The German Sie expresses distance in the relation between two persons. It is not perfectly correct to say that it expresses respect; gods and saints have always been addressed as du, as have been parents (except formerly among the upper class). Even royal highnesses used to be addressed as du, not personally but in songs and poems.
Sie is identical in form to the third person plural pronoun sie ‎(“they”) and takes the same verb form. The "polite" Sie is distinguished in writing by capitalization. When addressing a person with Sie, one generally needs to replace the third person plural pronoun with the demonstrative die to avoid confusion: Wissen Sie, was die zu mir gesagt haben? − “Do you know what they said to me?”