Yeah, but that's not a rail problem, that's a Deutsche Bahn problem.

Apparently Germany's problem is that they run all the high-speed trains on the normal lines which means all of the normal trains have to work around them. Obviously you can't have a normal train in front of a high-speed train so if the high-speed train is delayed by even a small amount it has a knock-on effect where a bunch of local service trains have to sit around waiting for the line to clear.

Everyone else runs high-speed rail on their own tracks. So everyone gets to do what they want and not affect anybody else.

The French do it better than the Germans, which is just not an acceptable state of affairs.

I’ve heard flights are sometimes also late or even cancelled

50 minutes isn't that bad tbh. I dont remember the last time I flew that there wasn't a delay. Hell even the whole arriving 2 hours before ,finding parking, going through security is all so much more of a hassle.

I'd much rather walk 5 minutes to the local subway head to the hauptbahnhof and wait 50 extra minutes for my train. I can at least go get a reasonably priced coffee while I wait.