and then there's a big mess. >> reporter: their annoyance doesn't surprise norbert walter, but he says germans should look to their own past before judging others incapable of changing. >> i believe if germans have benefited so much from the allied forces that accepted that the germans could be different from what they were in the third reich, we should not allow ourselves to argue the greek have always cheated, they will cheat in the indefinite future and therefore it is not worthwhile and we cannot even think of helping them. >> reporter: but try telling that to magdalena beulshausen. the 77-year-old pensioner and voter started saving as a girl, and never stopped. >> if you limited yourself a little bit, that wasn't too hard for me or my husband. >> reporter: now she has little patience for, or confidence in, her indebted european siblings. >> ( translated ): i think it's like with an alcoholic, who you try to but cannot save before he's all the way at the bottom. now they don't want to accept that they should save and reduce their spending, but they don't want for somebody from germ

population and half of its g.d.p., germany exports more than the united states in total, notes norbert walterrmer chief economist of deutsche bank. >> we germans have 1% of the labor force of the world and we have 10% of the exports in the world. that gives you an idea how successful and how oriented towards international markets we are. >> reporter: europe's ten-year- old common currency also helps a third of herrenknecht's sales go to his 17 eurozone neighbors, and pricing his machines in euros rather than what economists say would be a far stronger deutsche mark makes them even more competitive in world markets. currencies, you can imagine every morning i should study what is now, let's say, relation to the french fairchgs to the peso to the i couldn't work like this! >> reporter: we've come to germany to find out why it's doing so much better than its european partners. and part of the answer lies here, in the southwest state of baden-wurttemberg. the castle behind me may date from the 1700s, but the economic model they've developed here is 21st century plus. just outside the state capita