As to bank fees, there are several banks on the InterNet offering free checking-accounts. Among them I know of are first-e (http://www.first-e.de ) and Advance Bank (http://www.advancebank.de ). There may be others, but I am not aware of them.

"Regular" retail-banks usually do charge fees for checking accounts, but some drop these if you have a regular income transfered into your account, or a certain amount of investment with them.

Greetings - Dirk