We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To send this chapter to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle.
Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To send content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox.
To send content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive.
When two journalists of Bild, German’s best-selling tabloid, arrived in March 2012 at the European Central Bank (ECB) to interview its president, they brought with them a special gift. It was a Pickelhaube, or Prussian military helmet, dating from the time of the Franco-Prussian War.1 The present, the journalists explained, was to remind Mario Draghi, an Italian, that the newspaper had deemed him back in 2011 as the ‘most Germanic’ of candidates in the race for the ECB’s top position. According to Bild, the manner in which Draghi pursued his career demonstrated that he was imbued with what the tabloid saw as ‘Prussian virtues’.2 This fact overcame his problematic nationality – at least in the eyes of Bild – and made him the ideal man for the job.3