According to BBC News, "Germany's unemployment rose above the psychologically important level of five million last month." Even more disturbing is the percentage figure of 12.1 percent, the highest since the Weimar Republic during the Great Depression. These figures were confirmed by the German Federal Labor Agency.

A recent report by Britain's Sunday Times said that the "New Europe [was] threatened by Germany's failures." After all, Berlin represents the EU's largest economy and so the country has been taken to task for setting a poor economic example. A big drain on financial resources has been the necessary funding of the former East Germany as it gradually recovers from the decaying effects of 45 years of communism.

If the unemployment figures should continue to worsen in Germany, some media observers will soon be talking about a possible recurrence of the '20s and '30s plus the potential resurfacing of German angst. Unprecedented economic woes were among the forces that thrust Hitler into power in 1933. (Sources: BBC News online, The Sunday Times.)