well we have all the cali strains, i guess it also depends where you are in germany. i live in a port city so we get weed via container smuggling so we get a lot us overproduction. not sure about berlin/east germany, but i'd guess they get some stuff from south-east europe, maybe checz republic also, black market stuff coming from the balkans. all europe gets hash from north africa. states like rlp in germany have more domestic or holland coffeeshop strains. i grew up on the border rhein land-pfalz/hessen, there were tons of growers and cops were pretty chill, as you said. but bavaria is a whole different story, they still crack down on consumers i think. and southern germany gets weed from switzerland and austria.
funny thing, apparently german black market growers been supplying dutch coffeeshops for decades now. since their supplychain was never fully legalized.
from my youth on i went to become pretty familiar with the classic coffeeshop strains that you mentioned. then in the late 00s there was a lot of northern lights and skunk crosses going around. first half of the 2010s you would get mostly haze varieties. nowadays cali weed has been the wave for a few years, at least in hamburg. most stuff is allegedly some cookie, cake or gelato strain. which is why i hope the legalization brings back a few legacy strains.
you described the modern dessert strain taste once as complex, but chaotic, and that's exactly how i feel about it. sometimes that's sick, but i miss the real dank and piny and skunky stuff, even when it wouldn't hit as crazy as it does nowadays. i'd like to have growers not only aim for high yield and thc, but high terps. the weed over here is pretty strong, but if it's us weed, it's probably not the real properly grown stuff, because why not sell it. it costs money to smuggle it here. i guess we get b-grows so to speak, but they are still pretty strong and sometimes exotic for our standards.