I did more than 20 trips to Germany for work in the 1990s and early 2000s (I'm American). Of course my work colleagues there spoke good English, as did the staff at the hotels I stayed at, museums and airports, but enough people did not (shop owners, some restaurants, agents at train stations) that it really helped me to learn at least enough German to order at restaurants and shops and struggle through basic conversations; I took classes and practiced when I could. Often a mixture of my bad, limited German and the person I was speaking to's bad, limited English got things handled.

Was that in Berlin? Maybe the English level has improved since then.

I lived in Berlin 2005-2006 and found learning German to be practically a necessity then. Since then the city seems to have changed significantly. In fact, in my experience I would even put most of the changes to be post 2012 or so (at least I remember it seeming fairly similar then). The city seems to be evolving at an incredible rate.

Aachen (my employer acquired a company that was started by RWTH-Aachen people). Aachen is a university town on the border so I expect more English speakers than average. I travelled all over the Rhineland, often did two-week trips and played tourist on weekends. Some conferences took me to Munich, Frankfurt and Mainz.