Germany's doing WHAT with its piggy bank? The debt-shy nation goes full YOLO.
For decades Germany was allergic to debt. But new chancellor Friedrich Merz has - unexpectedly - loosened the country’s constitutional debt brake, injecting hundreds of billions of euros into the armed forces and infrastructure. The move, he hopes, will revive Europe’s largest economy and build up its military as Donald Trump’s US administration dismantles the transatlantic relations that underpinned Germany’s postwar recovery. The FT travels to Frankfurt and Berlin to examine why investment in crumbling schools, roads and rail infrastructure - and defence - is needed and to ask if the spending gamble will kickstart Germany's economic engine.
Direction
Garrahan packs decades of fiscal theology into 25 tight minutes.
Production
Frankfurt skyline porn meets crumbling school hallways. Stark.
Director
Daniel Garrahan
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 'Schuldenbremse' (debt brake) was sacred post-2008 gospel; Merz shredding it signals a tectonic shift in German political DNA.
The documentary's timing is everything — filmed as Trump's second term dismantles NATO assumptions Germany built its entire postwar identity around.
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