Everyone agrees: the future of Europe lies in German hands. Berlin is now the de facto capital of the European Union, the place where the crucial decisions are taken. They speak about this shift in Brussels and Paris and certainly in Athens, Rome and Madrid. Everywhere in fact — except Germany.

The Germans don't dispute the facts. They know that they alone can afford to bail out the Greeks and that everyone else in the Eurozone, including France, has lost their triple-A rating. They know that it has fallen to Germany to establish the near €500 billion (Dh2.4 trillion) fund that will deal with future debt crises, the catchily named European Stability Mechanism that starts in July. They know that the new rules that the British prime minister David Cameron ‘vetoed' but did not stop in December will see Germany's 16 fellow Eurozone members have their budgets checked — "their homework marked" as one Eurocrat put it — in Berlin.

If Britain somehow found itself atop the European pile, its prime minister determining the political future of the continent, the British press would revel in the glory. But there is no such triumphalism in Germany. The change in fortune is barely discussed and certainly not celebrated. In the Europe of 2012, Germany stands as a reluctant Goliath. In conversations with politicians, journalists and others, no one denied that a shift had taken place — that the "Merkozy" notion of France and Germany in joint charge no longer fits the current situation of solo German strength. But they also agreed that this was a change few in the country wanted to trumpet.

Could that be because this new power comes at a heavy price, in the form of the billions Berlin will have to shovel towards ailing Greece? No. Dieter Janecek, a Green rising star who leads the party in Bavaria, told me the Greek bailout still feels ‘abstract' to most Germans. The standard of living remains high, with unemployment falling. Germany came through the post-2008 downturn all but unscathed. Recently VW workers each received a €6,000 bonus, reward for another good year. So Germans are not hurting.

Dangers of power

So it's not the cost that makes Germany keep quiet about its current dominance. The explanation goes deeper. "It's because of our history," says Janecek. Later a leading publisher tells me power makes her fellow Germans ‘uneasy', that the message drummed into them from childhood is that "a powerful Germany is a dangerous Germany". The war ended closer to 70 years ago, but the shadow it casts is still long and inescapable.

That legacy informs every aspect of German political culture. The German parliament elected Joachim Gauck as the country's new president on Sunday. A previous incumbent, Horst Kohler, resigned in 2010 after he had made a statement that in Britain or France would have barely turned a hair: he said that sometimes military force is needed to protect the country's economic interests, defending sea lanes and the like. Meanwhile, a defence minister, who also later resigned, became embattled over his refusal to use the word "war" to describe German combat in Afghanistan. "War is a four-letter word in Germany," says Arntz.

Both episodes turned on an ingrained post-1945 German wariness of anything that might smack of aggression or a desire to dominate, anything that might smack of the Nazi past.

Some of this is a fear of what the rest of the world will think, but much of it is a German fear of itself — of what Germany is capable of. This helps account for Merkel's durable popularity — her low-key, cautious style is suitably unthreatening — and explains why the politician who remarked last year that "Suddenly Europe is speaking German" was so hastily shut up.

That same fear is also why Germany needs Europe. For them, Europe is not just a matter of trade arrangements, it is also a solution to a deeper problem. As one observer told me, "a European identity is more comfortable than a German identity", given the bloody history.

There is a risk that Germany's neighbours are forgetting this need of the Germans. That amid all the talk of bailouts and fiscal tightening, we forget what the European community was for and the demons that made it necessary. But Germany has not forgotten. Goliath is still scared of his own strength.

— Guardian News & Media Ltd