[lejar]

You still need to spend a lot of time in theory, and especially in Germany you need your radio certificates in English and German (which themselves take a long time).

After that, you can only fly a very limited subset of aircraft during the day under a certain altitude (and possibly certain weather conditions?). If you want to fly at night you need to get a certification for instrument flying.

[gbacon]

In the U.S., a private pilot may fly at night with no additional training or rating.