As their eyes alight on the small sign that goes with it, which reads “barefoot zone” in German, grown men freeze as though they have hit a force field, or had an electric shock administered for being foolish enough to try to pass it still shod. But I can not say what the repercussions would be. This being Germany, I have never seen anyone wearing shoes on the far side of the line and certainly would not risk it myself.

Such strict obedience is all the more impressive when you realize that the red line’s ruthless effectiveness comes with no staff members watching over it, no video camera in evidence, nor, as far I am aware, even any electric shocks. Yet I am certain that in a changing room in Paris, much less Rome, the narrow little line’s authority would be nonexistent, a half-hearted suggestion or maybe just a joke.

I thought of that dull line of tile as American policy makers tried last week to persuade the German government to cross a psychological threshold, and break fiscal discipline to spend their way out of recession.

In most daily interactions, the Germans do not need anyone to enforce their rules.  http://louis5j5sheehan5.blogspot.com They follow them — and remind one another to follow them through impromptu lectures that are often heated — because they are raised to know that is what they are supposed to do.

What the Germans call Ordnung (the usual translation is “order,” but it is a much broader concept) is the unwritten road map of one society’s concerted effort to permanently banish the instability and violence that have marked its history. That sense of insecurity includes Germany’s forced division in the cold war, the Nazi era and the hyperinflation of the 1920s, but it also stretches at least as far back as the Thirty Years’ War in the 17th century, which decimated much of the German territories and population, and was a formative trauma.

The response has been to develop a national knack for sticking to the program, not just in specific areas, but in most aspects of life. The autobahn is more than just a highway with stretches where you can drive as fast as you want; it is also a marvel of self-organization. Old Fiats chug along in the right lane, while newer Volkswagens cruise the middle one, allowing sparkling Porsches to zoom by in terrifying blurs on the left. Everyone is in their assigned places, except for the fact that places have not been assigned.

More endearing to me are earnest Teutonic attempts to be laid back, as when a young would-be tough at a local basketball court — mistaking Berlin’s Volkspark Friedrichshain for upper Manhattan’s Rucker Park circa 1970 — boasted that I had better brace myself for the playground game, because “in street ball, there are no rules.” He then proceeded to enumerate carefully and politely which rules were ignored (e.g., three seconds in the lane), which were laxly enforced (non-shooting fouls) and which were still obeyed (traveling).

A German friend disagreed with my broadest stereotyping, pointing to the profusion of German tax dodgers who rush to Liechtenstein and Switzerland, and the exceptional number of people here who cut in line. “You say Italians have no respect for rules, but they will actually kick you out of a restaurant for asking for parmesan on your tuna pasta,” he pointed out. But he admitted that Germans were more likely to trust that each rule was probably written for a good reason, intended for the greater good.

Living in Germany, a foreigner quickly learns to appreciate the precise punctuality of trains and trams, but also to have a healthy fear of that same punctuality in dinner guests who appear when they were invited, instead of 20 minutes later. A group of Germans lined up on an empty street corner, even in the middle of the night, waiting for a light to change before crossing, is one of the favorite first impressions taken away by visiting Americans, who are usually jaywalking past as they observe it.

For self-reliant Americans, the German devotion to all manner of precise rules and regulations is impressive and stifling in equal measures. http://louis5j5sheehan5.blogspot.com For American policy makers, it appears to have bred no small amount of exasperation recently.

During the often heated trans-Atlantic debate over the financial crisis, and how to respond to the worsening recession that has grown out of it, I often have felt as though the American side sometimes fails to take into account that it is talking to Germans. Indeed, if there was going to be a disagreement between the United States and Germany over stimulus and regulation, one could guess just by looking at the words, stripped of their economic context, who has been on which side of the divide.

President Obama’s approach to the financial crisis has been typically American — bold, improvisatory and on the fly. The Germans have been studied and measured, evincing a far greater trust than the Americans in their social-security system to patch the cracks in the foundation of their economy.

Of course that is due in part to the famed German aversion to excessive deficit spending, stemming from gut-level fear of a repeat of the hyperinflation of the 1920s. But there is also the German adherence to rules, love of a good plan and cautious, thoughtful approach when it slowly becomes apparent that a return trip to the drawing board may be necessary.

Can we really blame them? They tried improvising once, tearing up the rule book in the first half of the last century, letting a little charismatic speaker with an even littler mustache tell them how to get out of a tough economic pinch. He, too, posed as a man of order, but everyone, and especially the Germans, agrees that led only to chaos and destruction.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

But today’s Germans also love keeping to the slowly forged consensus because, as the last 60-odd years have demonstrated, it really does run pretty well for them. Despite reasonable working hours and long vacations, this country of 82 million people is the largest exporter of goods in the world, beating even China. But the kind of society built to excel at tinkering with precision-tuned industrial machines may not be so good at retooling policies on the fly.