Berlin - When Germans debate how to avoid a devastating financial crash, they are haunted as few other nations can be by memories of most of their money practically vanishing during the 20th century.
The people of Europe's biggest economy are "risk averse" as a result, according to Manfred Schmidt, a political science professor at the University of Heidelberg who has written extensively on German anxiety.
In 1923, the Great Inflation wiped out Germans' money for the first time. In 1948, most savings vanished at the stroke of a pen when the old currency was demonetized. In
1990, it was the turn of East Germans to lose half the value of larger savings.