Who do you think? I happen to think it's East Germans, including current East Germans, Austrians, and Germans East of that. Despite the concentration of Germans being of a smaller population in the East vs the West, East Germans seem to have been even well more accomplished over West Germans. They had outstanding philosophers, including Nietzsche, Kant, Christian Wolff, Leibniz, and Schopenhauer. They had outstanding rocket scientists like Wernher Von Braun, and Herman Oberth. Wernher Von Braun put the first rockets into space, and put a man on the Moon,. They had outstanding classical composers like Liszt, Schubert, Mozart, Wagner, Handel, Porsche, and Volkswagen the leading German car companies by Ferdinand Porsche who also invented hybrid vehicles. The first modern computer by Konrad Zuse. Smart card invented by Jürgen Dethloff. First prototype of television by Paul Nipkow. Invention of binary code, and calculus by Leibniz. Invention of synthetic fuel by Friedrich Bergius. Vaccine for Typhus by Rudolf Wiegl. Some outstanding physicists like Gustav Kirchoff, Arnold Sommerfeld, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit,Philipp Lenard,Hermann von Helmholtz, Theodor Kaluza, Lutheranism by Martin Luther. The best German artist Caspar David Friedrich was also from East Germany. I personally don't think the English, or Scottish have the intellectual accomplishments of East Germans IMO. Even though some insist they do. I mean, the Brits have surpassed the Germans a little in physics like Newton, or Maxwell. Or in writting like Shakespeare. But, Germans mop the floor with Brits in philosophy, classical composers, rocket science, companies, technology, cars, and so forth.
yes the Germans are awesome, sorry for not digging deeper with this but I'll just mention the British did have two inventors who left GIGANTIC footprints in modern society Alan Turing (Computing) and Tim Berners Lee (World wide web)
yes apparently Turing started later and finished in shorter time, he did break the enigma code which was quite an achievement, perhaps also an egotistical error by the nazis
