Readers of the Financial Times will be familiar with the paradox that Germany, probably the biggest winner from globalisation among rich countries, is at the same time a deep well of paranoia about and veritable fount of vituperation against the sources of its riches.

Thus, just as the country’s statistics office announces that the economy has grown at the fastest quarterly rate for 12 years, Horst Köhler, Germany’s president, tells an interviewer that “international markets have developed into a monster that must be put back in its place”.