German dissertation formatting is governed by the Promotionsordnung, the doctoral regulations set at the faculty level, not the university level. The Promotionsordnung at TU Munich's Mechanical Engineering faculty has different requirements than TU Munich's Computer Science faculty. Generic LaTeX templates don't account for this.
German academic LaTeX also uses KOMA-Script (scrreprt, scrbook) rather than the standard LaTeX classes. Most international templates are built on the standard classes and need significant reworking to be Promotionsordnung-compliant.
The Eidesstattliche Erklärung (the statutory declaration of independent authorship) is the thing that trips people up most. The exact wording is legally prescribed by your faculty. Using wording from another faculty, or from a template that has not been updated recently, can get your submission sent back. Many universities have also added AI usage declarations in the last year or two.
Kumulative Dissertationen (publication-based) add complexity: each included paper was formatted for a different journal template and needs to be unified into a single KOMA-Script document with Eigenanteilserklärungen and either a consolidated bibliography or per-chapter references.
If you're navigating this, there's a LaTeX dissertation formatting service for German universities that reads your faculty's actual Promotionsordnung, uses KOMA-Script natively, and generates PDF/A output where required for electronic submission and DNB archiving.
