It seems to me that anyone who reckons he or she knows what will happen next is engaging in an act of self-deception. British Eurosceptics should certainly not make the error of presuming that German Eurosceptics are the same as they are. Merkel is a mystery even to her own party: she grew up as the daughter of a Lutheran pastor in East Germany, and the traditions of West German Christian Democracy mean nothing to her. She alone, as an outsider, was sufficiently free, courageous, and uncontaminated by Kohl's murky methods of maintaining his own power, to overthrow him. As Cameron and George Osborne have realised, it would be unreasonable to expect her to overthrow the euro too. The Germans are condemned to try to make a go of a currency which was launched without adequate political or constitutional foundations, and which, as George Soros recently warned, could end by destroying the European Union. However stable Berlin may be, the currency can still be shaken by a rebellion against German rules and German-imposed deflation in Athens, or Rome, or Madrid, or perhaps in some place so tranquil that the world does not realise an explosion is imminent. 

David Heathcoat-Amory, Tory MP for Wells from 1983-2010, observed during a spell as a Foreign Office minister in the early 1990s: "German politicians would never challenge the basic mission of the EU as they felt that Germany was only tolerable to its neighbours when firmly tied in to a supranational structure. However they were helpful over matters such as trade and the importance of the American connection, and with very few exceptions I found them friendly and co-operative. But they had a weakness for rules, however unrealistic or unenforceable."

This weakness for rules, and reluctance to challenge the basic mission, can still be found in Germany. The British instinct, when faced by a seemingly impossible situation, is to cut and run: an act befitting a maritime nation. When one's ship is threatened one cuts the cable holding the anchor and runs before the wind, to take the chance of ending up somewhere better. This not always glorious instinct accounts for the short-term attitude we take to industry. If a venture does not work quickly, we are inclined to try something else. Anglo-Saxon capitalism strikes the Germans as a gigantic and disreputable casino, in which everyone tries to make a quick buck and no one ever invests for the long term.

That is not the German way. Once they have put their minds to some great enterprise, they are not put off by the first adverse gust. When I bought a Volkswagen in order to drive round Germany in the 1990s, the manual assured me it was a good car because of "the conscientious efforts of everyone concerned". Twenty years ago, when that manufacturer was in trouble and an employee at its great works at Wolfsburg in Lower Saxony was asked how they were going to get out of it, he replied: "We'll work and we'll work and we'll work." There is a thoroughness to the German approach, an assumption that if everyone pulls with total dedication in the same direction all difficulties can in the end be surmounted. This is the attitude which many Germans, members of the public as well as politicians, bring to the euro. The fact that it is difficult to make the currency work is not a reason to give up, but to redouble one's efforts. After all, it has to work, or the savings accumulated from 60 years of hard work will be in danger.