Photo Gallery The Last Guardian of Monetary Stability
Jens Weidmann, the 44-year-old head of Germany's central bank, has made a name for himself by championing price stability and opposing bond purchases by the European Central Bank. In a SPIEGEL interview, he criticizes the ECB's latest plans and insists he only wants to secure the euro's long-term future.
ECB President Mario Draghi. "I was already critical of the sovereign bond purchases that have been made to date -- and I was by no means alone in that respect," Weidmann told SPIEGEL. "Such a policy is too close to state financing via the money press for me."
US President Barack Obama reportedly asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for Weidmann's phone number, but the Bundesbank president denied that he had called. "I occasionally talk on the phone with US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, though," Weidmann said.
