Its strength was, and still is, based on the export of high-quality manufactures to the rest of the world. This not only made it rich, it enabled what was then West Germany to buy an entirely bankrupt country, East Germany, integrate it into its own economy, and then go on to reduce labor costs, regain competitiveness, brush off the recession following the financial crisis with a shrug, stabilize its banks, and return to export-led growth in 2009, while the rest of Europe fell off a financial cliff.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 165