Sense of humour in Germany

It is a major milestone in any expatriation process (typically achieved only after several years of living somewhere) to be able to understand and laugh about the local humour.
Germans, it is often said, have no humour. This is wrong! In fact, comedy is serious business here, with jokes mainly made about profound topics like politics or social ills. Lighthearted slapstick or standup comedy also exists, but is considered by many a different (lower) class of joke.
Another specific of German humour is sarcasm and irony, often used to an extend where it hurts and the boundaries between joke and insult blur. Don't attempt this unless you are very sure of having a similar feeling (and language abilities) for it as the locals!

As a professional clown it is my business to understand this. I honestly don't think German humor is hard to understand or drastically different than say in the States.  The thing is that one first needs to have the language competency to know what is being said. The other thing is the context. Much humor has underlying references or a social context that a newcomer won't be aware of. But this is not particular to Germany. Even though I see a lot of American media I find that after having left over 30 years ago, I miss catching some of the humor. Sometimes I read an American magazine and there will be a catch phrase from an advertisement or TV show that I have never seen. I understand the language and the culture but am missing certain experiences and thus reference points by not having lived there for so long.

But comedy is big business in Germany. There are many comedy programs on TV and many comedians with any success are seen as celebrities and invited on talk or quiz shows. There are not so many specific comedy clubs in Germany but some exist and there are a lot of venues that occasionally have comedy programs. Mario Barth is a well-known German comedian who actually holds the world record for largest attendance in 24 hours for a stand-up comedy performer having had over 116,000 people in Berlin for 2 shows. One of the shows had over 70,000 people making it the largest single attended comedy performance ever.

My favorite comedy programs in Germany tend to be heavy on critical social and political commentary; Extra 3, Die Heute Show, Die Anstalt