Germany may be the country that brings the euro crashing down

While attention in this country was focused on the delights of the Olympics, almost wholly unnoticed here has been the extraordinary drama unfolding in Germany – portending a truly seismic shift in the history of the European Union. The Germans have at last peered into the abyss that opens in front of them as a result of pouring all that money into the debts of their eurozone partners. To say that they don’t like what they see is a wild understatement.

Reported daily in such papers as Die Welt, Handelsblatt and Der Spiegel, a succession of politicians, financiers and commentators have concluded that, with Greece about to go bankrupt and Spain and Italy to follow, enough is enough. Certainly, they argue, Greece must be allowed to leave the euro. But so, many add, must Spain, Italy and others. Indeed, so dire has this crisis become – with one senior politician estimating Germany’s potential liability at more than $1 trillion – that voices are now being raised to say that the only practical solution to this mess would be for Germany itself to abandon the euro. The rest of the eurozone could thus be left to sink or swim with a currency which, without Germany’s backing, would face a massive devaluation.