It kind of baffles me that the only long distance trains that are still being done on European scale are prestigious high speed trains (usually connecting Brussels to X) that are much more expensive than plane tickets or anything else really.
When I travel for work within Germany or just to a neighboring country, I want to get to get from A (which happens to be near Stuttgart) to B as fast as possible. Taking a plane from Stuttgart is even faster, but since climate change is real, I am now trying to avoid flying as much as possible. Hence, Deutsche Bahn. Going by high-speed train is also very comfortable if you reserve seats and do not have to transfer often.
I should also point out that if you book timely, you can often get German train tickets very cheaply at the 'Sparpreis', which starts at 29 Euro. When we had less money, we would often reserve tickets in the minutes after the 'Sparpreis' became available.
tl;dr you can travel cheaply in German by high-speed train. You just have to plan your trip and book tickets timely.
one problem in germany is that we have many high-speed trains but not many high speed tracks. High speed trains are really competitive even when you want to travel from berlin to munich (Just look at the travelling times when VDE8 will be finished). Since pseudo-privatising we neglected our rail infrastructure quite a bit (just look at the frequent complete halts to VD8), the upside was that the DB was forced to run really efficient, but not sustainable.
I'm not denying climate change you morons that downvoted me. I don't like flying either and if I could have actual data to solidify my decision that would be great!
When I travel for work within Germany or just to a neighboring country, I want to get to get from A (which happens to be near Stuttgart) to B as fast as possible. Taking a plane from Stuttgart is even faster, but since climate change is real, I am now trying to avoid flying as much as possible. Hence, Deutsche Bahn. Going by high-speed train is also very comfortable if you reserve seats and do not have to transfer often.
I should also point out that if you book timely, you can often get German train tickets very cheaply at the 'Sparpreis', which starts at 29 Euro. When we had less money, we would often reserve tickets in the minutes after the 'Sparpreis' became available.
tl;dr you can travel cheaply in German by high-speed train. You just have to plan your trip and book tickets timely.