BERLIN — If there are two qualities prized by modern Germans, they surely are Ruhe (peace and quiet) and Ordnung (order).

So the past few months have been profoundly unsettling. First, the United States — the very power that helped Germany to its feet after 1945 and instilled democracy in the ruins of Hitler’s Reich — was found to be a less than transparent ally. The National Security Agency, riding roughshod over concepts of privacy and individual freedom treasured by Germans, had collected huge amounts of electronic data from ordinary citizens and had even spied on the chancellor, Angela Merkel.

That shocking news — “snooping among friends, that just doesn’t work,” as Ms. Merkel put it — is still reverberating through the political elite and most recently spurred Parliament to appoint a committee to look into the case.

Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor lionized by many here for having exposed the extent of American intelligence operations, may even testify by video link from his temporary exile in Moscow.