not true. i have seen more david hasselhoff posters in my german peers flats than probably all of the usa combined.
My working theory is that there’s some kind of reverse self-fulfilling prophecy at play here: It’s been imposed on Germans that “we love Hasselhoff” over and over again and at some point we just went with it, albeit it’s mostly and irony thing now.
Then again, I might be totally off and not realize that I’m looking at it from within a bubble of people not actually liking him.