Well... the other reason might be that the German Universities got together to negotiate with the big publishers. While agreements are in reach or have been rea

Well... the other reason might be that the German Universities got together to negotiate with the big publishers. While agreements are in reach or have been reached with most of them, Elsevier continued to try to throw it's weight around leading to most German academic institutions letting the subscription to Elsevier journals lapse (or cancelled) at the end of 2017, with the remaining important ones following suite at the end of 2018. Currently almost no academic institution in Germany is subscribed to Elsevier. Here is the full list of German Universities and Labs currently not subscribed to Elsevier: https://www.projekt-deal.de/vertragskundigungen-elsevier-2018/ https://www.projekt-deal.de/vertragskundigungen-elsevier-201... Elsevier did not actually shut down access to its journals for German institutions. Wiley on the other hand has just signed a contract with DEAL, and negotiations with Springer Nature are going well enough so interim contracts are in place until they are concluded. https://www.projekt-deal.de/ https://www.projekt-deal.de/