One result was a boon for German exports. By keeping a lid on wages, Germany made its exporters’ products more competitive in the global marketplace. Germany was making more stuff than it was consuming, and exporting the surplus to the rest of the world, especially the rest of Europe.

Which brings us back to the euro zone crisis. People (especially Germans) often view the crisis, which first became severe four years ago this spring, through this frame: Profligate, free-spending nations along Europe’s southern coast (we’re looking at you, Greece, Italy and Spain) borrowed more money than they could possibly repay; then, when the bill came due, they nearly caused the collapse of the common euro currency before being bailed out by their more responsible Northern European neighbors.

That’s not wrong, necessarily, but it is incomplete.

The run-up in debt in Spain and Greece and Italy was the flip side of Germany’s success in containing workers’ wages and improving exports. Germany sold more stuff to Southern Europe than it bought. It took the profits and, in effect, lent the money back to those same Southern European countries. In Greece and Italy, it showed up as government borrowing, and in Spain as a housing bubble fueled by bank loans.

It all fell apart once the indebtedness of the Southern European countries became too much to bear. Because all these countries use the same currency, the euro, none could relieve the pressure by devaluing their currency as they might have with their own lira, drachma or peseta.