In English this is usually translated as "moral rights"[1]. They are fairly widespread in other civil law jurisdictions than Germany too. Less so in common law jurisdictions.

But they exist to a (very) limited extent even in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights

Which is one of the reasons public domain is problematic in some jurisdictions because it requires you to waive rights you can't necessarily waive.

Yes, Louisiana somewhat notwithstanding, the US is basically common law like the UK (and much of the Anglosphere/Commonwealth).

As a bit of trivia, the MIT License was essentially created because of issues with "just" making X public domain. https://opensource.com/article/19/4/history-mit-license

So how does ghostwriting work then? Lots of books have unaccredited ghostwriters.

Not a Lawyer, but this seems like work-for-hire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire

I assume Germany has something like this (possibly a EU requirement). It would cover more than just ghostwritten books.

Most software is written in a similar manner. Microsoft didn't write windows, lots of ghostwriting programmers did.

The author never had the rights, as they worked under contract, so they don't need to sign them away.

But we also the right to be named as author is not a requirement to be named as author.

This is handled in the employment contract. The "Urheberrecht" is not transferable only inheritable, but you can grant "Nutzungsrechte" which means "rights of use". So in your contract you just grant your employer unrestricted and exclusive rights of use.