So why, when confronting those shocks, should Germans accept that they have an overwhelming interest in the success of the eurozone? The immediate answer is that the economy is hugely dependent on exports for demand (see chart). From 2000 to 2008 external demand generated as much as two-thirds of the growth in overall demand for German output. Germany needs both captive markets and a competitive exchange rate. The eurozone has delivered both, to an inordinate degree: the crisis in the periphery has dragged down the value of the euro; and many of Germany's eurozone partners (who absorb two-fifths of its exports - nine times as much as China) are uncompetitive, after a decade of rising relative costs.

More important, imagine what would have happened, in the absence of the euro. The exchange rate of the D-Mark would have exploded upwards, as currency crises savaged the European economy, as happened in the 1990s. In peripheral Europe, currency depreciations would have been at least as big as, if not bigger than, sterling's. The absence of such shocks has greatly enhanced the prospects for the German recovery. The creation of the eurozone was, for this reason alone, much more than a favour Germany did for its partners. It was also a big economic (not to mention political) gain for Germany. German industrialists are clear on this, as is the government.

Some German economists have a different view. My friend, Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research, in Munich, provides an alternative story in a paper on the crisis. His starting point is with finance. Integration of the eurozone capital market and the mistaken view that risk had disappeared in the periphery drove convergence in interest rates. This provoked an investment boom, notably in Spain. It also allowed sloppy governments, notably in Greece, to spend madly. At the same time, he argues, the capital outflow - the counterpart of the current account surplus - starved Germany of investment: German net investment was, notes Prof Sinn, the lowest in the developed world between 1995 and 2008 (see chart). That, in turn, rendered German growth very slow: Germany had the lowest rate of growth in the EU, bar Italy, between 1995 and 2009.

Eoin Treacy's view Having to bailout erstwhile peripheral neighbours has cooled German fervour for further EU integration as austerity is forced on taxpayers without sharing other countries' dire need for it. Many economists continue to call for Germany to foster domestic demand at least in part to create a market for imports from the periphery and to offset imbalances in the wider Eurozone economy. Viewed from another perspective the Eurozone, and more recent EU members predominantly from Eastern Europe, act like an expansion tank in a heating system for the Eurozone's core export driven nations led by Germany.

In periods of economic expansion Germany benefits enormously from demand growth for its exports in the periphery. It usually grows at a slower pace than those countries and "excess savings" flow to more productive, high growth assets. There is a symbiosis to this arrangement since peripheral nations receive abundant credit at favourable terms. The current problems have exposed the inadequacy of the Eurozone's regulatory framework and the extent to which Germany and France in particular have invested in peripheral countries.

Peripheral countries could have used access to cheap credit to foster economic growth based on sustainable policies rather than allow it to stoke wage inflation and property bubbles. Their failure to do so is a symptom of a wider pattern of poor governance among peripheral nations whose populations have for all intents and purposes accepted bribes in the form of seemingly ever increasing social benefits without the economic wherewithal to pay for them.

Despite the credit crisis and the sovereign debt crisis, Germany remains in a position of relative economic strength. Its domestic low-growth internal market has been more insulated than many of its competitors. The decline of the Euro has been a tailwind for the country's exporters and the German stock market is a relative outperformer.

The country's banking system became overstretched in the decade following the adoption of the Euro and a number of problem lenders, particularly those most exposed to the periphery have needed to be bailed out. This graphic from the OECD report posted in the Weekend Reading section below indicates that Germany is owed approximately €150 billion by Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Hungary. If nothing else this, indicates that some way will be found for these countries to service their debt because the German financial system would be under severe stress if they were allowed to default.

A system which allows core nations to benefit from demand growth in the periphery during good times and remain comparatively insulated during times of stress does not come free if the situation is to persist. There is a strong likelihood that some of the so called PIIGS will need access to additional funds in order to come through this crisis. Given the risk to the exposure of core Eurozone countries to the debt of the periphery it would seem to be a veritable certainty that the money will be made available should it be needed.