The headlines tell the story on Thursday. "Thousands of Germans Missing," the lead story in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung proclaims. For its headline, the mass-circulation Bild quotes former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who was vacationing at the time of the tsunami in Sri Lanka and alluded to his childhood memories of World War II: "It Looked Like it had been Bombed!" The business daily Handelsblatt laments "Hundreds of Germans Feared Dead." The one paper that doesn't lead with the Germans is Die Tageszeitung, which poignantly reminds us that Northern European tourists at Thailand's Khao Lak resort are only a fraction of those hit by the tragedy: "Millions of People in a State of Emergency."

One thing most of the papers agree on, however, is that Sunday's events are an international tragedy that has left both Europe and Southeast Asia in a state of utter devastation. "It is not chauvinistic to state that the Asian tsunami is also a German tragedy on a national scale," writes the left-of-center Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper. "Dec. 26 was the greatest tragedy Germans have ever experienced abroad and the German government's response has been appropriate," it continues. Initially, Berlin only offered €1 million in immediate aid to the region, and the paper criticizes the government for that, but it quickly increased the amount to €20 million. And in the end, the paper, which for the sake of full disclosure is majority-owned by the Social Democrats, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's political party, praises Berlin for its swift response to the crisis. "As far as can be seen, crisis management is working effectively. There seems to be an awareness of the balance between responsibility for one's own people and solidarity with others."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung agrees that Berlin has done well in its response to the calamity. It also sees this as a shining moment for globalization. "The reactions to the disaster give the word 'globalization', seen by some as a threat and by others as the epitome of boundless freedom, a placatory tone," the paper writes. "The biggest natural catastrophe unites humanity in a global wave of willingness to help." It goes on to describe Berlin's aid efforts as an "appropriate" reaction to "indescribable suffering." Its immediate measures "show that Berlin's crisis management is swiftly capable of mobilizing the necessary human and technical resources."

Earlier this week, Jan Engeland, who heads up relief efforts for the United Nations, poked at rich nations for not being more generous with their immediate aid pledges -- a move that drew massive criticism and even led to personal responses from US Secretary of State Colin Powell and President George W. Bush, who defended their country against allegations of being "stingy." The center-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung in Munich urges restraint on Thursday. "Someone as professional as Engeland should have known that provocation does more harm than good in the hour of need," it writes. "He criticized rich countries for being stingy, hinting at the US." The paper notes that the industrial nations have continually increased their pledges (including the US and Germany) and reminds us that "there will never be enough money to quickly cope with a natural disaster of this scale." The bigger test in the coming months will be the degree of commitment industrial countries show. "Even when the victims of Asia are no longer in the headlines, the money will still be needed."