Not surprisingly, questions are being raised within the E.U. whether the ideal of a united Europe can survive near-disasters like the Greek crisis. In Germany, which is expected to pay heavily for pulling the Greeks back from the abyss, tabloids like the Bild Zeitung relentlessly dwell on Greece’s Pleite – a sardonic but universally used word for bankruptcy.
On June 28, the quality paper Die Zeit reminded its readers of an essay the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig wrote in 1932, a few months before the Nazis came to power, on “The European Idea and Its Roots in History.” In this essay, Zweig asked whether Europe will continue its self-destruction or unite.
In exile in the Brazilian city of Petropolis, he took his life in 1942.
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
No discussion on Europe would be complete without at least considering what Timothy Garton Ash has to say. Here’s his recent article on the Euro (European) crisis: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/15/european-project-new-german-engine
eg. The key to so much of this, especially on the economic side, is Germany. For much of its history, what has become the European Union pursued political ends by economic means. For Kohl and Mitterrand, the euro was mainly a political project, not an economic one. Now the boot is on the other foot. In order to save a poorly designed and over-extended monetary union, we need an exceptional political commitment. The political must ride to the rescue of the economic.