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When did you do your math degree? I have experience from studying physics, biology, cs, and economics in Germany at different times within about 10 years. They all had various degrees of attendance and coursework requirements, though fr what I understand far less than US universities.
At the end a counterexample where it basically is like this, afaik & iirc.
It used to be standard, at least for courses that didn't require lab work, because it's difficult to test practical, hands-on experience in an exam. Since Germany has adopted Bachelor and Master degrees, it varies a ton. There's a lot more mandatory attendance, which also gets checked; even completely theoretical classes - mathematics, theoretical physics, economics (to name some I took at German universities) - now often not only have homework, but also mandatory attendance for the tutoring seminars dedicated to this. Lecture attendance was, where I studied, still generally (or at least practically) optional.
My experiences are from 3 different major German universities: the RWTH Aachen (Physics), University of Bonn (Biology), and Humboldt-University of Berlin (CS with an econ minor).
I've heard of universities with far stricter attendance policies (generally, my lectures didn't require attendance, the more class-like "practical sessions" - even if it was just about solving math problems - generally did). The "homework" didn't affect the final grade, but students needed to successfully complete a certain percentage in order to be admitted to the exam.
Now to the counterexample: law. It's in general still structured far more traditionally. I think there might be some papers to write (possibly instead of exams?), but generally, students just have to pass the exam for every subject to be admitted to the final exam. Moreover, it doesn't matter what grade you pass with, you just have to pass. The only grades that matter are the ones in the first and second state examination at the end (the first being after the regular university study, the second after some practical work in various areas of the legal field.)