How can students pay nothing to study at German universities?

I don't know anything about German education. However, given Germany's strong development, I assume that their universities, at the very least, are as good as universities in England, including the Oxbridge.

And I've just read that from this year, Germany's states have all stopped charging fees, with universities becoming state-funded.

Meanwhile, in England, there are some universities unsubtly pushing to charge more than the £9,000 upper limit. A report from the Higher Education Commission this week said the real-terms value of the £9,000 announced four years ago has now been eroded to about £8,200. And the commission warned that the current system is financially unsustainable in the long term.

It seems to me that in England, every university tries to charge students as high as they can. Of course, they will present many reasons.

But England has the highest tuition fees in the European Union (plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Montenegro and Turkey), according to an analysis of current charges by the European Commission.

It is an outlier with fees of up to £9,000 per year.

Other "relatively high fees" are charged in Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and the Netherlands, with typical costs between about £800 to £4,000.

Surely there is something fishy and wrong with England.

If higher education is free in Germany and costs little in other European countries, why is it so expensive in England?