[Workaccount2]

They can speak German, the just can't speak it to a level that would fool a life-long speaker.

I work with plenty of engineers who speak English as a second (or even third) language. It's not really an issue.

[JAlexoid]

That's quite a stretch.

I have experienced breakdown in communications due to English not being good enough many, many times.

There's plenty of stories in comments here, about how bad offshore teams are. In most cases it's just a result of poor communications(due to lack of English proficiency). I've had to switch to other languages to explain some basic things about "what the client actually wanted", because of breakdown in communications.