That can’t be true. Bavarian schools, for example, have a five-week summer vacation this year and additionally eight weeks of vacation spread over the whole year (one week in spring and autumn, two weeks for Easter, Pentecost and Christmas). There are also quite a few state and federal holidays but, as you can see, vacations are already clustered around those holidays. I think there are maybe two or three additional holidays outside of vacation times (May 1, German Unity Day, probably some weird religious holiday I’m forgetting).

That’s a shorter (but still quite long) summer vacation. Overall, however, vacation times are similar.

As for spring break, here is the situation at my German university: classes end at July 15 this year, exams end at August 20, the next semester starts at October 1. That’s one month and nearly two weeks when you can be absolutely sure that there is nothing to do for you (at least when you finish your papers in time and don’t have a thesis to write) and probably more depending on when your exams are.

We also get two weeks off for Christmas and there is obviously also a shorter break (about one week and up to one month depending on when your exams are) between winter semester and summer semester (but no other vacations, only federal and state holidays).

I don’t know much about US universities (Is there downtime for students between semesters?) but I do know that spring break certainly doesn’t compare. (One or two weeks? Seriously?)