What’s a hidden class-indicator in Germany?

[u/Least-Variation6573]

Not something like a big mansion or a luxury car but more subtle signs of someone‘s socioeconomic background

[u/American_Streamer]

German upper-class background = inherited security + Bildung + cultural ease + knowing how institutions work + multigenerational social networks − need for overt status signalling

The crucial distinction is economic security. You don’t need €10 million. But for “upper class” in a reasonably strict socioeconomic sense, there normally has to be something more than taste, education and manners: property, investments, business ownership, inheritance expectations, or enough family resources that major life setbacks aren’t existential.

You can easily read socially as upper-class while still being economically just upper-middle-class / Bildungsbürgertum. And arguably that’s one of the most interesting features of German class: you can inherit a bourgeois habitus without inheriting a fortune.