Originally Posted by
railways
The German railpass is a different product offered by Deutsche Bahn, and does not have this rule.
Actually, it does - you can travel on direct night trains after 7pm without using up an extra day on your German rail pass. Keep in mind that this does not work (a) if you need to make a connection between 7pm and midnight and (b) for the first day of travel on a pass if it coincides with the first day of validity - e.g. if your pass is valid as 1 April
and your first day of travel is 1 April, then you can't take a night train departing on 31 March.
That's at least my understanding from DB's terms and conditions that can be found
here - but unfortunately only in German (see p. 21)...