Unrelated

You will have to go through banking (m&a, LevFin, restructuring) or equity research pretty much (can also be S&T depending whether trader or analyst route). For restructuring I mean only the banking part where you do all the modelling etc. As a junior at a L/S or distressed you will be doing all the analysis and a ton of it and no other job really prepares you for the corp. fin part than banking/S&T for the more markets side (e.g. distressed sales desk). Most large shops do invest across Europe and do quite a good amount in Germany, Austria etc. so there will be good exposure, German speakers are always wanted. On that note the pool of potential hires looks always the same (top BB/PE) and there is virtually no recruitment outside of that for the large funds (this may be different for smaller firms) - on that notion if you can get into BX real estate or PE you should be set up perfectly (arguably pretty much the same experience as banking though these days)