Mithril partly owns German solar panel manufacturer Solan, which also holds a stake in Solar Sailor.

FORBES: Solar Energy Takes To The Sea

And there are many splendid set-pieces, such as the farcical story of her marriage to acquire British citizenship when war was looming and she, partly Jewish, still had a German passport.

ECONOMIST: English memoirs

The German residential market is attractive partly because Germans enjoy the continent's healthiest economy but pay the lowest relative rents in Western Europe, according to Green Street.

WSJ: Apartment Firm Hopes to Build on German Demand

Partly because it was the first such interrogation of a sitting German minister to be broadcast live, gallons of ink were spilled and hours of air time devoted to analysing every detail of Mr Fischer's performance.

ECONOMIST: Germany's generation gap

The risk that Italy might not qualify for the single currency straight away partly explains why the market still predicts a gap between Italian and German rates in 1999.

ECONOMIST: European interest rates

That's partly because forgiving Greece its official debts might well cause fury among German taxpayers - currently owed almost 90bn euros by the Greek state, if Bundesbank funding of lending by the Greek central bank is included (the so-called Target2 balance).

BBC: Greece: Euro exit delayed?

The German side is acting as if it is still alone, partly for fear of sullying the imperious Mercedes brand with the rugged Chrysler image.

ECONOMIST: DaimlerChrysler

Its bigger rival, Metro, where Mr Urban worked for 25 years, also has a troubled German department-store chain, Kaufhof, but it has been partly redeemed by its substantial cash-and-carry business, which operates in 23 countries.

ECONOMIST: KarstadtQuelle

Luxembourg argues that German tax rates are too high, so that savers are tempted abroad a logic that the German government, which wants to cut its marginal tax rates, seems to have partly accepted.

ECONOMIST: European Union