MORE ON GERMANY & THE RECESSION

Unlike America, Germany started counter-cyclical spending near the beginning of the Great Recession.   Here's a table from Krugman using government spending in Q4 2007 as "100":

Quarter Gemany US
2007Q4 100.0 100.0
2008Q1 100.4 100.6
2008Q2 101.5 100.8
2008Q3 101.7 102.2
2008Q4 102.5 102.9
2009Q1 103.6 102.5
2009Q2 104.2 103.8
2009Q3 105.1 104.0
2009Q4 104.8 103.9
2010Q1 106.9 103.8
2010Q2 107.3 104.5

Krugman later a provided a graph: