High unemployment, looming deflation, budget woes, rising public anger. Some doomsayers talk of Germany having been here before, drawing uncomfortable parallels with the Weimar era that heralded Hitler's rise.
Most historians and economists dismiss the comparison, but say the fact the spectre of Weimar is being recalled underlines the depth of Germany's economic woes and the need to reassert the country's post-war democratic traditions.
Oskar Lafontaine, a former German finance minister and left-wing firebrand, tore into his erstwhile comrade Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder last week, saying government spending cuts were driving the economy into a recessionary spiral.
"It is as if Heinrich Bruening had risen again, the chancellor of the Reich who caused mass unemployment with his savings measures and prepared the ground for Hitler," Lafontaine wrote in a column in the mass-circulation Bild newspaper.
Chancellor of the crumbling Weimar Republic from 1930 to 1932, Bruening was blamed for exacerbating unemployment and deflation by cutting public spending to try to force the Allies to cut Germany's World War One reparations payments.
Since narrowly winning re-election in September, Schroeder has slumped in opinion polls as he has announced plans to raise taxes and cut public expenditure to try to get Germany's budget deficit back under control after breaching European Union rules.
Data out this week showing consumer prices fell 0.4 per cent in November on the month fuelled fears Germany could follow Japan into a deflationary spiral, with the European Central Bank unable to give Germany the full interest rate relief it needs due to price pressures elsewhere in the euro zone.
Niall Ferguson, professor of political and financial history at Britain's Oxford University, said Schroeder's ability to spend the economy back to health was limited by the EU budget rules drawn up to protect the euro, just as Bruening was hamstrung by reparations.
"In 1930 Bruening made the mistake of putting international considerations ahead of domestic economic stability," he wrote in Britain's Sunday Times last week. "Today's equivalent is a blind faith in the (EU) growth and stability pact."
But most German economic historians rejected the comparison with the dying years of the Weimar Republic, when unemployment climbed to almost six million and prices fell by up to 11 per cent a year, driving voters into the arms of the Nazis.
"This is one of those cliches of economic history: if there is a crisis, it must be a repeat of the Great Depression. If a country needs rebuilding, it must be the new Marshall Plan," said Thomas Bittner, a researcher at Muenster University.
"What we have now should not be compared to the Great Depression," he said.
"The international climate is quite different. Germany doesn't have to pay any reparations and there is a much greater readiness to cooperate between central banks and governments. Back then, central banks competed with each other."
Rainer Goemmel, professor of economic history at Regensburg University, agreed: "You can't compare the government saving measures today with then. Another difference was the increasing protectionism. Germany was the only country that couldn't defend itself through devaluation so exports collapsed."
While economists predict German inflation could fall towards zero on an annual basis early next year, most say the country is unlikely to record sustained deflation due to sticky wages and the lack of a property bubble like the one that burst in Japan.
"Deflation is a danger but economic data doesn't point to a collapse. Germany has already experienced phases of moderate deflation that didn't hurt growth much such as in the late 19th century," said Professor Joerg Baten from Tuebingen University.
"We have high unemployment, but overall we have a higher standard of living so desperation is not so severe."
But historians and commentators said Germany's leaders should take seriously the public's sense of betrayal and refrain from the fiery political rhetoric that has shown no sign of abating since the closely-contested election in September.
While far-right parties have failed to replicate in Germany the gains they have made elsewhere in Europe, German populism is on the rise, with US officials accusing Schroeder of fuelling anti-Americanism with his opposition to war on Iraq.
"We are experiencing a process of the decline of political culture which could be more dangerous than the difficult economic situation," the liberal Sueddeutsche Zeitung wrote in an editorial last week entitled "The puberty of politicians."
Arnulf Baring, a history professor at Berlin's Free University, has courted controversy by appearing to advocate an uprising against the political establishment. "A massive tax boycott, passive and active resistance, enraged revolt are in the air," he wrote in a newspaper editorial.
Heinrich August Winkler, a historian at Berlin's Humboldt University, disputed that Germans were generally disillusioned with their political system, but said action was needed to maintain confidence in democracy.
"We've been burned before and have learned from Weimar," he told the Frankfurter Rundschau daily. "Drawing consequences from the experiences of Weimar for today means cementing trust in parliamentary democracy through speedy and effective reform."