With reference to Tom Cuddihy’s comment: here’s what I found at the site referenced:

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2008/08/blazing-economies.html

“vantastic5 in the comments advises me that the German economy really did grow a blazing 1.5% in the first quarter. What happened? They got a years worth of growth (for Germany) in the first quarter. After that the economy was and will be essentially flat. The Financial Times reports:

Germany’s economy has performed robustly compared with other industrialised countries, with 2.5 per cent growth last year and 1.5 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth in the first three months of 2008.

However, second-quarter growth is expected to be significantly lower, the German finance ministry conceded this week, owing to high energy prices and inflation, the strong euro and the weak international economy.

Industrial production fell in May by 2.4 per cent – its largest monthly drop in a decade – and a second-quarter contraction in gross domestic product of 0.4 per cent was likely, according to an economists’ poll published on Wednesday by Reuters.

The German government has forecast that growth will fall to 1.7 per cent this year and 1.2 per cent in 2009.”