The four-time world champions were far too strong for the Caribbean nation, producing a dominant display to secure their second win of the tournament and underline their title credentials.
Germany took the lead after just six minutes when Felix Nmecha finished from a Florian Wirtz assist. Curacao briefly stunned the favourites in the 21st minute as Livano Comenencia levelled the scores, sparking hopes of an upset.
Those hopes were quickly extinguished as Germany reasserted control. Nico Schlotterbeck restored the lead seven minutes before the interval before Kai Havertz converted a stoppage-time penalty to give his side a comfortable 3-1 advantage at the break.
Julian Nagelsmann’s men wasted little time extending their lead after the restart. Jamal Musiala struck two minutes into the second half from a Joshua Kimmich pass to make it 4-1 and effectively end the contest.
Germany continued to pile on the pressure as Nathaniel Brown added a fifth in the 68th minute before Deniz Undav got on the scoresheet 10 minutes later. Havertz completed the rout two minutes from time, finishing off an Undav assist to cap an emphatic evening for the European giants.
While Curacao can take pride in becoming the smallest nation by population ever to appear at a World Cup, the gulf in class was evident against one of football’s traditional heavyweights.
Germany’s attacking fluency, depth and clinical finishing will give encouragement to their supporters and concern to potential opponents as the tournament gathers pace.
For Curacao, despite the heavy defeat, simply sharing the World Cup stage remains a historic achievement, but their challenge now is to recover quickly ahead of their remaining group matches.
