What works
Hochdeutsch (standard German) transcribes very accurately (97-99% on clean audio). Austrian German and Swiss High German (Schweizerhochdeutsch) work well. Swiss German dialect (Schwyzerdütsch) is harder — Whisper handles standard varieties best; pure dialect may have higher error rates.
Compound nouns and capitalisation
German's aggressive capitalisation of nouns is preserved. Famous compound nouns (Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft) are handled — though the model may occasionally split into smaller compounds; review for technical or domain-specific compounds.
Use cases
German-language YouTube tech and business content. University lectures (TU Berlin, ETH Zurich, etc.). Austrian and Swiss news interviews. German-language podcasts repurposed as bilingual blog content.