The classical edible chestnuts are rare in Germany, most years they don't get ripe enough to be eaten. And there was an illness last century, the chestnut blight. It killed a lot of sweet chestnut trees in Europe as well as most of them in North America.
So for European children, chestnuts are for crafts and games, not for eating.
Really interesting thank you for sharing! I never heard about the blight, but makes sense because you don't see them much in the wild. Sucks too because I love chestnuts!
The history of the chestnut blight is really interesting. The results of it are not so visible in Europe, especially northern Germany, but in the east of the US it must have been impressive. In some regions chestnut trees made up a quarter of all trees in the old woods. And now they're gone. In Europe a therapy with a virus helps to make the trees resist the blight.
btw: I wrote a post last week that might interest you, about the end of the war in my birthplace.