One of the German government's most ambitious and arduously negotiated projects fell victim to the financial crisis on Thursday. The planned IPO of Deutsche Bahn have been put on hold. German commentators have their doubts if it will ever get back on track.

Wave bye-bye to the privatization of German rail. With the global financial crisis showing no sign of abating, German crisis managers find themselves both adjusting future budgetary expectations and reconsidering earlier economic decisions. Among the objects of second-guessing are plans to privatize Deutsche Bahn, Germany's national railway company. The initial public offering process had been scheduled to begin on Monday and the company, expecting to take in upwards of €4 billion, had already been courting international investors for months.

Thursday, government officials announced that the privatization would be delayed until further notice. "We are not going to put the assets on the capital markets at the wrong time," Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück said.

The postponement is a bitter pill to swallow for Germany's ruling "Grand Coalition" between Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. The privatization plans -- which called for the company's passenger, freight and logistic divisions to be spun off into a holding company, 24.9 percent of which was to be privatized -- were the product of months of arduous negotiations between the coalition partners. It was also among the government's few headlining achievements during its three years in power.