I thought I saw the manual listed for download somewhere after purchase... I must have confused that with another game. Gamersgate's listing for D2:ED also says there is no manual yet.
The German version of the game was out a fair while before the English version, so if there were any bugs serious enough to prevent the game from maintaining backward compatibility with the saved game version, that would most likely have happened before now. I played the same game in Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity from initial (English) release right through to the final patch for both.