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

‘The Germans had terrible experiences with inflation in the twentieth century’, recalled Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) in March 2012. He was speaking to two journalists from the tabloid newspaper Bild at the ECB’s headquarters, who had just given him a Pickelhaube. ‘It does away with value and makes forecasting impossible. More still – inflation can downright destroy the society of a country.’1 To be dead set against inflation, to be for a strong currency, and to be independent of politics – these were ‘German virtues’. And they were virtues, Draghi said, that every European central banker should strive towards.2