This, in the end, makes for a every different business culture than I remember from US -- the meetings are as short as possible. The managers actually listen to their engineers, because their expertise is what they are paying them for, and I have yet to meet a German Pointy Haired Boss, while experience both mine and of my friends with US or US-run corporations is that more than half managers are PHBes. They also don't care what you wear, don't care what you do after work, and the don't want unnecessarily long hours. They are efficient an serious about what they do, but they don't worship work the way USians and Japanese do, for example.
(I don't have experience with working with other cultures. Also, I'm not German.)
EDIT: But in no way would Germans require you to do more hours just for the sake of more hours. You owe the company you work for your best, professional effort. But you owe them 40 hours, not more.