Peter Kittel has been profiting from Christmas markets for the last eight years and he hopes that this year will be no different. A Report by Carmen Meyer and Ute Schneider.

Meanwhile, the battle against bonuses appears to have been lost. Report by Oliver Hoesch.

DW-TV: What's your take on bankers' bonuses? Is it tasteless or actually justified?

Wolfgang Gerke: No, it isn't justified. Worldwide something went wrong with the bonus payments. You got a very high bonus if you were someone who was making the most risky investments, and that was not the right way. The bonus system itself is a good incentive, but then we have to create a system which takes into consideration the risks too. That's the most important thing. You can't get your bonus every year. You have to wait three years, I would say. And then you can see if it really was a success or if you only put your bank at risk.

DW-TV: Banks had to take a lot of stick lately, especially because of all this risk-taking mentality. So wouldn't be a good idea to improve one's image by cutting down on those bonuses?

Wolfgang Gerke: It would be a very good idea, but I don't believe it's going to happen. There are so many different banks at the moment. Some German Landesbank wouldn't be able to pay bonuses and there are other banks, for example in the United States, Goldman Sachs, they are earning more and more money every day and they are the winner of the financial crisis. They are even earning money by the state placing bonds into the market. Therefore it's difficult to say that we need a system for all the banks, but I would ask for a system that if there are bonus payments and dividend payments, then you have to put reserves into your portfolio. The banks will not do that themselves so we need the G20 to decide on that.

DW-TV: Obviously since the financial crisis hit, most banks all around the world were pretty much strapped for cash and now we hear about this renaissance of bonus payments. You just mentioned that there are several banks now making a profit again. Deutsche Bank is among those as well, which is somewhat surprising just one year, more or less, after Lehman Brothers collapsed. Does this mean that the crisis we've been talking about has been exaggerated or how is this possible?

Wolfgang Gerke: No, no. It hasn't been exaggerated. This was a very very dangerous crisis and without the taxpayer it would have been dreadful. But, even the banks, earning so much money at the moment, are on the side of the winners because even if there is bank like Hypo Real Estate and the state is paying for that bank, then Deutsche Bank and other banks have less losses than they would have had. Therefore we must say that in the future every bank must be able to come through a crisis. Otherwise, one has to close the bank.

Interview: Monica Jones

Hahnemühle is continually developing new technologies. A global market leader in the area of fine arts papers, the company's foreign sales have exceeded its domestic turnover in recent years. A report by Dagmar Zindel.

This required employees to raise funds then amounting to 1 million D-Marks. Several took second mortgages on their homes and others sold their cars. It was an enormous gamble, but it paid off in the end. Miltiades Arsenopoulos reports on the success story: Not only has UNION weathered the economic crisis, but turnover in previous years has risen to some 30 million euros.

For each day that work stops on the rig, oil companies can lose up to 30 million euros. To prevent this nightmare scenario, company Voith Turbo developed a smart-drive system. The new supply ships are fitted with propellers that help them stay on course in high waves and extreme winds. Hagen Tober tests one of the vessels in rough waters.

Employees at the Opel site in Bochum are fuming with rage. Their plant has been the target of cost saving measures for years -- does GM's decision now mean the end of all their hopes? With 5000 workers, Opel is Bochum's most important employer. Closing the plant would be disastrous for city coffers. Sonja Schock reports from the heart of Germany's Ruhr district, a region in transition -- from smoke stack to high-tech industries.

DW-TV: Well for more on the fate of Opel I'm joined by Andreas Bremer from the Institute for Automobile Research in the western German town of Essen. Mr. Bremer, are you upset that GM wants to keep Opel?

Andreas Bremer: Am I upset? No. Am I surprised? Yes.

DW-TV: Was this a PR disaster for GM? Is that what it amounts to right now?

Andreas Bremer: I really think that's probably the main problem, yes, because you have emotions that are just flaring high and people feel like they've been kept in the dark. And all of a sudden there's a surprise that nobody was counting on.

DW-TV: All right. Let's try to move beyond the emotions for a moment and look at the numbers right now. We've got a graphic for our viewers, actually, showing the performance of Opel around the world. Sales of Opel cars have actually dropped by fifty percent in the last decade from 500 thousand in 1998 to around 258 thousand last year. What is the problem there? Has GM been a bad manager or has Opel simply ignored what the market wants?

Andreas Bremer: It's probably a bit of both and a third factor: we have a shrinking market worldwide anyway. So it's not just an Opel problem, it's a worldwide problem for all manufacturers. And then I think that after eighty years Opel and GM weren't really getting along that well for the last, let's say, five years maybe, I don't know what time frame you want to put on that. And Opel, on the other hand, missed a lot of opportunities. They were the first ones to introduce SUVs in Europe and forgot about them, so by the time they became popular, guess who didn't have an SUV?

DW-TV: Opel.

Andreas Bremer: Right.

DW-TV: Why not let Opel go bankrupt? I mean, there's too much overcapacity right now anyway. Why not let Opel go bankrupt and let the market regenerate itself? Wouldn't that actually be better for these unemployed workers in the long-term?

Andreas Bremer: Well, long-term I don't know. I have no idea what the situation's going to be like in five years or six years. I don't think that anybody in the political arena will allow Opel to go bankrupt.

DW-TV: Yeah, but why is that? Magna has said we will not close these plants down. GM has not come out and said that as well. The politicians, they can't really give us a guarantee what GM or Magna would do two years down the line, can they?

Andreas Bremer: No, exactly, and I think GM plan's not going to differ much from the Magna plan on paper. The problem is emotions. People feel that they've been had, that GM wasn't telling the truth for quite a while, that they had this in the back of their heads all the time and they pulled it out and now we have to deal with it.

DW-TV: This is a story that is changing every day now and I'm sure that probably in a couple of days or maybe even later today we'll have a decision on something there anyway. Mr. Bremer, thank you very much for talking with us.

These days, the ceramics manufacturer sells its products in over 125 countries, and foreign sales make up 80 percent of turnover. We profile the company and meet up with Wendelin von Boch and Nicolas Luc Villeroy in the town of Mettlach. A report by Manuela Kasper-Claridge.

Given the downturn in the construction industry in recent years, few young people opted to study civil engineering. Now the Brandenburg University of Technology in Cottbus wants to meet market needs by working closely with the construction industry. For many graduates and current students, that effort has already paid dividends. Report by Sonja Schock.

DW-TV: Let's pull in Alexander Herzog-Stein. He's a labor market expert from the Hans-Böckler Foundation. We just saw a great example of a success story on the labor market in the former East Germany. But the reality is, and I mean I hate to, you know, spoil the party here, but unemployment is higher in the East than in the West, wages are lower in the East than in the West. Will the East ever catch up?

Alexander Herzog-Stein: You know, at the moment we have to have doubts. Growth is simply not sufficient to see a catch-up process in the East in the near future.

DW-TV: Why is that?

Alexander Herzog-Stein: I think the East, the eastern economy is still burdened by the mistakes which have been made in the re-unification process.

DW-TV: Was the biggest mistake that the East Germans were promised that in a very short amount of time that they would be equal with West Germany?

Alexander Herzog-Stein: I think the biggest mistake was that the task was taken too easy. You know, it was expected that we could do it without any problems and it is a big task and it takes time. I think, you know, that it's not a twenty years time span which was promised but we should have taken responsibility to see that it is a big task if we want to achieve that. That was not the case at the beginning.

DW-TV: Is it realistic to expect that the East will ever be on par with the West?

Alexander Herzog-Stein: I think we still should not give up this target. However, something has to change. We have to see higher growth rates in the future in the East to accomplish that and we also have to be realistic in the sense that it will not be completely equal. That's not the case everywhere in Germany. There are differences in the West as well and there will be differences in the East.

DW-TV: Let's fast forward to the economic crisis that we're dealing with right now all over Germany. We want to show our viewers a graphic of unemployment and how unemployment has actually been falling in Germany. We've had a nice decline up until about the summer, the fall of last year, when the financial crisis hit. The United States, the UK, they've had huge jumps in unemployment. Germany has not. What are the Germans doing correctly?

Alexander Herzog-Stein: You know, apart from the short-time work which has been a big success story and Germany has a lot of experience with that labor market tool, it is one thing which has been overlooked for a long time. This is what labor economists call internal flexibility. Germany is very flexible in adjusting the working time of workers in companies to the economic circumstances.

DW-TV: That's a good point. But this short-time program, a lot of our viewers might not know what that is, that's when the government actually comes in and supplements the salaries for workers who are working fewer hours. That's very expensive for the taxpayer. Can Germany continue to keep funding that?

Alexander Herzog-Stein: It is not a program which should go on forever, but in the short term, you know, in the business cycle downturn it's cheaper than laying off people. So there has to be a perspective in the future that growth will return and then it was overall a success story.

DW-TV: The new German government is spending a lot of money now on a program for growth. Is that the right path?

Alexander Herzog-Stein: I think the strategy is right, you know. To provide a strategy for growth. However, unfortunately, the tools, the measures proposed by the new government, I have doubts that they are the right measures to put us on a higher growth path.

DW-TV: OK. Mr. Herzog-Stein, I wish we had time to talk more. Thank you very much for coming in to talk with us today.

The competition in the outdoor segment is fierce, with customers demanding both design and functionality. But Antje von Dewitz is confident she can meet these high expectations. She's turned VAUDE into a particularly family-friendly company: it has in-house childcare facilities and gives workers the opportunity to work part-time or from home. Report by Patrick Benning.

In addition to Zeiss, many other high-tech companies, such as Jenoptik and Schott are based here. And the city's Friedrich Schiller University of Jena attracts students from around the globe. Our reporter Jürgen Schneider went to take a look around.

Now the area is home to leading international media firms and fashion labels. A report by Carmen Meyer.

Now the company responsible for the nuclear waste, SKB, has made a decision - one of the towns will get the radioactive waste, the other will go empty-handed. A report by Hagen Tober.

To the firm's surprise around 10 percent of the population in Ulm has joined the project, regularly using a fleet of 200 Smarts. A report by Joachim Eggers.

DW-TV: Are the winds changing for renewable energy companies? Does green energy come out of your power sockets at home?

Thomas Ilka: I don't know, because I don't have built-in energy mix at home. Out of my power sockets comes the cheapest I could afford because I have five kids and I have to look for where my money goes.

DW-TV: Yeah, that's an expensive proposition there with 5 children. Can you understand though when a lot of people say that they don't want to go the green route with energy at home because it's simply more expensive than conventional energy sources.

Thomas Ilka: What I appreciate is that you have the choice in Germany to do so. That's a good thing and people do have the choice and they make those choices.

DW-TV: Let's talk a little bit about the choices here in Germany. We've got a graph that we want to show people about how the energy is mixed up here in Germany. The largest source remains the oldest source, coal, about 43 percent, followed by nuclear energy, and then way down on the list you see renewables and natural gas. Now, Politicians say they want to reverse those numbers and make renewable energies the MAIN source of electricity of energy here in Germany. We've got a new government in Germany and they've been very vague about a time plan for that. Is it possible to generate a time plan for making renewables the main source?

Thomas Ilka: Well in energy policy, you count by decades and that's also true for the development of the energy mix. You have quoted the numbers and they show that renewables have their part but it needs a lot of time to push them to a more, a greater part in the energy mix.

DW-TV: Is that why the German government is saying we want to keep nuclear power longer than was planned by the previous government?

Thomas Ilka: This is sort of buying time to do so. So if I was a renewable supporter, I won't fear that. This makes the energy mix broader and gives more chances to the development.

DW-TV: So you say nuclear power is not a threat to the development of renewables?

Thomas Ilka: No. We need them all. I mean if you look at the discussion on the climate summit in Copenhagen which we will have in a few weeks time there are so many countries which rely on both, on nuclear and on renewables and of course on the third pillar on coal. As I said we need them all and to fulfil all these targets we are shooting at.

DW-TV: The United States now is putting a lot of money and investments into wind, renewable energies. Is it going to take an economic giant like the United States to really push in the renewables before renewables can become self sufficient and no longer need government subsidies?

Thomas Ilka: That is, of course, a good development to reduce the amount of subsidies you need and if the US goes more of the way Europe has done in the past, there can be a reliable market for that.

DW-TV: Do you think that German companies, which have actually developed some of the green technology that we are seeing around the world are they banking on the US to go full green?

Thomas Ilka: Yes, of course they do. The US is a big market and there's a lot of chances for German companies to take part in this development.

DW-TV: Do you think the German government is planning on that too, let the Americans subsidize what we have already been subsidizing for a decade?

Thomas Ilka: What we already do is helping German business to put a foot in the market in the US. That is what we do and that is a good way.

Interview: Brent Geoff

MADE IN GERMANY paid a trip to the state of Brandenburg, where green energy has seen particularly generous support from the state, to get a sense of the mood there. A report by Elisabeth Pongratz.

His comapny now boasts a multi-million turnover, selling its products to major corporations in the chemicals industry such as BASF and Henkel - for use, for instance, in washing liquids and cosmetics. A report by Grit Hofmann

DW-TV: For more I'm joined by Timm Tiller, co-founder of the International Institute for Family Enterprises at the Witten/Herdecke University. And, as I understand, it's the first such institute in the world. It was founded about two years ago. Why? What prompted it?

Timm Tiller: I mean, there is no academic institution worldwide dealing with Arab family enterprises, although the family enterprises in the region have a huge impact on the economy -- they are the driving force there. So you have deal with them, you have to talk to them.

DW-TV: But you also deal with German family companies, I understand, in order to get the connection.

Timm Tiller: Exactly. So our university, Witten/Herdecke, is very famous for dealing with German or let's say European family enterprises. So we are used to the topic.

DW-TV: Okay. Now your institute is actually organizing a summit -- the Arab-German Family Business Summit in Bahrain this year. Just briefly, what is the summit about?

Timm Tiller: It's a two-day event in Bahrain, as you said. And we are inviting exclusively on the owner's level 250 top family enterprises from all over the region and German-speaking Europe, and what we do there is we are establishing a very personal and elite network among family enterprises just to enable an exchange of ideas and experiences, and of course we want to learn from one another. And a very important issue is business opportunities -- so just to offer face-to-face business talks and to see whether there are opportunities or not.

DW-TV: Well there seem to be quite some familiarities between the Arab world and Germany when it comes to family business. The Minister of Industry and Commerce of the Kingdom of Bahrain says that family businesses have been "the cornerstone of Bahrain's commercial heritage and today have a significant role" in its economy. It's pretty much the same thing here in Germany, and we have prepared a graphic for you.

In 2008, some 95 percent of all companies in Germany were family businesses, and they produced 42 percent of the country's total revenue and employ 57 percent of the country's workforce. Now, where then would you say German family businesses differ from Arab family businesses?

Timm Tiller: First of all, they have a lot in common. This is very important to highlight. Because they share common goals; they have the same potential and the same challenges. However, the ways they approach and tackle these opportunities and potentials and goals, this is what makes them very interesting, and this is what makes it very interesting to get in contact with these Arabs. So, due to the fact that they have a very different legal and political framework they have to deal with, and tradition plays an important role and religion plays an important role. It's just interesting to see and fruitful and beneficial for all of them to see how they manage being a family business.

DW-TV: Timm Tiller, thank you very much for being here with us today.

At the same time, municipal fire departments are always confronted with new materials that burn differently. Using the right tactics to extinguish such fires can keep help keep damage costs to a minimum. A report by Karl Harenbrock

Only company that are up on the latest trends can survive in this business. Rasch, a family firm has been printing wallpaper for more than a century. Even the famous Bauhaus wall-coverings were created by Rasch. A report by Dagmar Zindel

Today, there are only a few thousand workers left. The firms that have survived are the ones that specialized. The traditional Neptun Werft shipyard, for example, is now building boats for river cruises, and business is booming. A report by Christian Jaburg

Whether they've lost trust in their financial advisors or just want to learn more about how the crisis happened, people can't read enough about economics. And publishers and book sellers are laughing all the way to the bank. Our reporter Marion Hütter finds out about the latest trends in business books and visits printing firm Clausen & Bosse, which produces books for the international market.

DW-TV: We have a man in the studio with us today who is giving readers what they want. Dirk Müller, a stock broker from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, is also the author of the book Crash Course. Mr Müller, my first question: where do you make more money, with book sales or stock trades?

Dirk Müller: It's shifted somewhat. I was a broker on the floor for 16 years and within the last month it shifted to being an author and being the link between the financial market and the people outside and to explain to people outside what's happening behind the scenes. That's more interesting to me, to explain to people what's happening so that they can understand what's happening in the crisis.

DW-TV: You are a known face here in Germany. We'd like to show our viewers around the world what it is you do.

Yours is one of the most photographed faces on the floor of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. So much so that your are known as Mr. DAX. You've been with the Frankfurt Exchange since 1992--have seen the dot com fever and bust, post 9-11 fall and of course, the financial crisis.

You are part of the machinery that caused the crisis. Do you ever feel somewhat guilty?

Dirk Müller: No, not at all. We're all part of this system - everyone who is paying with the money we're paying with, the money with nothing behind, no gold behind, nothing behind, no commodities behind, it's just money...'in God we trust', that's it, we are all taking part in the system and there are a lot of problems with the system and we have to change these problems and it's a very hard and difficult way.

DW-TV: "In God we trust": Why should readers listen to what you have to say about the markets when you were sitting in the front row when everything went berserk!

Dirk Müller: I explained to people at the beginning of 2007 that there was a big problem coming, a big tsunami on the way...and to get out of their shares, to get out of everything. And I told people what's happening next. I got a lot of problems with that and a lot of wind against me for telling this. But I always tell people the truth, MY truth.

DW-TV: Is it dangerous when we're talking about financial markets to tell the truth?

Dirk Müller: Sometimes it's dangerous, yes, because a lot of people make billions of dollars and euros with this system. For them it's important that people don't know everything in too much detail.

DW-TV: Briefly, do you think traders are wiser today than they were a year ago?

Dirk Müller. I don't think so. They saw the problems years before, but so long as the music is playing the people want to dance. That's what happened before the crisis and that's what is happening now, the music is playing again and the people are on the danecfloor

DW-TV: Right, time to dance! Mr Müller, as always, thanks for talking to us.

Our reporter Joachim Eggers traveled to the Hanseatic city, looking for evidence of an imminent economic recovery. The trail led him to the Lexzau company, a transporter of chemical products, as well as Röhlig, a German firm which has opened new commercial offices in Asia and is now operating there under the brandname "Blue Tiger".

Today Leipzig welcomes goods from around the world. It's home to Europe's most state-of-the-art air freight hub, operated by logistics firm DHL. But the city also boasts a vibrant arts scene. Our reporter Dagmar Zindel visited a group of artists who work there in an former cotton mill.

The once-toxic chemical industry park has been cleaned up and even the countryside is attractive again. Three hundred firms have established their headquarters here and have created work for more than 11,000 people. Our reporter Joachim Eggers visits the head of the industrial park, Matthias Gabriel, who can still remember well one time in the old days when he sat down on a bench and the chemical residue there ate holes in his trousers.

But which chord will the rock musician strike in industry and politics? What role will he play in overcoming the financial crisis? Made in Germany reporter Carsten Tripolsky meets up with the union president-designate in Berlin.

The Munich market research firm "iconKids&youth" has specialized in grabbing a portion of the youth market for industry. New products are constantly being tested on the young and eager. Our reporter Henry Hasberg went to one of these test sessions and to see what happens when three Berlin teenagers get into a buying mood.

DW-TV: We need an expert to verify this. Let's pull in Rupali Steinmeyer, a commercial designer for the branding agency MetaDesign here in Berlin. Do kids really recognize brands at the age of five?

Rupali Steinmeyer: Absolutely. They're ready for it. They're ready for all the information that's associated with branding and products, and they get it from so many different sources these days, internet, television, the radio, newspapers and magazines. They're like little sponges, ready for it.

DW-TV: You have two kids. Are they sophisticated consumers?

Rupali Steinmeyer: Definitely. They are ten and eight and that's what they get from all over, school, the kindergarten, in the media. They can distinguish between brands. They talk about converse shoes, Barbie dolls, Lego blocks, there's always a brand associated with it.

DW-TV: Let's take a look at how much children spend. Six to 19 year olds spend 3 point four billion euros a year on clothes. More than two billion a year on mobile phones and more than one billion a year on fast food. Frau Steinmeyer, you are a mother and an advertising executive. Is that a conflict for you.

Rupali Steinmeyer: No. It's not a conflict. I'm not at all surprised, because the topics you just mentioned are what the kids are asking for. Fast food is a topic, when they're going to get their mobile is a topic, and clothes.

DW-TV: But you don't feel that children are drowning in too much brand consciousness right now?

Rupali Steinmeyer: I don't think so at all. I think that the information that they get...you have to find the right balance...but this is the type of information that they need to make the right decisions and the good choices they have to make later in life.

DW-TV: Let's talk about the global recession. What has it meant for your company and the branding business?

Rupali Steinmeyer: We've seen that the communications budgets have been slashed. Surprisingly enough we've seen that the in the insurance business there's been an increase in spending. In the case of a company like Swiss Re, Axa, they've done a lot of rebranding.

DW-TV: But how do you rebrand these companies. They have some of the worst reputations right now, in any industry. Credibility is zero. How do you rebrand that, rebuild that?

Rupali Steinmeyer: You've got to find a way of talking to customers again and focussing on building trust and credibility. It is important to do that at this time. Surprisingly banks are not talking much to consumers at the moment. The automotive industry on the other hand, they're investing a lot in rebranding and repositioning.

DW-TV: It may be hard for you to admit, but do you think that sometimes in the branding industry silence is the best message?

Rupali Steinmeyer: Sometimes yes.

DW-TV: Maybe that's what the banks are thinking right now.

Rupali Steinmeyer: Potentially. But I don't know if that's the right strategy.

DW-TV: Rupali Steinmeyer with MetaDesign: Thank you very much!

The German carmaker has invested 800 million euros here, the largest foreign investment in Hungary since the fall of communism. The plan is for 100,000 cars a year to be made in Kecskemét by 2012. Already the future is looking brighter. Still, there is some fear and skepticism. Made in Germany went to Kecskemét to have a look around. Michael Wetzel.

That's been greeted by many corporate decision-makers impressed by the FDP's business-friendly agenda aimed at strengthening medium-sized firms,limiting government borrowing while cutting taxes. How strong a business stamp can the FDP make on the new coalition? Miltiades Arsenopoulos took a look around on the company circuit.

DW-TV: What are your expections from this new coalition?

Joachim Ragnitz: Well, I suppose that people will see that reality is not the things that they promised in the election campaign, so I think most of the promises they made will not be fulfilled.

DW-TV: Well, let's pick one promise in particular: tax reduction. Both the CDU-CSU and the liberal Free Democrats promised in their campaigns that they would reduce taxes. They didn't give an exact time plan yet. But what do you think? Will it be possible, and if so, to what extent?

Joachim Ragnitz: It will be rather difficult, because they do not want to increase debt -- that is, no deficits -- and they do not want to lower expenditures. So I do not see how to lower taxes then, and I suppose it may be in the long run, but not in the next year or so.

DW-TV: But of course one of the main reasons why both parties said they have to do something about the tax system and reduce taxes was that it should be an incentive for businesses to produce more, to invest more, and in return, tax revenue would eventually increase, which would help us to get out of the crisis. If that is not an immediate measure, what else could they do?

Joachim Ragnitz: Well, first, that is the story of the Laffer Curve that Ronald Reagan tried in the 1980s, and he was not very successful, because the deficit of the United States increased very much..."

DW-TV: The trickle-down economy didn't work over there...

Joachim Ragnitz: ... so I don't think that policy has much possibility of increasing growth in Germany. Most of the cyclical developments, of course, come from the foreign economy, that is, from abroad. We can work with tax incentives for research and development, for example...

DW-TV: But that is long-term measures of course...

Joachim Ragnitz: But in the short term we will not succeed anyway, I think.

DW-TV: And November 9th is of course a historic date for Germany - and this year, it's the day chancellor Angela Merkel will present her new government. What was the mood in Eastern Germany the day after the election?

Joachim Ragnitz: Well, some people are glad with the result, because they voted for the CDU, especially in Saxony, which is pretty much dominated by the CDU. But on the other hand, there are many people, about thirty percent, who voted for the Left party, and these are of course disappointed with the election results.

DW-TV: So how can this new coalition win them back? What challenges do they face, especially in eastern Germany?

Joachim Ragnitz: Well, the main challenge is, of course, on the economic side, because we need more growth to have equalisation of living standards between east Germany and west Germany. The difference is about thirty percent now. And also unemployment is double as high as in west Germany. So these are the problems that the new government has to face.

DW-TV: In the last twenty years a lot of money has been pumped into eastern Germany -- I believe some 1.5 trillion euros. That money was aimed obviously at reaching this equilibrium, in getting the same standard of living for both sides within Germany, but it hasn't quite helped. Instead we have high unemployment. The figure is 12.8 percent, which is about 3 percent higher than in west Germany. We also have some 3.6 million people who left eastern Germany, moved into the west, because there they could get better jobs, better pay. What went wrong? Did all that money go down the drain?

Joachim Ragnitz: Well, you have to see that about half of this money was spent for social benefits, social transfers, and this, of course, does not help with growth, because we need more investment. But it's rather difficult to have this in the system that we have all over Germany. I think there is one special task for the new government: that they have to boost investment in east Germany, that is, investment not only in streets -- mainly in streets -- but also in the education system and also in research and development. That's the thing that we have to do there.

DW-TV: So there's still a lot of work to do.

Interview: Monica Jones

The company exports three quarters of its kitchens abroad, but only produces them here in Germany. Poggenpohl CEO Elmar Duffner is optimizing the manufacturing process using Japanese Kaizen principles – with the support of his staff. We accompany the company head through the world of kitchens, watch him cooking for his daughters and cheering on his local soccer team. Report by Marion Hütter.

The first report takes us to the Brandenburg town of Ludwigsfelde, a center for automobile and aerospace technology - both in the days of East Germany and today. Grit Hofmann has taken a look around technophile Ludwigsfelde.

Will there be tax hikes? More investment in education? Will short-time working be stopped? Mabel Gundlach met up with a family after the elections and asked them what they were expecting.

Vacancies at the top are leaving more and more businesses in the lurch. That's where human resource management companies come in. Their job is to prevent companies from losing billions when the wrong person is hired for an executive position. In Sweden, 70 percent of large companies already use such services, and in the United States, the number is 80 percent. This week, we'll watch the process first-hand at a large German wholesale company. A report by Holger Treczak.

They supply products not only to their European neighbors, but also to customers in Latin America and Asia, selling more than 2 million trash cans each year. Currently, they're working to fill a bulk order from Baghdad. This week, we go behind the scenes of this global market leader. Report by Sonja Schock.

For Anderson and his colleagues, bonuses worth more than their set salaries were the norm. The riskier the deal, the higher the commission. But with executive bonuses under fire, how will banks handle the issue as the economy recovers?

DW-TV: Axel Weber, the President of the German Bundesbank, presented a quite interesting and concrete idea by saying that banks basically have to put money to one side for a rainy day, so to speak. Do you think that's a good idea, could that work?

Jörg Rocholl: Yah, definitely. It is a very good idea. We've seen that the money they put aside has decreased over time dramatically and I think it's a good idea to do exactly the opposite: to increase the money put aside -- in particular for larger banks which might be systemically more relevant than smaller banks.

DW-TV: Because you just mentioned these "system-relevant" banks, why should they follow his advice? We just heard in the report that it's highly unlikely that any government would allow them to go bankrupt.

Jörg Rocholl: Right, so the key part here is the common synonym of 'too big to fail'. These banks are so large that they know that the government will just bail them out should something go wrong. But if the pressure increases on them -- in particular the tax payers pressure them to not cover the losses again -- then there will be a chance to do exactly this: to increase equity requirements for exactly those banks.

DW-TV: And will the pressure increase? I mean, the G20 Summit will be underway pretty soon. What outcome should you expect from there?

Jörg Rocholl: I think the pressure is pretty intense -- not only in Europe and not only in Germany, but also on the other side of the pond. So we saw Obama's top economic advisor Larry Summers saying exactly the same in that sense with respect to the equity ratios as the Bundesbank president."

DW-TV: What prompted the idea of bonus payments in the first place?

Jörg Rocholl: In the first place it is about incentives. So basically to give incentives to employees to work harder, to work better, and just to return more to the company they work for. The key question now is how to design incentives. And this is the key part, or the key question for the way ahead.

DW-TV: So originally it wasn't a bad idea, but it's gotten out of hand. And the interesting thing is, Wall Street obviously set the pace -- as in so many things -- also for bonus payments. In the 1980s bankers there earned about 2 billion dollars in 1985. Some 20 years later, their earnings increased up to 34 billion on Wall Street alone. And since the crisis, bonus payments are down to some 20 billion. Well, that's still a lot of money. What are such generous bonus payments based on?

Jörg Rocholl: Well, first of all they are incredibly high. They're based on the profits that banks make -- unfortunately not always based on the profits that also sustainably can be achieved, but rather on short-term profits that have been made maybe in a given year, where risks only result at a later point in time.

DW-TV: Like most state leaders, US president Obama has strongly criticised banker's bonuses, but he also doesn't support a hard cap on bonuses. So what else then?

Jörg Rocholl: This is the key question: how to go ahead. The US has had some bad experiences with putting hard caps on salaries. For example, under President Clinton, there was a limit on the tax deductability of management compensation at 1 million US dollars. What happened? All of a sudden shares and options were given to managers. At the same time this year the taxation of bonuses was increased. What happened? The fixed salary was increased. So we always have to be very careful about the side-effects that happen, basically due to increased or changed legislation.

DW-TV: So, it's not an easy problem to solve.

Interview: Monica Jones

"Too big to fail" -- as financial institutions grew bigger and less transparent, they paved the way for the economic crisis in the autumn of 2008, the most severe international downturn since the Great Depression. But as the crisis continued, the trend toward consolidation accelerated. Have banks been given carte blanche to continue on their current course?

Will reforms be put in place - or is it all just talk? Many in the industry would now prefer to keep thing as they are, but the rare few have instigated change. Report by Carmen Meyer

DW-TV: In Germany alone, some 50,000 people are thought to have held Lehman Brothers certificates in their investment portfolios. They lost a lot of money and want it back. What do reports like this one do to you?

Wolfgang Gerke: I feel that we have to learn the lesion by the financial crisis. Bankers lost so much of their reputation that we have to change the financial world and therefore we need more regulation and perhaps its a good idea to get a an institution looking for us as a client of the banks if everything is running the right way and president Obama is looking in that direction.

DW-TV: According to a recent survey by the Association of German Banks, 52 percent of the population have lost trust in the banking system. But only 7 percent have lost trust in their local bank. Which is interesting - because every local bank is part of the very system that's lost credibility. How do you explain the difference in people's attitude?

Wolfgang Gerke: We have many regional banks in German, savings banks and Genossenchanftbanken, that means these are banks being very close to the client and they have, perhaps, from that side a better reputation then the whole system. I’m quite astonished, I have said the real side should be much worse.

DW-TV: Have banks learned something how do they deal with the crisis?

Wolfgang Gerke: There are banks not learning the lesion they had to take from that financial crisis. If you take Goldman-Sacks for example they want to pay this expensive bonuses and that’s the wrong policy. I have nothing against this bonus system but we have to take in mind that banks need more reserves more equity in the crisis. Otherwise the taxpayers has to pay for them and therefore its quite important that the banks will change their policies. In German its a little better. But there the Landesbanken need to get a new model and there has changed extremely nothing.

DW-TV: Very soon will take place in Pittsburg world leaders will bring forward their ideas of how to regulate the financial markets but obviously that will only work if the banks play ball. Will they?

Wolfgang Gerke: The lessen we have to take the banks themselves will not change their policies enough, therefore we need a regulator and this can only be an international regulator and the G-20 meeting is, therefore , a very important meeting and we cannot do it in Germany or France we must do it in the whole world.

DW-TV: Wolfgang Gerke, thank you very much for joining us.

(Interview Monika Jones)

Citibank clients were especially hard hit. Like Rita Stietenroth from Bergisch-Gladbach. She invested 15,000 euros and is now seeking compensation. Report by Frank Arndt

Now he's hoping to sell them to the Canadians. He already counts the Swedish, Austrian and German Biathlon national teams among his clients. The former car parts supplier is using roller skis to pull himself out of the crisis. Report by Hagen Tober

DW-TV: Mr. Bremer would you like to own a Lamborghini?

Andreas Bremer: Own? Probably not. Drive? Definitely.

DW-TV: Like most of us. But we mere mortals here in the car-driving world, have been on a shopping spree lately, you know I am talking about the "cash for clunkers" program in the United States as well as Europe.

And it has, it has been a boom for car industry in the near term. But if we look now, the projections for sales here in Europe are not very good. Next year we are supposed to see an even more dramatic decrease in sales, we're not expecting growth, positive growth until 2013. Would you say the "cash for clunkers" program has hurt the car industry in the mid- to long-term?

Andreas Bremer: Actually, I don't really think so. I think, I think, it did what it had to do. It bought us time, it bought the dealerships time, it gave them the opportunity to sell off their stock, because they had lots of cars in stock that they needed to get rid of. And it helped the manufacturers to rethink some of their program line-ups. Which is why we are going to see a lot small segment cars entering the market pretty soon. I mean within the next two or three weeks, ahh years.

DW-TV: Years. Let's pick on these car dealerships for a second, there are predictions that up 50 percent of all car dealerships in Germany could go out of business by next year. Do you believe that?

Andreas Bremer: No.

DW-TV: Why not?

Andreas Bremer: I was afraid you were going to ask that.

DW-TV: The optimist here.

Andreas Bremer: Yeah, I really don't expect that. We will probably see some dealerships go out of business because their line-ups of brands and models is not up-to-date. But that's a natural process. It's not due to the "cash for clunkers" program. It's simply due to that they have the wrong models they are selling. And if their manufactureres don't come around with new financing schemes that allow them to sell their cars at a reasonable price without rebates that are horrendous, um, then those dealerships will have a problem.

DW-TV: What's going to happen right, if we want to get consumers to come back into the showroom, and buy our car, you are going to have to offer to some type of rebate, can the car manufacturers afford that right now?

Andreas Bremer: They don't have a choice. I mean, can they afford it? Probably not. But again, they don't have a choice, you have to make the numbers now. You have to secure your market share and ensure that your dealers sell those cars because otherwise you're back, you're stuck back in the problem we had earlier of overproduction. You can't be producing cars and not sell them. So on either end you are going to have to cut down. You have to cut down production to the level consumers are actually asking for it. And your dealerships have to be selling it. The partnership has to be improved on that end.

DW-TV: That's one point, but you are also going to have to produce cars that people are going to want to buy. What do car manufacturers have to do now to get people back into the showrooms?

Andreas Bremer: Small-sized cars, hybrid engines are the two main factors right now. Everybody is down-sizing when it comes to, when you are talking about the next car. It's not necessarily the smaller car, but it's the smaller engine we're talking about. A lot of times it's also the smaller model, but it's primarily the smaller engine with lower consumption.

DW-TV: Why aren't you talking about electric cars? Because that has been of course a big buzzword.

Andreas Bremer: For next ten years.

DW-TV: For the next ten years?

Andreas Bremer: Yes.

DW-TV: So we're talking about basically, small, fuel-efficient cars in the mid-term?

Andreas Bremer: Hybrid if you want.

DW-TV: Hybrids? And you think that will help to pull the car industry out of this crisis?

Andreas Bremer: Yes, it'll certainly help.

DW-TV: Let's hope the optimist in you is speaking the truth. Mr Bremer, thank you very much.

(Interview: Brent Goff)

Iphone and some Nokia customers can already download the latest version of the program. Vodafone and T-mobile are worried that their already sinking revenues could drop even farther. Our reporter Michael Altenhenne visited the developers of Skype in the Estonian capital Tallinn.

Traditionally garden furniture producers do well when housing prices go up and with fewer people going on vacation they are hoping consumers will be wore willing spruce up their garden. But discounters offer similar products at a fraction of the price. Garpa betting that quality and elaborate design will see them though the global downturn. Dagmar Zindel visited the family business for us.

DW-TV: What's your take on Kramski's solution: high-end golf clubs instead of spare parts for the car industry. Is this a way to survive the current crisis?

Gerhard Bosch: I think there are enough producers for golf clubs, it's a small market. But what is important is that you have to be innovative and to have new ideas to invent new products and this is one of the strengths of the German machine building industry. 75 percent of the German companies in this industry sell products that they developed last year. So they are very innovative more than the other industries in Europe.

DW-TV: Still they do have to deal with one of the worst crises in the last eighty, ninety years.

The engineering sector experienced a huge slump in orders since June 2008, which hit its lowest point so far in April 2009 with a 58% drop in orders. Over the same period, German exports have also slowed significantly and the engineering sector is largely dependent on exports. So the question is as long as global demand remains sluggish, how can the engineering sector get back on its feet?

Gerhard Bosch: It will never get back on its feet if the global economy is so sluggish. The German machine-building industry is dependent on sound economic development in the world especially in those countries who are demanding German investment goods, like China, India, South America, but also the United States of course.

DW-TV: So is it healthy to be that dependent on exports, is there no other way round it?

Gerhard Bosch: I think there are no ways around it for this industry because this industry is highly specialized so they have to find niches in the world market, but what's true is that the German economy as a whole is too dependent on exports. We have to develop our internal demand for consumption for example. Our wages didn't increase sufficiently in the last decade, so we don't have enough internal demand.

DW-TV: Well in order to increase internal demand, you need to have jobs and some experts say now that in this industry some 50,000 jobs are at stake. How can they be saved?

Gerhard Bosch: We have about one million people working in this industry. About 50,000 have already been dismissed, but you won't find them in the statistics because they're temporary agency workers and there are another 20 to 40,000 jobs which are endangered. What is important is that this industry keeps its skilled workers because this is an industry which relies on its skilled workers and the short time scheme of the German government helps reduce salary costs for the companies.

(Interview: Monika Jones)

Kramski is reacting to the global economic crisis with innovation: the company is developing a new type of environmentally-friendly lead-free circuit board that could replace traditional circuit boards by 2011. Together with industry giant Bosch they are working on a new type of fuel injector. And inspired by a trip to Sri Lanka Kramski designed a new type of golf club to flush out their successful line of custom golf clubs. Robert Donauer visited the company in Pforzheim.

Their crops are in high demand in the USA, China, and Eastern Europe. Beer brewers need hops to give their beer aroma and prices have almost doubled due to increasing demand and poor harvests. The weather in the final days leading up to the harvest is critical for its quality. While its still uncertain how this year crop will be the farmers in the Hallertau are optimistic. A report from Daniela Meyer.

Long ago he lived with friends in a Hamburg commune and moved from job to job. After German unification, he took over a run-down boatyard in Greifswald in eastern Germany. Since then, HanseYacht has established itself as a leader in the market for low-cost mass-market sailing yachts. In the 2007-2008 business year, HanseYacht had total sales of 135 million Euros. Schmidt has added motorboats to his product line. Like other boat makers, Schmidt has suffered from the economic crisis. People are buying fewer boats. But that didn't stop Schmidt from expanding his business by buying the rival Dehler boatyard. Grit Hofmann paid the successful boatbuilder a visit.

Felix Matthes: With a very efficient device that saves energy and saves money.

DW-TV: We’ve shown how the company Vorwerk is setting a nice example. What's your take on their measures - could they be improved? Could they save more energy and reduce costs?

Felix Matthes: It’s very difficult to say from a distance. But they raised a key issue – that energy saving is collecting a lot of very different options and opportunities, to combine these and to sum up these decentral options as significant energy and cost savings.

DW-TV: Vorwerk is seen as a kind of pioneer in the economical use of raw materials. How do other German companies fare?

Felix Matthes: It is very different. We have a pretty broad range of companies which have introduced energy management schemes to support decentral decision-making on energy efficiency measures and to combine processes to raise additional efficiency potentials. However, it’s not the full range of companies but we have some frontrunners.

DW-TV: One of the successful industries, the German chemical industry is one of those that's already achieved a lot. Within 18 years, production increased by 43 percent, while at the same time, energy consumption was reduced by 27 percent. That's great. How did they do it?

Felix Matthes: There are different sources. Number one is that the structure of the production has changed from very intensive products to much less energy intensive products. The second is that the value added, the chemical industry created has increased very much because of the very high quality of the product. And third, they have implemented energy-efficiency measures in a broad range. And this general trend is a result of these three sources of energy efficiency.

DW-TV: In order to implement energy-saving measures you have to invest money: right now, in these days of financial crisis, this is more difficult.

Felix Matthes: Yes, but the other side of the coin is that the year 2008 has shown that energy consumption is a source of vulnerability for the companies. So it is a problem at the moment but there are two key sources for energy efficiency: You have to collect your information, you have to remove barriers and then you have to invest. And if you realise investment as an option to decrease future vulnerability then that is a good investment. And I am convinced that many companies are going for this.

DW-TV: How do German companies fare in comparison to other European countries?

Felix Matthes: It depends on the sector. We have some sectors that are frontrunners in energy-efficiency. Others are more average. So it is very different according to the industrial sectors.

(Interview: Monica Jones)

Energy-saving measures are saving the company more than 600,000 euros a year. Its finely-tuned energy-management system has made Vorwerk a pioneer in the economical use of raw materials. Elisabeth Pongratz investigates where the biggest savings can be found as Vorwerk energy-managers examine every system and production process.

Our reporter Joachim Eggers joins the head of SMS's Asian division on a trip to Delhi and to the state of Orissa, where a new steel mill is being built. Together, they'll meet senior executives from Jindal Steel, one of India's most important producers. Why is India's steel industry doing so well during the economic crisis? And what opportunities does that offer for German business?

DW-TV: There is money to be made with sewage. Let's pull in Martin Weyand with the German Association of Energy and Water Industries. Why not just clean up all the world's sewage ? Would we then have enough clean water for everyone?

Martin Weyand: The supply in the world depends just on the sources we have. We must look at how the resources are distributed all over the world.

DW-TV: Would you say the key is distribution...or is the key conservation?

Martin Weyand: The key issues are resources, and certainly you have to do something for conservation and maintenance and so on.

DW-TV: Now you and I were talking earlier and you were saying that saving water actually creates costs. Now explain that to us...a lot of people would actually think they were saving money if they were saving water.

Martin Weyand: Yes, if you look at the situation we have here in Germany, we have 123 liters per capita consumption every day, and this is a very low standard. So if you go on saving money further on, you have to flush the pipes and you have to do further things in the sewage sector... So a lot of costs go up, so if you save water it costs money.

DW-TV: So it actually costs more money to maintain the pipes if you are not using water...

Martin Weyand: ..and for hygiene and so on.

DW-TV: Would you say German fail or pass the grade when it comes to conserving water?

Martin Weyand: I guess we have to see that in other parts of the world it makes sense to save water. If you look at the US, there's an average per capita consumption of 600 liters a day. So it makes sense to save water and reach a standard like in Germany.

DW-TV: Can you explain to us how someone can consume 600 liters of water a day?

Martin Weyand: If you look at the standard of living...like a pool or other constructions using water then consumption is very high.

DW-TV: Lets talk about the cost...water is not cheap here in Germany,

We can see that in comparison with other countries such as the US or Spain, people in Germany pay a lot for H20. Why?

Martin Weyand: We have a lot of differences in the system. You have different taxes and subsidies, for example in France the local authorities are paying subsidies to the networks. And you have different qualities standards around the world. So purity of supply is another issue.

In Germany you can rely on the security of supply of drinking water, in other parts of the world it is not the same case. In Spain for example for several weeks or days water is interrupted. Also in London there were lots of cases of water interruption . In Germany the maintenance of the networks is very good, and this is not the case in the UK and in the United States.

DW-TV: Lets talk about water needed for manufacturing. We've put together a list of products, such as computer chips, leather shoes... Is the lesson here that we shouldn't buy leather shoes anymore?

Martin Weyand: No, that's not the lesson. First of all you have to produce leather shoes in a more efficient way, saving energy and saving water. You have to ask also where the shoes were made. It's not helpful to buy shoes from a region where water is scarce. For instance in India or something like that, where you only create water scarcity. In Germany there are enough water resources available.

DW-TV: Martin Weyand...thank you very much...

(Interview: Brent Goff)

The Darmstadt-based firm Envirochemie does 70 percent of its sales abroad. But now it beginning to feel the effects of the financial crisis. Marion Hütter examines.

But the building isn't intended to be a mere administrative center - it's also meant to give architectural expression to the fascination of flying. The design commissioned by Lufthansa looks like a giant hangar on the outside with a wavelike roof inspired by wing design. The company hopes the structure will give it an architectural legacy. Report by Bettina Meier.

For Laura from Argentina, the annual event represents what she likes best about Berlin: the big city atmosphere with people from all around the world. After a day off, it's back to work. At the ESMT students are also assigned to a psychologist, who analyzes their individual strengths and weaknesses. Laura, for example, needs to learn how to assert her interests better. The students also take a field trip -- to India. Their goal is to figure out the secret of success of the sub-continent's rising economy. Report by Wolf Gebhardt & Michael Wetzel.

DW-TV: You write about money, about the economy. So I would like to know your take on the Chiemgauer, that regional currency. Is it actually worth the paper it's been printed on? Is it just a fad, some socialist romanticism?

Rainer Grunert: Well, the Chiemgauer is a very interesting experiment but it is an experiment and not more, because if it becomes too much successful the federal bank of Germany or at least the European bank will stop it.

DW-TV: Because it would harm our national or European currency, the Euro? In what way?

Rainer Grunert: It will harm the belief in the currency and as more people mistrust the national currency as more it loses on value.

DW-TV: But at the same time like here in Berlin we can't use the Chiemgauer so the harm, if you like, would only be done in the Chiemgau, in that region where you can actually use that regional currency.

Rainer Grunert: As long as it stays in this region. But there was an experiment in an Austrian town in the last century where it became very successful and the court in Vienna had to forbid it.

DW-TV: OK. So, bottom line: regional currency is a nice idea. It works within a small region for a limited amount of time. So it's short-lived. So there is not really a bigger point to it.

Rainer Grunert: There is a bigger point, if it is placed globally. So, for example, if you take the dollar and you combine it with the functions of the regional currency.

DW-TV: So that it would actually lose value after a certain amount of time?

Rainer Grunert: It loses only value if you store it. Otherwise not. If it's in the flow then it loses no money.

DW-TV: That means no more saving money. Nobody can put anything on the safe side.

Rainer Grunert: People can put a lot on the safe side. They can buy stocks or similar investments and then they save their investment. But they can no more make money with money only.

(Interview: Monika Jones)

Many economists scoffed at or dismissed the Chiemgau's regional currency as a tourist gag. But now more than 600 companies use the currency to pay their bills. Regional curriencies help local businesses - not the international financial markets. Reporter Vanessa Fischer traveled to the town of Traunstein to find out what makes the Chiemgauer so attractive.

However, at some point the penny-pinching also hampers a company's opportunities. And when firms do everything they can to save money, that has an affect on the overall economy. Made in Germany looks at the pros and cons of cost-cutting measures and their potential consequences. Report by Carmen Meyer.

Over the years, the corporation put the focus more and more on its state-of-the-art technological expertise, whilst maintaining its down-to-earth corporate identity, reflected by its company headquarters. A report by Hagen Tober

Karim Barkawi: Well, first of all I must say that extending their logistic services to do things like cleaning cars is an excellent idea and a lot of other logicitcs companies have done that in the past and are continueing to do that which is a trend we see in the market called contract logistics where they take on more and more activities like assembly call center operation so I think it is a good idea and I see this coming in the future.

DW-TV: So they are creating synergies which is obviously something that you probably advise them to do as well if they'd call you.

Karim Barkawi: Absolutely because they would do similar kinds of services for different companies different industries and thereby creating as you said synergies and thereby reducing costs.

DW-TV: Now you work with a lot of global players, you advise a lot of companies also in the so called brick contries, the brick states. Is there a certain pattern where you would say this kind of advice works for all of them or is it very individual. How does it work.

Karim Barkawi: Well first of all, if you go by industry it is different. As you see that some industries are doing quite well these days, they are in the process of optimizing their existing structures. whereas other industries like machinery and the automotive industries obviously are trying to radically change things and are putting up turnaround programms.

As you get to different countries, you have still growing countries like India and China and they're working on their basic infrastructure needs. Whereas in other countries, more developed countries a lot infrastructure is there, and they're just optimising processes.

DW-TV: Now lets stick to this radicaliziation of turnaround which very often is synonymous with cost cutting and that again is synonymous with cutting jobs. Is that really the only way to consolidate a company?

Karim Barkawi: Well, it's certainly a feature of cost cutting programms but typically in logistics what we do first is to avoid transportation, to increase the fill rate of certain carriers, to look at ways of collaborating amongst different companies and industries, so yes job cutting is one initiative but it is not the biggest lever and we promote to start looking at other things berfore we get to that point.

DW-TV: Well, cost cutting or cutting jobs actually it is a measure that a lot of companies have taken up. We have prepared a graphic to see what has happened to jobs since the economic slowdown has started

In the US, where the crisis started, 67 percent of the companies surveyed have already laid off workers - some 43 percent are still planning to cut jobs.

Here in Western Europe, so far 42 percent of the companies asked have also cut staff - 52 percent are still planning to do so.

The German employers association, they suggest that people should basically accept lower wages in order to solve the problem. Would you accept that?

Karim Barkawi: I would say that this is at least one of the very very last initiatives that I would take. Especially in our industry, logistics, there are so many different ways of optimizing cost and optimizing processes, putting new IT systems in place, so I would only accept this measure as a very last measure and I would encourage all management of a company to ensure that every other potential is exploited.

DW-TV: Karim Barkawi, thank you very much for joining us.

(Interview: Monika Jones)

Larissa, a student from Russia, considers the situation in her home country. Meanwhile, other students draft their ideas and guidelines for running a corporation with a multi-million turnover: a crash course in capitalism, and well aware of the financial crisis. A report by Michael Wetzel and Wolf Gebhardt

Our reporter Carmen Meyer asks how the takeover will affect VW. The company already employees 400 thousand people. What is the outlook for this ever growing giant on the tough international automotive market.

Interview with Jürgen Wöhler.

DW-TV: For more I'm joined by Jürgen Wöhler, secretary general of the Korean-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Now, Germany is a car loving nation - but Hyundai didn't exactly rank among the top brands -- how did it manage to conquer German car owner's hearts?

Jürgen Wöhler: First of all the image of Korea has improved a lot, if you think of Samsung, LG, which from the consumer electronics are the top shelf, and certainly that helped Hyundai. Likewise as the difficult economic situation which makes many consumers coming over the psychological barrier to buy a Korean car.

DW-TV: What barrier would that be?

Jürgen Wöhler: The image of Korean cars was rather cheap. But that has changed over the time. Korean cars have foreign designers, have a lot of foreign technology, especially German technology, German spare parts inside, and this combined helps to sell in Germany.

DW-TV: And how about the other way round. If German technology is so interesting how do German cars fare on the Korean market?

Jürgen Wöhler: They do very well, but only in the premium segment. Because with cheap cars, without any luxury stuff, that's very hard to sell in Korea against Korean cars.

DW-TV: They can't compete there. Business ties between Germany and South Korea are strong, not just with regards to the automotive sector -- what makes Germans and South Koreans good business partners?

Jürgen Wöhler: It's a win win partnership. If you take the ship industry. Korea is the strongest producer in the world, 60% market share. Germany is the biggest buyer of Korean ships, and German companies are the biggest suppliers of spare parts and components to the Korean ship industry. It's the same with electronics. We buy consumer electronics from Korea, and we deliver industrial electronics to Korea.

DW-TV: Everything you've just said...let's just illustrate that here. We've produced a graphic so we can take a closer look at trade relations between the two countries: Germany exported goods worth 10.4 billion euros to South-Korea, and imported goods worth 7.4 Bbillion euros. Now, I understand South Korea wants to increase it's export figures and believes, the current global crisis could actually help -- how does this work?

Jürgen Wöhler: That's right. Certainly the lack of demand world wide is not good for the figures. But relatively the market share of Korean goods is increasing, the Korean Won is very low it helps them, and with the Japanese Yen being so high, Korean products compete with Japanese products and gain market share world wide.

DW-TV: Jürgen Wöhler, thank you very much.

Interview: Monika Jones

But business is far from usual at the moment. How is the academy reacting to the new demands? The first in our new series "Managers of Tomorrow - Made in Berlin". Reporters Wolf Gebhardt and Michael Wetzel take a look at how students are coping with great pressure.

The success is down to small cars designed in Germany. Hyundai's European design center is based in Russelsheim, just a stones through from the Opel headquarters. Head designer Thomas Bürkle gives reporter Holger Trzeczak an inside look at the newest studies and developments.

The Stuttgart based company is the third biggest of its kind in the world, and a market leader in the provision of automotive services. The company with its 20 thousand employees and turnover of 1 point 6 billion euros is headed by Klaus Schmidt. The 51 year old has overseen DEKRA's restructuring as an international service provider. Manuela Kasper-Claridge paints a portrait of him.

Torqeedo began selling electrically-powered outboard motors in 2006. Based in southern Germany, the firm now employs 35 people and sells its products in over 30 countries, including the US and Saudi Arabia. An entry-level Torqueedo motor costs around 900 euros. Powered by lithium-manganese batteries they're especially popular for dinghies, fishing boats and canoes. The outboard motors are in demand as they are very energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly. Thomas Gill reports on this award-winning company.

DW-TV: And joining us now in the studio is Martin Weber, chair of business administration and finance at the University of Mannheim. What do you make of the financial world right now? Is it back to square one?

Martin Weber: It's actually not back to square one. It's another crisis. It's not the first crisis we've had. If we learn from the crisis, it will help to get ready for the next one.

DW-TV: Ok. You say we're in between two crises now, because we hear that banks, obviously, haven't learned from the crisis -- at least, that's what we've just learned in the report.

Martin Weber: I think they have learned, but from a purely logical point of view, they're always between two crises, and the unfortunate thing is we don't know what the next crisis will be.

DW-TV: That's a somewhat fatalistic outlook, which means that we also heard that the run for bonds will eventually come to an end at the end of this year. So that's probably when the next crisis is just around the corner?

Martin Weber: No, I don't think it's around the corner as fast as you just mentioned, but we've always had financial crises. You can go back to the Middle Ages and we had financial crises. So there's no reason to believe that there won't be any financial crisis in the future.

DW-TV: But is there reason to learn from it? I mean, politicians have pledged that they would introduce more transparency, tougher regulations, into the financial sector. According to what you tell us now, it's not really necessary, because things won't change.

Martin Weber: No, no. You will have a different financial crisis. I mean, the thing is, you want to regulate, you want to learn from the current financial crisis, but then something new comes up. You see, this financial crisis is not -- we had all this sort of big bubble and so on, in the 1990s. So we've overcome that problem. Now we have another problem. It's not fatalistic; I think it's empirical.

DW-TV: So, Wall Street is back in business... and I'm somewhat confused .... you can probably tell me: How is it possible? Just a few months ago, banks were on the brink of bankruptcy, now they're back, alive and kicking -- how is that possible?

Martin Weber: I mean first we should be happy that they're back alive, and they're not making more losses. And if you think, as you pointed out, 3 billion, that sounds a lot of money, at least to me. But if you look at the overall balance sheet, it's not; I'd say it's normal.

DW-TV: So if you put it in perspective, 3 billion for a bank isn't that much. Still, they're back in the black. Which means one is somewhat dubious now. Does it have something to do with tweaked balance sheets? I mean, there are new regulations that could make that possible.

Martin Weber: As far as we know from the banks, and we have to ask the banks themselves, two or three of them are really earning money by the original business. And then you have additional things, you sell a unit and so on, so you make an extra-ordinary profit, and that's what is showing up on the balance sheet right now.

DW-TV: And what happened to all the toxic assets? They've been put on ice, but they could come back and haunt us.

Martin Weber: They're on ice, and it's good they're on ice, but on the other side, it's not clear how toxic they are, and the future will tell. And of course they have to make provision for them, but hopefully we'll luck out. But it's not that clear, and you can't tell, honestly.

DW-TV: Well,How do you rate the credibility of banking experts and advisors, consultants, you name it?

Martin Weber: I think they try hard, but of course they can improve.

DW-TV: They can improve. Perhaps they could improve if they read your book. I understand that you've co-written a guidebook which tells you how to invest, or how investment can be incredibly easy. Perhaps you could share some nuggets of your wisdom with us.

Martin Weber: Of course some of them bought the book, and I'm sure that they get better investment advice. To be a little more serious, the key problem with investment is that the future's uncertain. You can't predict the stock market. People who predict the stock market just lie, or they think they can, but they can't really do it. So you have to cope with the uncertainty -- that's what the book is about. And you do it by diversification, by taking your own human capital into account, by knowing how to save and when to save what, and indeed to solve these type of problems.

DW-TV: So in these times right now, would you advise somebody to invest or would you say, 'Be cautious, stay away until times are safer'?

Martin Weber: That was a very good question if you're trying to trick me. It's even in these times that I don't know what the future will be. And so in these times the future is just as uncertain as in other times. So you should always invest according to the risk you can take and then broadly diversify. That's the key idea, and it hasn't changed before, after or in the crisis.

DW-TV: Is there anything specific you would suggest one should invest in?

Martin Weber: You should cope with the cost. You should invest in a fund that is really cheap and that offers a wide diversification. This is the way to go these days.

DW-TV: Martin Weber, thank you very much for joining us.

German magazine "Finanztest" writes that "consumers continue to be misled" and that the number of non-transparent financial products on the market has not fallen. The only difference now is that investors are being offered "guarantees" instead of "opportunities". The pressure on bank employees to produce profits hasn't diminished either. They're still encouraged to sell clients financial products which even experts can barely understand. Our reporter Kerstin Schweizer delves into the world of finance.

The GFK tests out new products in the village of Haßloch, in central Germany. At the local supermarket they monitor customers' reactions to a new flavour of yoghurt or an aromatically-scented dishwashing liquid. Haßloch provides companies with a barometer of whether their future products will be successes or flops. Christian Pricelius went to take a look around this model village.

Probably the most important funding programme in the R&D sector is the "Initiative for Excellence", which supports exceptional projects and colleges. Aachen University, for example, has researchers working in close cooperation with commercial firms on the development of new innovations for industrial production in high-wage countries. We look at what is possible when the means are available. Report by Sonja Schock

The Rosenheim-based family enterprise began making footwear 60 years ago and is confident it can take the economic crisis in its stride. Report by Ute Schneider

DW-TV: Thomas Straubhaar from the Hamburg Institute of International Economics is joining us again - Now, the German government agreed to pump more money into the R&D sector. Some 18 Billion Euros in the next ten years. Do you think that's enough?

Thomas Straubhaar: I think it's a good idea but I don't think it's enough. I think there is much more money needed but it does not have to come necessarily from the public sector. It could also come and it should come from the private sector as well.

DW-TV: Is that something you advocate in your book. You've written a book which in German is called "Gefühlte Ungerechtigkeit" which translates roughly as "Relative Injustice". What's the premise there.

Thomas Straubhaar: We have three steps of advice. The first step is let the market play and do whatever it can. The second step is that you should improve the ability to follow the structural changes by better eductaion. So pump in more money into this sector. Thirdly, if you fail to be successful, then and only then the third step is the state should support the people that have not supported themselves.

DW-TV: Quickly, you say more private sponsorship would be better. How come there is so little in Germany.

Thomas Straubhaar: There are tax incentives that are against it. There are also problems that you cannot find the money to start up new businesses. So there is much needed to be done in connection with this, in the combination between public and private funding.

DW-TV: Thomas Straubhaar, thank you very much for joining us.

Thomas Straubhaar: Yes but there were always cycles. It's always something like a cobweb. Sometimes it goes better. Sometimes it goes worse. We are definitely in the worst recession we have had since World War II. So it has become more difficult to enter the labour market.

DW-TV: We've just listened to the students there in this report. How do you evaluate the situation for German students. Is it hard, is it good. Is it hopeless?

Thomas Straubhaar: No. It's definitely still good. It's not hopeless. I would say the recession now covers all the issues. They are well qualified. They are motivated. They are mobile. They are flexible. They have attributes that are needed to enter the labour market sooner or later. What they probably should do is not become nervous that it won't be the start they had thought about. They must be more open to other solutions.

DW-TV: For a long time, entering the engineering sector, studying to become an engineer seemed to be a safe bet. That's changing now. What would you say are the "future" degree programs?

Thomas Straubhaar: I would still say that whoever is still about to do a job in let's say the machinery sector, in the industrial sector still has a good chance to become a good employee sooner or later somewhere in the German industrial sector. So I wouldn't be too precise on what's going on. The future is so open that you cannot be sure that what you have chosen today you can't execute tomorrow.

DW-TV: Thank you for the moment. We'll continue our talk.

(Interview: Monika Jones)

In April, hydraulic systems manufacturer Hyco Pacoma joined the long list of victims of the economic crisis, leaving its 24 apprentices out on the street. But now the local government has joined forces with other local companies to secure all of them new placements. Report by Jürgen Schneider

Big industry had previously been suffering from a shortage of engineers, but the wind of change has seen the number of vacancies drop from 100,000 in 2008 to 60,000 now. Graduates are having to make compromises and are entering their summer break with mixed feelings. MADE IN GERMANY gauged the mood at a job-seekers' event organised by students. Report by Carmen Meyer

The manufacturer of construction machines has created some 100 new jobs in Germany, most of them in marketing. They reason that more salespeople will raise their sales and thereby their profits. And it's working. One of its successful marketing tools is direct marketing. This involves contacting customers face-to-face rather than via retail outlets. "Made in Germany" followed a new employee around on his first day, to get a closer look at the latest recession fighting technique. Report by Miltiades Arsenopoulos

On the Baltic coast close to the city of Greifswald, the Danish energy giant Dong wants to build a coal-producing plant. The residents of the area object, not wanting to spoil the nearby nature reserve and lose tourist revenue. Dong also builds natural gas power plants that would emit 2/3 less CO2. So why is it not prepared to build one in Lubmin? Our reporter heads for the coast to sort out the contradictions. Report by Holger Trzeczak

This week, we look at the lobby of SAP.

The company's headquarters are in the town of Walldorf in southern Germany. The town's name has become synonymous with the software maker. Some 14,000 people live here, and 5,500 of them work at SAP. The company's rambling grounds lie like an enormous UFO at the edge of the tranquil town, which features many single-family houses. The construction of the SAP building and its dark brown color recall the style of past eras. A few weeks ago, a new reception building was opened, which is intended to give the company a fresh look. This new portal is used by software developers on their way to work as well as by clients and visitors to SAP. And they literally walk over "software installations." Report by Christoph Kober

Jens Hobohm: Well, I would say it's in our hands to decide today if we want to make it happen or not. I think politicians are willing to step forward today with solar energy in northern Africa, and we need a political framework in these countries which makes it possible for investors to take huge amounts of money into their hands and put it into these new technologies.

DW-TV: You mention huge amounts of money - we're talking about 400 billion euros for this project. Where is that money going to come from?

Jens Hobohm: There are a number of investors who are willing to take a risk in this. But on the other side we have to see that nobody will invest in something where he doesn't expect a return on this investment.

DW-TV: Are you expecting a return on this investment? What does your gut tell you?

Jens Hobohm: It depends on the political and economic framework that is set by policy because it's not a free market, you can't do this on a free market. Renewable energies are still not competitive against oil and gas. You need a certain framework that enables you to get something like a safe return so you can take long-term decisions like this one.

DW-TV: The CEO of the Swedish energy provider Vattenfall has said he does not think this project is worth it, he says it's too expensive, it's too risky, and he's talking about the political uncertainties in north Africa. Do you think the geopolitical concerns here actually outweigh the financial risks?

Jens Hobohm: Well, there's a nice saying: you can't dig for oil in Switzerland. And maybe you can't dig for solar also in Europe, or in Switzerland. I think yes there is a risk, there are large risks actually, and we need strong political help to realise the project, that means that on a very high political level we need a lot of context, we need networking and we need also a burden-sharing of the responsibilities.

DW-TV: Let's take a look at the solar energy market in general right now, we've got a graphic we want to show people exactly where most of the solar energy panels are being built around the world. And we can see that the largest percentage right now is in Spain, followed by Germany, then of course you've got the United States and South Korea. Africa is not listed here. Mr. Hobohm, Africa with its massive deserts, is it a possible cash cow for the solar energy industry?

Jens Hobohm: Well, we're talking about 400 billion euros - that's the number that was mentioned already. And if this would be realised, it would be a cash cow for the solar energy industry, yes. But I think it's a long way, we are not talking about today or tomorrow, we're talking about 40 years, so it's a long time that we are looking on, therefore step by step it will come along.

DW-TV: And very briefly, the market right now for solar cells, not very good. Prices have plummeted in the last year - can money still be made with solar energy, right now?

Jens Hobohm: Yes, in the financial crisis it's difficult. Money is not so easily given away. But I think we have to invest in the future, and that's the right way.

DW-TV: OK, Mr. Hobohm, thank you very much for talking with us.

(Interview: Brent Goff)

The aim of the project is to build solar power plants in the desert and then transport the electricity produced there over the Mediterranean, turning North Africa into an energy exporter. Many big German companies have agreed to participate, including the electricity giant EON, engineering firm Siemens, the reinsurer Munich Re, Deutsche Bank and solar power plant makers Solarmillenium. They want to meet on 13 July for an exploratory session. Germany is keen to cut emissions, so this desert electricity project fits well into the scheme of things. But it's a project with lots of unknowns. Made in Germany reporter Joachim Eggers asks Siemens, Solarmillenium and the founder of the Desertec project, physicist Gerhard Knies, if it is really technically possible to provide all of Europe's electricity needs with solar power from the Sahara. And who is really going to benefit?

But his own bank hasn't passed his application on to the KfW. Although he approached five other banks, the outcome was the same each time - and his application was turned down. The private banks clearly don't think such business is worth their while, and now the entrepreneur is threatened with insolvency. Reporter Carmen Meyer shows just how bureaucracy is tying the hands of smaller companies hoping to secure their share of KfW funds.

Tamas Vahl, President of the German-Hungarian Chamber of Commerce, is well aware that at German companies operating in Hungary, economic morale is at rock bottom. At the BASF plant near Budapest, for example, managers have been trying to economise for months. These are tough times for Vahl. Our reporter Christian Pricelius met up with him in Budapest.

Preferred candidates are businesses that have suffered as a result of the global credit crunch. But so far, only 1,500 firms have requested help to the tune of around six billion euros. Very few small and medium-sized businesses are aware of just how the KfW can be of assistance, and that's why the bank has decided to take its message - by bus - to 64 German towns and cities, and take the money to the people. Alexa Meyer visited the town of Schwerin in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and spent the day with KfW consultant Stephan Gärtner.

DW-TV: Would you order the electric car "Greenster" for yourself?

Andreas Bremer: I'll wait a little longer. But it is a fascinating car, I really like it. What's interesting is that it has a range of 300 km. I wonder if that's true in everyday life or just on a test drive. We'll have to see. But it's an intersting car.

DW-TV: A very expensive car: 180-thousand euros. Who can afford this?

Andreas Bremer: Not many people, obviously. But there's only one so far. Maybe it'll get cheaper when they produce 100,000 of them.

DW-TV: The price is a problem. The financial aspect certainly seems to be the biggest challenge. We know that green cars cost more than normal cars. But there must be other problems why demand is so low: What about the infrastructure? When will this be ready?

Andreas Bremer: That will be a while, I'm afraid. Look at gas engines and how long it has taken for them to become so common that you don't need to sit down for two days to plan every trip. It's got better but it's still not easy. And if you're driving an electric car then there are a lot of problems involved. I come from Essen, and even I can't think of any power station where you could fill up your battery. That's a major problem. And then of course the costs just have to come down to a level of roughly 25,000 euros which is what we're paying for a new car.

DW-TV: It's interesting to hear that although the inventor works for Porsche, Porsche is not involved in the "Greenster". Other big car makers on both sides of the Atlantic have already lost out on hybrids. Here Japan is clearly in the lead. Why are the big car companies so dismissive of green car technologies?

Andreas Bremer: I don't know that they're really dismissive of the technology itself. But we're talking about a high-risk investment. Currently, no one wants to invest anything unless they're sure it's a good bet. The hydrogen engine we talked about a few years ago was supposed to be the leading technology by now, and it's not. So let's hope we're not sleeping through this one as we have done in the past.

(Monika Jones)

That could all change with technological advance from the small town of Pfaffenhausen. This is where Porsche tuner Alois Ruf has developed a third-generation prototype that puts everything else in the shade. Introducing the "Greenster", or electro-Porsche: 250km/h, 370 hp, a range of 300km and 0 to 100km in five seconds - Our reporter Holger Trzeczak put it to the test.

The amount farmers receive depends on how much land they have. Small-scale farmers are amazed to find out how much the big agricultural enterprises cream off from Brussels. Our reporter Kerstin Schweizer travelled to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, one of the poorest parts of the country, that is also home to Germany's largest agricultural enterprise. The firm receives 3.7 million euros in direct payments from Brussels every year, a figure that astounded even the local mayor. He says he would prefer to promote small and medium-sized businesses that create more jobs. Made in Germany looks into the advantages and disadvantages of large-scale farming versus smaller enterprises and the controversy over EU subsidies.

Our reporter Ute Schneider meets up with Mirjam Schwan, the co-ordinator for one of the chamber's biggest success stories, the Volkswagen subsidiary Skoda. Mirjam Schwan believes it is particularly important to promote innovation and research during this time of economic crisis. The Czech Republic has one of the strongest economies in eastern Europe and business has boomed in recent years. But with the global economic crisis, zero growth is now predicted for 2009.

DW-TV: The German creative economy had a turnover of 132 billion euros last year. Holger Busch, your are one of those who helped create that impressive amount - as the responsible for marketing and advertising sales at the German Magazine Publisher's Association. Did you know that you were part of such a strong industry?

Holger Busch: Yes indeed, it's a very successful industry, we have a turnover of about 130 billion euros, about a million employees, and the figures of the last years were constantly increasing, so creative industry is an important factor not only for cultural life in Germany but also as an economic factor for growth and employment.

DW-TV: But how do you explain this success?

Holger Busch: You have to form new entities, you have to look for new intitiatives like the one from the federal government in Germany, speaking with the creative industry, their aims, their needs for the legislation, and I think we're on a good path.

DW-TV: According to the German Ministry of Science and Technology, the creative sector consists largely of freelancers - they make up 28 percent there, which is quite a lot compared to other sectors. Freelancers pay tax like everyone else, but they're not part of many social schemes covering unemployment or sickness, for example. Is this the future model for success?

Holger Busch: Yes, I think it makes the creative industry very vivid, flexible and very successful, but of course in problematic economic situations we also have to look for social solutions for these people.

DW-TV: Let's take a closer look at one specific sector of the so-called creative economy - the print media. Here are some figures where it becomes clear that advertising revenue has dropped significantly for magazines, by 7 percent last year, followed by newspapers with a drop of 4 percent... whereas online is gaining 9 percent. It looks like it's right what we've heard, that the internet is to blame for the losses in revenue... What's your take on that?

Holger Busch: Well, the Internet is not the enemy of magazines and newspapers, I think it's actually more of a friend. The business model of newspapers and magazines is not only to sell printed paper, but also to sell journalistic content via every media channel, magazines for the Internet, for mobiles and every other media channel you might choose.

DW-TV: So if the Internet is a friend, can it be put to better use?

Holger Busch: Yes I think it can, and at the moment we depend very much on advertising revenues, and they are not high enough to finance the amount of money the publishing companies need to finance the websites, so we have to strengthen online advertising and use new devices like the e-reader, like Kindle, where we can deliver the journalistic content to readers and target groups.

DW-TV: So there's room for improvement, and there are opportunities to do this - Holger Busch, thank you very much.

(Interview: Monika Jones)

That means fewer readers get to see the adverts. Daily newspapers are being read more online - free of charge. As a consequence the print editions are attracting less lucrative advertising revenue, with advertisers opting to go online instead. But the online income doesn't compensate for the losses in the print division. How can magazines and newspapers adapt to these changing market conditions? MADE-IN-GERMANY reporter Holger Trzeczak looked at this question, visiting the offices of Financial Times Deutschland and Capital magazine.

The Post Tower in Bonn is a monument made out of glass. A symbol of transparency? A sign of openness? Phillipp Bilsky takes a look behind the facade.

It facilitates contacts, organises events and helps with legal questions. One focus of the German-Baltic chamber of commerce is renewable energy, where German industry can offer technical knowl-how. Up to now, most electricity for the Baltic region has been supplied by Soviet-era power stations, so the need for alternative sources of energy in the coming years is especially great. MADE IN GERMANY reporter Karl Harenbrock presents the work of the German-Baltic chamber of commerce and accompanies a group of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian entrepreneurs on a shopping trip to German companies, where they hope to learn about techniques in the production of electricity from renewable energy sources.

Part 1:

DW-TV: I'm joined now by Niko Paech, an economist at the University of Oldenburg. How do you discuss business insolvency with your students?

Niko Paech: Yes, I tell the students that larger companies are not able to cope with financial and economic crises because they are not flexible enough. Furthermore, they critically depend on the stability of the world economy.

DW-TV: So the larger the size, the more doomed to failure. Is that plausible?

Niko Paech: Yes, it is. And we see that all the companies that are breaking down at the moment, not only in Germany but also other industrial countries, are very large.

DW-TV: What was your take on the Opel story, for example? I mean our economics minister, Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, pleaded for insolvency. Do you think that would have been the right step to take?

Niko Paech: Absolutely. What Minister zu Guttenberg stated was that we have a serious excess capacity in the auto industry, and therefore it's best not to have as many large companies. And the market told us that Opel is the one that should not exist any more. That's the point.

DW-TV: OK. So you plead for smaller companies. Well, obviously the current crisis is causing many economies already to slow or even produce negative growth.

Part 2:

DW-TV: We asked some people on the street how they deal with the situation, and they had a rather reasonable point of view. Niko Paech, do you share their view?

Niko Paech: Absolutely. Nowadays even traditional economists argue that after reaching a certain level of financial income and material wealth, further growth does not induce an increase in subjective well-being.

DW-TV: OK, well, we can check that here in Germany because obviously Germans are used to a healthy growth rate. The country's GDP has tripled over the last thirty years, enabling people to consume more and improve their standard of living. Now growth has started to slow down. How will that affect us?

Niko Paech: I think we do not use so many cars, so many flights. I do think that we consume less, but at the same time we will be happier because nowadays we are in danger of drowning in an avalanche of material goods that we have to compare, to select and then to use. So time is getting the bottleneck factor of well-being, therefore there's no contradiction between feeling well and having no growth at all in the economy.

DW-TV: Right, but isn't that a bit idealistic? I mean we've learned from socialist economies that little or no growth eventually brings a country to its knees.

Niko Paech: I do not think there is a matter of willingness or consciousness, because the price of oil is going to increase so much that it is not possible any more to stabilize a kind of growth development.

DW-TV: So basically we have no alternative. Niko Paech, thank you very much for joining us.

(Interview: Monika Jones)

These small light planes allow more and more people to fulfil their dream of flying and treat themselves to an expensive pleasure. The aircraft generally cost some 100,000 euros and are increasingly popular since they offer an attractive alternative to gas-guzzling Cessna private jets. Almost all of these small planes are made more cheaply in Eastern Europe. MiG reporter Grit Hofmann visited the only manufacturer to return to Germany: Remos in Pasewalk, in Mecklenburg. The company makes top-flight light aircraft from carbon fiber with a built-in parachute for the whole plane. Remos enjoy an international reputation and the German firm is the top-seller in the US for light planes.

But 7 years later, Babcock Borsig is a prime example of how bankruptcy does not have to mean the end. The liquidator, Helmut Schmitz, says that buyers have been found for many divisions of the business, and more than 18,000 of the around 23,000 jobs have been saved. One success story is Babcock's former energy division that was bought by Hitachi and now, with some 1,000 employees, is as strong as before the bankruptcy. MADE IN GERMANY reporter Marion Hütter toured the former company site with the liquidator.

In this episode we visit pharmaceutical and chemical concern Bayer. They've consciously created their entranceway using construction materials produced by the firm itself. Visitors are supposed to be impressed by Bayer's practical and attractive materials -- like a specially-produced polycarbonate which can replace glass. With its foyer, Bayer is keen to highlight the company's innovative side. Our reporter Philipp Bilsky finds out if they've succeeded.

Poland is an attractive place to invest for foreign companies, particularly those from neighbouring Germany. And Germany is Poland's biggest trading partner. Our reporter Manuela Kasper-Claridge toured the Polish city of Wroclaw and visited a construction company co-owned by a German and a Pole, which has been in business for a decade. The two entrepreneurs received assistance from the German-Polish Chamber of Foreign Trade. The head of the chamber's regional office in Wroclaw, Iwona Makowiecka, tells us how her organization promotes business between Germany and Poland.

Prost's firm Liqui-Moly produces car-care products like lube oils and additives. It has a turnover of more than 230 million euros a year -- in spite of the economic crisis and the pressure from larger competitors like Esso and Shell. Ernst Prost may be successful, but he certainly doesn't mince his words. He's taken out ads saying that the current economic crisis was sparked by power, greed and fear, and that those aren't qualities businesspeople should aspire to. Reporter Marion Hütter paid a visit to Liqui-Moly and spoke with the firm's employees about their unusual boss.

The market for health care in Germany grew around 5 percent in 2008, to some 18 billion euros, and continues to look robust for 2009. Ziehm is a mid-sized company which produces X-ray machines. A global leader in its field, Ziehm develops and produces its high-tech devices in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg. Our reporter Dagmar Zindel follows the story and isn't afraid to go where it hurts: the operating room.

DW-TV: What would you sell before letting your company go bust? Your castle?

Dirk Martin: All my assets, my shirt, I have no castle so I can't sell it...but I would want to save my company so I would sell whatever I have.

DW-TV: Are you an exception like Ernst Prost, whom we've just seen in the report? Or is this typical behavior for a company´s head?

Dirk Martin: I think it's typical for a family-owned company because the owner is completely in charge of everything that happens in the company. So he would do everything he could to save it. So it's typical, yes.

DW-TV: But somehow it's only typical of medium-sized companies and family-owned companies. We don't see it with huge corporations - why is that?

Dirk Martin: Because the management is not in charge of decision-making. They make decisions about making and spending money, but they have no liability for what they do. So they don't think about what will happen afterwards - they don't have to spend their own money. In fact they get a lot of money to go away. That's the difference.

DW-TV: It doesn't sound like a very good recipe to me. And if they're not liable, who is?

Dirk Martin: That's the question. Ultimately, the owners. And the owners are the shareholders. They are in charge. But you can't ask them to hand over the shirts off their backs because it's such a huge amount. If they spend their money they're bankrupt too.

DW-TV: Lots of companies are calling for state aid, and the state has answered the call, providing some 100 billion Euros in guarantees -- is that the right way to go about it?

Dirk Martin: In my opinion, no. Because if you look at Opel, management has been making mistakes for the last ten years. They lost a lot of market share and now the taxpayer is having to pay the bill. For me it's unbelievable and I think we need to fight this: It's our money, taxpayers' money. We cannot solve management's problems of the last ten years.

DW-TV: How can they be solved? Is the principle survival of the fittest?

Dirk Martin: I think you have to make the business smaller, as the example of Opel shows. There are too many carmakers in the world and if you want to survive you need to be smaller. This is a good solution. You will lose some employees, but in the end you will survive as a company. In my opinion, this is a solution.

DW-TV: Interestingly, the conservative forces won the majority in the latest European election - doesn't that imply that people want less state intervention rather than more?

Dirk Martin: I can say it's my money, taxpayers' money. And I don't want to spend it like this, just because of their mistakes. The election is the right result.

DW-TV: Last question: what's your advice for young start-ups in these times of turbulence?

Dirk Martin: You need the right idea, you have to be an entrepreneur, you have to be careful with money, you have to earn your own money, you have to spend this money and not go to the bank because then you might have problems in bad times.

DW-TV: Dirk Martin, thank vou very much!

Interview: Monica Jones

This third and strongest protection has been awarded to Allgäuer Bergkäse, a handmade cheese made from the milk of cows grazed on mountain pastures in southwest Germany's Allgäu region. Local cheesemakers are delighted their traditional trade is now protected from big industrial rivals. And the regional economy is benefiting too. Carmen Meyer reports.

Now many countries across Eastern Europe are struggling to cope with the economic crisis. Romania has been hit particularly hard, and has had to turn to the IMF and the EU for support. Its currency, the leu, has fallen sharply, while real estate prices and the construction industry are in freefall. What does this mean for German investors in Romania - and how are they adapting to these new conditions? We pay a visit to the head of the German-Romanian Chamber of Commerce. Michael Altenhenne reports.

It's already cut emissions by one third compared to 1993 levels, and aims to bring them down by half by 2010 - with a long-term goal of being wholly independent of fossil fuels. Instead Växjö is tapping into a renewable resource right on its doorstep: the forest, which provides vast amounts of biomass fuel for heating. But does fighting climate change pay off during times of economic crisis? MADE IN GERMANY visits three green businesses in Växjö to find out. A biomass powerplant that provides heat to 90% of the town's homes, a family-run sawmill with innovative offshoots, and a housebuilder specializing in the latest passively heated homes. Now their business models face their first big test. Grit Hofmann reports.

DW-TV: Next month, Sweden will assume the Presidency of the European Union -with a strong focus on environmental protection. What do you think is the best place to live right now -- Sweden?

Thomas Ilka: Sweden is a very nice place in Europe, Germany as well, and the good thing about Europe is that we do have twenty-seven membership states.

DW-TV: You know, we want to pick up on this environmental policy. Sweden is aiming to cut CO2 emissions even further than what we have seen so far. Sweden plans to cut emissions from 5.8 billion tonnes to 5.1 billion tonnes, and this goal was set before the recession set in. Now scientists say emissions levels could fall even more, thanks to the recession. What do you think? Let's look beyond Sweden here. Is this recession a chance for Europe, for example, to improve its environmental policy?

Thomas Ilka: Well, Sweden is a good role model, for one thing. Sweden has a strategy which is not one-sided. They both have renewables and they have nuclear power. And that's the way we should tackle the problem of climate change. There is no single way to Copenhagen, if you like it that way. We have to rely on different energy sources.

DW-TV: Can people here in Europe say that they have benefiited from the EU in this recession?

Thomas Ilka: Oh, yes, they did. The EU showed itself as ready for action. They talked and decided on stimulus packages both on the EU level and on the national level, and that is a big plus of the EU.

DW-TV: What about all the criticism that the individual countries kind of did their own thing when it came to bailout packages, and the EU only passed a package worth about five billion euros?

Thomas Ilka: Well, is that really surprising? I mean, what you need is legitimation for what you do at home and you can't decide on big packages in Brussels and then trickle them down at home. You need to have that done on the surface.

DW-TV: What are businesses telling you now that they need most to preserve investments in Eastern Europe?

Thomas Ilka: What we need most right now is to get out of the crisis, and we have a brand-new survey that shows that those enterprises that are already in, for example, Romania, want to stay there. What they tackle with, or what they need to tackle with, is corruption and is red tape. These are the two most concerns we are reported.

DW-TV: What do you think the European Union should do right now to battle corruption, because that is what a lot of people say is a business killer, isn't it?

Thomas Ilka: Yes, but that is a long-term investment which is needed. This has nothing to do with the crisis, and you have to tackle that long-term.

DW-TV: Would the introduction of the euro in eastern Europe make the situation better?

Thomas Ilka: Yes, of course, because if you are within the Eurozone you will have much more stability in your own economy.

DW-TV: There are some critics who say that EU subsidies are supporting businesses in eastern Europe that without that support would not be able to survive against the competition. What do you say to that?

Thomas Ilka: Well, subsidising new members is part of the business, and it's very closely talked about that, so there are always two sides in this equation.

Interview: Brent Goff