Story highlights Tsipras has played a "very clever game of chicken," says a German newspaper editor

Merkel "knows she does not want to have a dead body on her hands," Josef Joffe says

Joffe: "Nobody wants to be in the position where he cuts his nose to spite his face"

(CNN) As it careens from one crisis to the next, many see Greece -- and its prime minister, Alexis Tsipras -- as a rudderless ship heading aimlessly toward inevitable and total economic collapse.

But the editor of a major German newspaper, Die Zeit, believes Tsipras' "very clever game of chicken" will almost certainly pay off.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel "knows she does not want to have a dead body on her hands -- not in Europe, not in her Europe," Josef Joffe told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Monday.

"German threats, and everybody else's threats, are not credible."

"There will be no Grexit, neither enforced nor voluntary," Joffe said, using the shorthand term for a Greek exit from the eurozone. "The simple reason, which many people don't understand, is that even with a Grexit, Greece still remains in Europe, and therefore it will have access to all kinds of zillions of money. ... The only thing that will change is the spigots where the money runs through."

Read More