When people tell you Germany never floods, they're dead wrong. The locals have kept track of flood high water marks more or less forever, labeled with the year.
Don't let people tell you this flooding is climate change. Check out those dates going back at least 200 years. The other DrC and I have seen these marks on buildings in little towns all along the Rhine and Main rivers, they're no joke. In the years before trains and cars, it was handy to be right by the river for water borne transport. In recent decades it is also valuable for tourism as river cruises are quite popular - we've done several.
Germans live with the occasional flood, clean up the mess, rebuild if necessary, and continue to live by the river. It's like the attitude Floridians have about hurricanes, they're a hassle but tolerable.
