system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: In retrospect, why was germany left largely unscathed from the 2008/2009 financial crisis?
gpt
The crash came from an excess of bad debt.  Folks had been writing loans to people that can't pay, and eventually ran out of capital to keep writing loans when too many folks didn't make their payments.  

It was really a team effort.  Banks shouldn't have been writing multiple mortgages to folks that work part time at McDonalds, and folks that can't afford $1200/mo shouldn't be taking out loans with $1500/mo payments.  Easy lending makes economies do whatever they're going to do faster.  If times are good and everyone is making payments, the economy grows very quickly.  When times get tough, it crashes quickly.  

Germany's banking system kept restrictions on lending practices, and this was reinforced by their culture that didn't borrow what they can't pay back.  They never really had a crisis of capital where the banks were out of cash to lend due to lack of payment.  The downside here was that their economic growth was restricted during the boom times, but also restricted during a crash.