Why Germany’s economic miracle is facing a new reality

This picture taken in Berlin in 1923 shows laundry baskets used to collect the increasingly bulky pay packets needed to pay workers, so worthless had paper notes become. Photograph: POPPERFOTO

Germany has come a long way in 100 years. Back in November 1923, people were trundling wheelbarrows stacked high with cash through its streets to buy a loaf of bread. Now its reputation is that of an economic powerhouse.

That episode of hyperinflation left deep scars on the nation’s psyche. Government printing presses were working flat out to produce mountains of worthless bank notes and the currency collapse was so severe a single US dollar was worth 1tn marks. “Never again” has been the mantra ever since.