And of course the big mystery is Germany itself, seemingly lifted from history by its own economic buoyancy. Can German politicians abandon Weimar style economics before they are hit by Weimar style political disintegration?

Weimar 2013?

The phrase Weimar Russia first appeared about 13 years ago, at the height of the confrontation between then President Boris Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet that ended when Yeltsin s tanks shelled the parliament. The meaning was clear to all Weimar Russia, like Weimar Germany, signified a weak republic attacked from within by nationalists yearning to restore authoritarian ways.

Weimar Russia Revisited

The problem is that everyone writes history in their own manner, and that there are no scales that can fix the precise point at which the remedy of unifying patriotism turns into the lethal poison of rabid nationalism. Weimar Germany blindly poisoned itself.

In Europe, where national economic failure once led to the collapse of democracy itself, people are now asking if it could happen again. Some see another Weimar moment, reminiscent of the belt tightening and surging unemployment that characterized Heinrich Brüning s Germany and helped to bring the Nazis to power.

At the same time, there was a surge in demand for gold jewelry. The search for non financial assets looks like characteristic behavior in any financial crisis what was known during the great drama of hyperinflation in Weimar Germany as die Flucht in die Sachwerte, the flight to material assets.

That pretense may reflect a useful taboo if we overtly recognize that debt write off monetization is possible, politicians might want to do it all the time and in excess, not just in circumstances that make it appropriate. The historical experience of Weimar Germany, or that of Zimbabwe today, illustrates the danger.

According to Zimbabwe s official statistical agency, inflation topped 66,000 in 2007, which looks more like Weimar Germany than modern day Africa. While no one is quite certain how the government managed to estimate prices, given that there is virtually nothing for sale in the shops, most indicators suggest that Zimbabwe does have a good shot at breaking world records for inflation.

We are once again learning the hard way that this kind of austerity, when applied in the teeth of a major financial crisis, leads only to depression. This insight should have been common knowledge it was, after all, a major lesson of the austerity policies of President Herbert Hoover in the United States and Chancellor Heinrich Brüning in Weimar Germany in the early 1930 s.

That scheme is both absurd and dangerous. After all, the word Weimar draws its infamy from the pact with the devil that German conservatives and royalists made by backing Hitler.

Germany

Delusional Germany

Germany Steps Up

Falling for Germany

Germany Sri Lanka

Germany Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt

Bruno Simma (Germany)

Klaus Tolksdorf (Germany)

Andreas Seebacher (Germany)

State party Germany

State party Germany

(Mr. Heinsberg, Germany)

g By Germany.

(Mr. Heinsberg, Germany)

Belgium, France, Germany.

The Germany of Klaus von Stauffenberg, not Hitler, was the Germany that Pius XII loved.

Germany is an example.

Germany is Not Volkswagen

Germany, Europe, and Russia

Germany versus the Euro

Germany adjoins the Netherlands.

She comes from Germany.

Pfirsichbaeumchen is from Germany.

We come from Germany.

Germany Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht (Hamburg)

Asmus Bergemann, Trittau, Germany

Alexander Proelß, Tübingen, Germany

December 1993 (Bonn, Germany)

Mr. Bruno Simma (Germany)

Mr. Klaus Tolksdorf (Germany)

Mr. Andreas Pfaffernoschke (Germany)

Mr. Thomas Mazet (Germany)

D 53175 Bonn, Germany

D 53113 Bonn, Germany