memory, I remembered that from my French point of view that would cause a deadlock.
Most importantly, you would avoid at almost any cost to cross two rural roads in a flat 4 way crossing. This is exactly where there is ample space to make a roundabout.
There are no rules for solving this conflict. Because you cannot have two roads that have priority over each other.
The Dutch equivalent of a 4 way stop is a raised intersection. Basically an intersection that is one big speed bump. Traffic is forced to slow down but otherwise normal priority rules apply.
In a 4 way the same priority rules apply thatwould have applied if there were no stop signs. Obviously the signs have to make clear to everyone that it is a 4 way stop, so that you don't have 4 cars all thinkning they are in a 2 way stop. This is usually done with an additional sign under the STOP sign. After that it just works like any no-stop intersection, you yield to e.g. the car to the right (Sweden) or the first car to arrive (US) etc.
The same can be seen in any intersection with red lights, as soon as the red lights don't work. You just crawl into the intersection, trying to take turns. It works.
If there's no working traffic lights and no stop signs, a different set of rules come into play.
The normal solution (used e.g. in Sweden) is to simply add a supplemental sign saying "multi-way stop" under the stop sign. https://d3h4jqp4au0mzy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/201...
Or it's a multi-way-stop (which is rare) in which case all roads have the supplemental sign. None of the roads have priority and all drivers can do to resolve deadlocks is be careful. All the supplemental sign does is inform drivers that OTHER drivers will also stop. It just removes the ambiguity we talked about above - where a driver at a stop sign might otherwise think he can't drive until the intersection is completely clear.
Ge- oder Verbot
1. Wer ein Fahrzeug führt, muss anhalten und Vorfahrt gewähren.
Edit: That came across as if I was simply trying to dispute your statement, but I am genuinely curious to see an example of this in Germany.