Should I ring my bell before going around corners? I'm in a town in Bavaria, Germany and the local custom with the more dangerous corners is to honk a horn or ring a bell. Will this actually make me safer?

Currently I am cycling in a half-urban environment. Having moved recently, I find the new city's biking infrastructure to be fairly dangerous, with many intersections designed to be dangerous ("traffic slowdown") and with new, not-yet-well-known yielding rules where most people still speed through without slowing down to look first.

Knowing that the safest conduct would be very slow cycling (but impractical given the density of dangerous places), I've taken to auditory messaging, i.e. ringing my bell before dangerous places and corners, and I know quite some people who have upgraded their bell to a horn to gain some safety. On the other hand, I've spoken with a number of residents who find this excessive bell-ringing and horn-honking disturbing, especially the people living at these dangerous corners.

Does an auditory signal appreciably improve my safety?
You are from Germany so German laws are relevant. In this case §16 I StVO.

(1) Schall- und Leuchtzeichen darf nur geben
  1. wer außerhalb geschlossener Ortschaften überholt (§ 5 Abs. 5) oder
  2. wer sich oder andere gefährdet sieht.


Attempt at translating to English:

(1) Sound and light signals may only be used:
    1. when passing (overtaking) outside urban areas (§ 5 para 5) or
    1. when seeing yourself or others at risk


So if you see a danger you may use it. 

For practical terms it depends, as always, on the situation. I like ringing my bell, but I'm cautious with it. Too often I have seen that people are confused and stop or go to the wrong side or something. There are a few corners though which are quite narrow where I can't see what's coming where I make it dependent on my speed whether I ring or not. If I'm slow enough to stop in the case of something coming my way I'm often silent. When I'm faster I warn people who might hide behind a corner. Often it is better to ring once too much and annoy some people than not ringing and having an accident.

Greetings from Munich, btw. :)