The 58-year-old, a European champion with Germany in 1996 who ran the national team's management for many years from 2004, told kicker that the problem lies more with the players than with the coaches.
“Our players still have good quality, but compared with France and Spain they don't have the outstanding personalities with high individual strengths. In addition, we have a personality and character issue.”
Bierhoff bases part of his criticism on the way Germany have gone through head coaches:
“With Jogi Löw, Hansi Flick and Julian Nagelsmann the team has worn out three competent and successful coaches. So it cannot be down to the coach, the line-up or the team base alone.
"When things got tight at the tournaments, our players couldn't step it up. We have very professional and good players, but too few who take responsibility and initiative on the pitch.”
The three men he names all left after failures. Löw, who had coached the team since 2006, stepped down after the delayed Euro 2020, Flick became the first Germany coach to be sacked in 2023, and Nagelsmann resigned in July after Paraguay knocked Germany out of the World Cup in the round of 32, on penalties, less than three years after replacing Flick.
That exit made it a third successive World Cup flop, following the group-stage eliminations of 2018 and 2022. Jurgen Klopp, who won the Champions League and Premier League with Liverpool, has since taken over as national coach, and named an unusually large 44-man group for his first Nations League squad.
Bierhoff's verdict is aimed squarely at the dressing room. He argues that Germany's players are professional and capable, but that the team lacks personalities with the character to take responsibility when a match becomes difficult, and that competent coaches cannot fix that alone.
It is a pointed message for the new man in charge. Germany's last three World Cups have all ended before the quarter-finals, and Klopp's task will be to find leaders capable of changing that.