I would have expected the Germans to do better than this!
Me too, and i'm one. However berlin is very special. Just to give an idea about the timeframes: the airport was planned in 1992, should have opened around 2000 and is now nearly finished and already below the needed capacity.
Berlin Tegel already cannot cope with traffic as it is as quite a bit of handling machinery has been transported to the new airport already. Waiting 40 minutes for a push back truck is now normal during peak hours, as well as blocking the airport for 20 to 30 minutes because no marshaller is available to lead one into parking positions, not to mention someone to connect the stairs or drive the passenger busses.
Lufthansa planned to increase their route network by over 50% with the opening of the new airport in june and supposedly can do that from tegel. There is no chance in hell that tegel can cope with that amount of additional traffic. All airlines flying from and to berlin have a new flight schedule from june on for the new airport, most increased their capacity, those flights of course are already sold. That will bring in a lot of law suits as those flights cannot be operated.