Forget about the US in connection with Germany. Half of Germany's exports are to the rest of the EU. There, Germany benefits from the single market, can use Euro membership to effectively keep their currency undervalued with respect to what the DM would have done had it not been for the Euro. In addition, German capital enjoyed access to new markets where they could buy assets cheaply when the EU expanded in 2004, while at the same time claiming that the had an economic crisis going on at home and they could not allow the Eastern Europeans to work in Germany after 2006 (this was at the peak of the business cycle!).  

The brainless should not be in banking -- Willem Buiter