While I agree with you that Germany doesn't have the intellectual prowess it once may have had, I don't think you can consider the Nobel prize a valid metric, personally. The Nobel prize has subverted itself many times over.

While German academia was rebuilding itself, American academia was chasing clout - one side effect being that the Nobel prize is more of a carnival attraction than an academic accomplishment.

Judging validity of all Nobel prizes by something that isn't even an actual Nobel prize is a perverse logic.

> Germans would collect as many science Nobel Prizes as the British,

The person I responded to made this claim, not me. I don't personally rate the Nobel prize very highly at all, as a metric.