[danmaz74]

The point is that Germany IS going to pay for the crisis anyway, because if Greece, Spain and Italy defaulted, the German banks would lose hundreds of billions of euros of German money. The European economy would enter a crisis that would last years (decades?), and most of German exports are to other European countries - thinking that they could have a great economy amid a European depression is just stupid. And I'm not even thinking about the possibility of wars should become "everyone for himself" in Europe again.

So, it isn't a matter of self interest vs. generosity: it is a matter of understanding that it would be MUCH less costly to make the ECB lender of last resort now than to wait and just hope that things will fix themselves. Moreover, in Italy the only real risk is that of interest rates on its massive debt going too high: Italy already has a primary budget surplus, with "normal" rates the debt would already be shrinking.