The crisis of the German model and the Kaput paradigm

The text diagnoses Germany's crisis not as a sum of errors, but as structural regression—the loss of adequacy of the entire state model. The author introduces the concept of the 'Kaput' paradigm, describing a situation in which former virtues (export surplus, fiscal discipline, cheap gas) became sources of systemic weakness. The main cause of the decline is fragmentary rationality: actions beneficial to individual sectors or corporations in the short term proved catastrophic on the scale of the entire state. Germany is stuck in a continuation trap, financing the past instead of investing in digitalization and modern energy, which led to infrastructure debt and strategic dependence on autocratic regimes.