The German habit of saving money is so entrenched it has come to define the national character, according to the curators of an exhibition who say they hope to spark a much-needed debate about whether the obsession is healthy.



Saving – History of a German Virtue at the German Historical Museum in Berlin seeks to uncover why saving money is central to most Germans’ lives – even in times of historically low interest rates.

“In Germany everyone takes it for granted that they should save, both privately and on a state level,” said Robert Muschalla, an economic historian and the main curator. “The idea of making sure you stay in the black, is seen as a goal that is worth striving for at all costs, and is fetishistically stuck to.”

Saving boxes, money socks and piggy banks from every era since the foundation of the German nation in 1871 are on display in the exhibition. They illustrate the everyday acceptance of saving in Germany, as well as the extent to which it has been linked not just with personal morality but with serving a national purpose.

“The fate of the nation rests solely in our own strength,” reads the epithet on one box from the Nazi era. Another from 1900 reads: “Without saving, an empty chest. Without tidiness, nothing but burdens.”

A flyer from around 1938 in the exhibition reads: ‘Those who work and save – preserve German tradition!’ Photograph: © Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin

Muschalla, together with the director of the museum, Raphael Gross, say the exhibition - believed to be the first ever on the subject anywhere – was largely a response to the international exasperation felt towards Germany during the the eurozone crisis. Germany was accused of traumatising southern Europeans, particularly the Greeks, with its insistence that they bring their unmanageable deficits into line by imposing German-style austerity measures.

“The question is, why are Germans often so proud to be the world’s champion savers?” Gross said before the exhibition’s opening at the weekend.

It includes media coverage that reflects the anger towards the unyielding German obsession with fiscal discipline. The cover of one Greek magazine shows Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, depicted as a terrorist in an orange jumpsuit.

Most Germans are appalled at such insinuations. But many will readily admit that belt-tightening and putting off enjoying the fruits of their labour are German-specific traits. Some put it down to the Protestant work ethic that has a great influence on German life to this day. The state where saving is most prevalent, however, is Baden-Württemberg, which is mainly Catholic.

The Nest Egg, painted by Wilhelm Leibl in 1877, features in the exhibition Photograph: © Leihgabe der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal, Antje Zeis-Loi, Medienzentrum Wuppertal

The exhibition also explores certain advertising slogans including the highly successful “Geiz ist Geil”, or “Thriftiness is sexy”, which was used by a major electronics retailer for several years.

“This is the worst phrase to have been invented in this country since ‘Heil Hitler’,” says Henryk M Broder, a controversial commentator for the daily Die Welt and a speaking head on a video loop in the exhibition. “While I would myself baulk at paying €24 for a salade nicoise, I think saving can sometimes be pathological.” He calls the “national sport” of collecting coupons and driving considerable distances between supermarkets to pick up the money-off deals “a waste of a life”.

The exhibition examines the origin of savings banks. The first savings bank in the world was founded in Hamburg in 1778. It was inspired by the enlightenment ideals of social progress and was set up to serve the urban poor and help them emerge from their plight.

Later, from around the 1850s, saving developed into something of a national movement. Schools were encouraged to teach their pupils to save with the introduction of a schools savings bank. Simultaneously, there was an exponential rise in the number of savings accounts. Far from just being a means to fight poverty, people started to save for the national good. By 1875, at least a quarter of the German population had savings accounts. Local savings banks, or sparkassen, were used by municipal authorities to help fund the new Germany’s infrastructure.

A poster from 1917-18 encourages people to invest in war bonds. Photograph: © Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin

The popularity of personal savings grew even more in the first world war when people were encouraged to invest in war bonds, enticed by slogans that insisted this would help shorten the conflict and help Germany to victory.

In 1923, Germans’ savings were eroded by hyperinflation. In May of that year 150bn marks was enough to build an apartment block while six months later it was just enough to buy 625g of meat. “This trauma is one which continues to haunt the nation even today,” said Muschalla.

Before Hitler came to power, the Nazis, keen to blame Jews for everything, were able to successfully sell the idea that “Jewish finance capital” was the reason for the hyperinflation that had robbed Germans of their savings. This also exacerbated the view that savers were morally upright and hardworking, and investors more like wayward gamblers, receiving gains despite having not worked for them. It also helped them to encourage so-called “iron saving”, to finance the war.

A poignant exhibit that shows how the regime’s pernicious antisemitic ideology deeply infected savings culture is the savings book given to the Jewish baby Gabriele Samson in May 1933 by her parents’ savings bank. It became worthless only a short time later under the Nazi racial laws that forbade Jews from having savings accounts or any private property.



Muschalla points out that even having their savings wiped out entirely – firstly after the first world war and once again after the second – did nothing to discourage Germans from continuing to save. “This shows us that saving is something very habitual, it is an entrenched custom, rather than just an economic strategy,” he said.

• This article was amended on 25 April 2018 to match the translation more closely to the jingle “Ohne Ordnung, nichts als Lasten”. Our original gave this as: “If you have nothing, you’ll be a burden.”