Atlas Shrugs (and Goes on Strike) in German

Germans tired of carrying Europe turn to a new printing of Ayn Rand's novel

The plot of Ayn Rand's controversial 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged couldn't be more relevant to Germany as the European financial crisis unfolds—or so contends a young Munich executive, Kai John, who has published a new translation of the libertarian classic. In the novel, the brightest and most productive citizens (i.e. the Germans!) deeply resent having to support the weaker members of society and rebel, leaving society in tatters, a fate that could befall the Continent if Angela Merkel and the German parliament refuse to bolster the European Union's straggling economies. A series of bailouts has left John, 36, a vice president at a multinational financial services company, feeling like Rand's hero, John Galt: "The time is here to make Germans aware that collectivism has its limits."