Abstract
The planned increase in German government debt is widely regarded as a fundamental violation of intergenerational justice. Macroeconomic and sectoral balance sheets show that this is just as grossly incorrect as the idea that Germany is or will become a ‘debt state’. The clarification is important because geopolitical upheavals require a change in the patterns of wealth accumulation for the German economy as a whole as well as its sectors. Without an expansion of government debt, this will hardly be possible without triggering a prolonged period of stagnation or worse.