[nhaehnle]

Germans worked hard producing goods which they turn around and send to people outside Germany. This is a net loss for the Germans.

There is a lot of truth to that. It's important to keep in mind that Germany as a whole is doing that voluntarily, though. It is a (more or less) conscious political choice to be a net exporting nation, and it was achieved by (among other things) systematically depressing the real wage development in Germany by political means.

So the German position is really schizophrenic (and I'm saying that as a German). On the one hand, Germany has for the last ten years given presents (in real terms) to the rest of the world. But now Germans are saying that they don't want to give presents (aka bail outs) to other European countries, even while they insist on continuing to give presents (aka net exports) to other countries.

It is a self-contradicting policy.

The problem is that Germany - at least the German elite - benefited in the sense that accumulating financial assets against the rest of the world implicitly increases the power that Germany has over the rest of the world. So Germany is in this very powerful position right now, where nobody can effectively challenge the insanity of their self-contradicting policies, at least from the outside.

From the inside it is very hard work as well, because unfortunately the media campaigns in favor of net exports have been so effective that most regular people believe in their benefits.