Just to warn you, I have found that the German WTMDs are calibrated to be more sensitive than TSA's WTMDs. So, I can walk though with my belt on in the States, but for some reason it always sets off the WTMDs in Germany (and Europe more broadly).

Not sure about shoes. I always take mine off to avoid the chance that some metal studd in the heel will set off the WTMD.

I hope you kept speaking German only, let them figure *you* out, since they were in *your* country. wie gehts, dumi dumi....

In Switzerland does have to required take off the shoes in ZRH, GVA, BSL and few others, too. You are required take off the shoes in FRA. If security agent will tell you if you are required take off the shoes. I have been experience through security in ZRH for 3 times. Never have been any problems at all. I didn't removes the watch and I remember last time that I went through checkpoint. I hear the beep and he & I were escorted me into the private room and he wand me and he pat me down. I didn't have any suspicious problems at all.

100ml, 1 liter bag. Same as the US. And you can leave it in your bag the last I checked. Indeed, I love the metric system on this both because of the 100ml size as well as the larger bag. I always get my freedom baggies in Canada.

Gotta love that idiocy. I speak German fluently and was getting on a LH flight back to the US in the summer of 2002 after spending 6 weeks studying German in Berlin and Vienna. They were doing those stupid pre-boarding passport checks and interviews and I naturally wanted to speak a bit more German before heading back to the Land of the Monolingual. The lady started talking to me in English while looking at my US passport and I responded in German. She actually asked me why I was speaking German. I rolled my eyes and responded, in German, the obvious fact that we were in Germany. She had some American guy come over to "speak American" to me. Turns out he was from Sacramento and I made fun of his hometown a bit - he took my passport and processed me ahead of the rest of the line while the dumb woman asked "is everything ok" and he said "That guy? He's fine."

Liquids in 100 ml containers in a 1 l plastic bag. Shoes don't come off unless they ask you. You can tell US passengers as they're the only ones who take their shoes off:D
In Germany, belts usually have to come off. As others have said the WTMD are set very sensitively, so it won't take much to alarm them. If you do alarm them, you'll get a pat down, but it's done at once, no barking for "male assists" or whatever. The lines seem to move OK and I've never waited very long. At FRA everyone seems to be significantly ruder than at MUC, so if you have a choice, MUC is preferred (and it's a much nicer airport in any case).

My sentiments exactly, and I often say that here - avoid FRA when MUC is an option. At MUC the security also includes pleasantries along with just the normal 'please' and 'thank you'. I wouldn't call FRA 'rude', just 'German' ;) but MUC generally has 'Gemütlichkeit'.

Hopefully todays sad events won't change things very significantly; there was already a visible presence at German airports.