Ridiculous if true (I’m certainly not arguing!) - because in the U.K., the relocation of your work beyond a reasonable distance qualifies as redundancy, which has been tested numerous times in court.
I’m led to believe that German workers enjoy pretty robust laws and protections - so that would be surprising if they can’t protect redundancy payouts..
the company will always try their hand, I’m sure, but it won’t be over for years in that case.