Firat Ünlü

The Germany Problem

Being hit hard once exports fall off a cliff comes with being an export-orientated nation. I fail to see how this competitiveness is a negative thing, yes it will be difficult to get through this but the Germans were raking it in during the good times and other European nations can hardly claim to have come up with a better economical system. Achieving such high levels of exports came after many years of low, if at all, wage rises so don't expect domestic demand to pick up the slack. However had wages risen higher then exports would have grown slower. Catch-22.
Being 'export-champion' comes with a cost.

Germany's Incredible Shrinking Economy

"But the real question, when all the dust settles, is going to be why it is that economies like those of Germany and Japan are so incredibly export dependent"

I think you need to look at this from a different angle. First of all, Germany and Japan produce competetive goods that, given the ability to consume, are demanded. This of course leads to them building industries that service this extra demand, once the demand vanishes there's nowhere to go for the surplus products and GDP shrinks. Whilst it looks bad on paper to have your economy shrank by 2.1% in a single quarter it is in relative terms not that bad as the economies themselve are still competetive, it's just that there's no longer an external market to absorb excess capacity.
GDP will shrink in alignment with internal factors, but the economy will remain capable of a potential 'push' should external demand come up.
It is far more dangerous to be the economy that consumes more than it produces in the midde to long-run, as that not only involves 'natureal' shrinking to a healthy domestic level but real shrinking.