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call him Herr Gruber
FTFY, but if has some other title (e.g. Dr.) make sure you use it, German-speaking people seem to like to be correct about such things.
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Yes, from my experience of working with people in Germany and Austria a lot (particularly senior staff) go by surnames. As Tester says, lots of Drs there too. I think about 50% of those I was dealing with were doctors (of business, not medicine).
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German native speakers would never use the first name for a contact like that unless you'd known them for years (or you'd become friends on holiday or something like that, or you were closely related) and 'drunk to brotherhood' ("Brüderschaft trinken") with them, which means that you address each other in the familiar form ("du") rather than the polite/formal form ("Sie"). It's like tu/vous in French. Obviously, that English doesn't have grammatically-enabled polite forms doesn't mean that you can't be polite in it, it's just done in other ways. It means that there's a barrier to calling people over the age of 18 by their first names or using "du". At school, teachers used "Sie" for us from when we started sixth form, from about 16.
In the decades that I haven't lived in Germany, this seems to have become loosened somewhat in that people in trendy shops sometimes seem to want to address you as "du" even if you're clearly older, but I spend too little time there to know what the rules or indicators are for how that works.
You should address him as 'Mr Gruber' (or Dr, as the case may be) and never as Hans, and certainly not as "Herr Gruber" unless you speak German to him. I'm sure many native German-speaking businesspeople are by now very used to doing business with native English speakers and many have been addressed by first names, but it would usually jar and would certainly come across as unprofessional.
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Are you currently in possession of his detonators?
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Should I do likewise and call him Mr Gruber and not Hans?
At least signing off is less complicated....
Yippee ki yay,
Jellybaby
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Oliver Schick
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@jellybaby
An Austrian business contact I've met briefly on a conference call addresses me in email as Mr Smith rather than using my first name which I'm more used to. Are the Austrians more formal about these things? Should I do likewise and call him Mr Gruber and not Hans?