They call it the “winner’s curse”. Success lulls you into a false sense of security. It is the temptation beguiling the German people as they relax their grip on Covid-19 a little too soon – to the horror of Dr Angela Merkel.

Nord-Rhein Westphalia has reopened car dealerships. Rheinland-Pfalz is opening some shopping malls and zoos. School pupils are going back to class for the Abitur exams.

Some Länder (German states) are pushing the envelope a long way, although Bavaria’s Marcus Söder – “Herr Lockdown” to his foes – is still holding firm for now.

The Berlin police say discipline was visibly breaking down over the weekend. Clusters of young people were gathering for barbecues. Others were crossing the city promiscuously to see friends.

The same sense of nonchalant normality was apparent in Hamburg, Hanover and other cities.

It seems that the first tentative steps to end Germany’s lockdown has caused a “messaging” problem, something that the behavioural nudge unit in Downing Street will be watching closely. People are acting as if the virus has been defeated. This psychological shift may be hard to reverse.

Chancellor Merkel castigated the leadership of her CDU party yesterday over “an orgy of chatter” on relaxation plans. She told journalists that the coronavirus is “treacherous” and will come back with exponential force if the country lowers its guard. “We are still a long way from being out of the woods. It would be a crying shame if we were to stumble into a relapse with eyes wide open,” she said.

But health policy is the prerogative of the Länder. Dealing with them is like herding cats. Merkel is under massive pressure from business lobbies and segments of her own CDU party to get the economy going again. There are echoes of the US culture wars.

North-Rhein Westpahlia’s premier, Armin Laschet – front-runner to succeed Merkel – is de facto leader of the Trumpian “liberate-the-people” wing of the party, as well as being an enthusiast for coal-fired plants and a closet climate denialist.

Michael Hüther from the German Economic Institute (IW) speaks for much of the economic professoriate in railing against lockdown measures, protesting that the damage to the German productive system (and indirectly to mental and physical health) has not been properly costed and that the cure is worse than the disease.

The Mittelstand family firms that form the backbone of the Wirtschaftswunder "economic miracle" in Germany are falling through the safety net. The restaurant, hotel, and travel sectors face irreversible ruin. Germany, he says, will end up in a full-blown depression if there is no remedy very soon.