[ThePhysicist]

In fact, the base salary of a full University professor (so-called W3 group) is 5672,13 € per month (http://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Besoldungsordnung_W), so in total (with extra 13th salary) 73737 € / year, hence about 101k$ / year. This excludes extra pay for fulfilling faculty functions etc. which can easily double that amount. Take in addition the generous retirement money, the fact that they are state functionaries and thus cannot be fired and do not pay any social security taxes (usually about 15 % of your salary) makes this look pretty good to me. Btw the salaries of older professors (which are still payed according to the old C standard from before 2005) is even higher. Of course there are so-called "Fachhochschulprofessoren" that earn less than this, but since they usually have strong ties with industry and focus on applied research they profit from other income streams.