TO UNDERSTAND the complex relationship that Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank (ECB), enjoys with Germany you could do worse than flick through the archives of Bild, the country’s biggest tabloid. “Mamma Mia!” it fretted in February 2011, when Mr Draghi, then governor of Italy’s central bank, emerged as a candidate. “With Italians, inflation is a way of life, like tomato sauce with pasta.” Two months later, after a charm offensive by Mr Draghi, the paper relented, praising his Germanic rectitude and showing a picture of him under a Pickelhaube (a spiked Prussian helmet). But in August 2012, soon after Mr Draghi said he would do “whatever it takes” to save the euro, Bild said it would demand its helmet back if Mr Draghi opened the money spigot for lazy Spaniards and Italians. This week, with Mr Draghi preparing to announce plans for quantitative easing (QE)—creating money to buy sovereign debt—the tabloid warned of devaluation, doom and decline (if not, yet, inflation).Mr Draghi was never the crazed money-printer of German nightmares. But like other central bankers, he has…
