Is Germany Declaring Itself Finished As An Innovator?

My informal working thesis: A society that does not permit people to be wrong, or that punishes people for saying the wrong things, will not generate new ideas and innovations.

To develop new ideas and innovative technology, people must be free and willing to be wrong, maybe even offensive at times.

Among the noise about the visit by U.S. Vice President Vance to Europe were some segments on CBS about Germany and free speech. To me the most interesting was the 60 Minutes segment in which German law prosecutors explained that Germans can be punished for “hate-filled” or “toxic” speech, or for “insulting” someone online, and for repeating “malicious gossip” and “fake quotes.” The 60 Minutes crew accompanied the police on some raids of people who had put out punishable material. I'll assume the televised prosecutors accurately presented the prosecution's view of German law.

I’m sure there are a bunch of legal nuances about what specifically is prohibited or punishable. But the desired practical effect seems to be to instill fear into the population so that they do not say the “wrong” thing. Which is easily (and maybe even appropriately) interpreted by many as a prohibition on being “wrong.”

But . . . people who are punished for being “wrong” won’t express new or different ideas, out of fear those new or different ideas might be considered “wrong” and thus punishable. New ideas often look wrong at first. Maybe even offensive to some.

I have not really thought about innovation in Germany in the Nazi phase of the late 1920s and 1930s, when thought and expression were punishable by the government. But I have thought a lot about innovation in Germany in the middle to late 20^th century, when the same Germanic people were divided into "West" and “East” under radically different governance systems. Germanic people in the West produced innovative Siemens and Bosch home appliances, Siemens medical equipment, and a variety of Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and Porsche automobiles (I like cars, so I focus on cars). While the (ethnically almost identical) Germanic people in the East (where speech and ideas were heavily policed) produced the Trabant automobile. Invention and innovation occurred where the flow of ideas was relatively free. While invention and innovation were sorely lacking, the flow of ideas was heavily restricted.

So, by functionally declaring “wrong-speak” punishable by law, is Germany declaring itself finished with innovating and developing new ideas? Is Germany self-sabotaging its economy?

How about the United States, as the idea of restricting speech becomes more popular, especially among the young? Where a government entity was established to punish "disinformation"?