The draconian austerity packages imposed under the bailout agreements with the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank have led to unemployment levels comparable only to the Great Depression (a 26.8 per cent official unemployment rate in October 2012), to a recession equivalent to a prolonged war (the total contraction of the economy has been estimated at 23.5 per cent of GDP from 2008–2013), and to all kinds of social problems, including a rise in suicides and infant mortality.
On the Left there exists a different kind of German exceptionalism, if you like, in which the notion of Sonderweg (literally, ‘special path’ – the idea that a unique historical trajectory meant that Nazi Germany was a sure thing, a pre-determined fate) is repackaged to enable special German interpretations of all sorts, like that Germany is the absolute worst out of all the nations on earth, or that anti-Semitism has really always been an especially German beast.