Germany has a reputation to lose: solidity en quality is expected. Therefore the latest revelation of Der Spiegel is sobering.
All the country's top commercial banks and the publicly owned regional banks known as Landesbanken took part in a survey which revealed that the banks hold so-called "toxic" securities totalling just under €300 billion of which only a quarter has been written off.
The Finance Ministry in Berlin estimates that the entire German banking sector is still holding risky securities totalling up to €1 trillion.
The value in their books is imaginary, nobody has any idea what the real worth is.
To put this in perspective: the debt of the German federal government is approx.€1 trillion.
Shocking.
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