Understanding the Latterday Teutonic Titan

Germany is a fascinating place, full of promise, full of contradiction. At the heart, both geographically and economically, of the sometimes tenuous and often contentious EU experiment, it at times both responsibly recognizes its difficult history and emphatically attempts to draw bright lines under the episodes of the past. However, challenges of the past are not the only ones facing the nation. In its own way, its lineup of current political pressure points could easily be mistaken for those of the US. For example, topics such as immigration, financial bailouts (albeit for EU neighbors) and employment issues are all as likely to be found in the headlines of leading German dailies as they are to abut the title sections of The New York Times or The Washington Post. For more on this economic powerhouse, The Economist provides a guide.