The economic crisis has taken its toll in Europe. Governments in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Latvia have collapsed. Violent street protests have erupted in France and Britain. Yet Germany remains unfazed. While its economy is forecast to contract by 5.3 per cent this year — compared with 4 per cent in the US, 3.7 in Britain and 3.3 in France — Germans are remarkably angst-free about their prospects.

When spring finally arrived in late March, Berlin’s sidewalk restaurants were packed. Its roads were choked with shiny convertibles. Consumer spending has held up; March auto sales were up 40 per cent over last year. Only 13 per cent of Germans tell pollsters their personal finances might be affected by the crisis. “Why Is It Still So Quiet?” the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper asked recently.

The main reason that most Germans have yet to feel affected by the crisis is, simply, that they haven’t been affected. Unemployment, at 8.6 per cent in March, only began to creep up in December when it was at 7.4 per cent, and is still near lows last seen in the early 1980s. German banks were among the biggest speculators in toxic US assets, but that has had few repercussions for ordinary Germans. They did not see the bubble in real-estate prices or a boom in credit-fueled consumer spending, things now hurting US, Britain, Ireland and Spain. Though German stocks are down 41 per cent from their 52-week highs, it affects few private households, as few Germans own stocks directly. For their retirement they depend on state pensions and life-insurance policies, whose returns (and risks) don’t show up on monthly statements.

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