No one is happy about high unemployment in Germany. But few can whine about it with the same piercing tone as the writers of Germany's editorial pages. The problem -- 5 million unemployed, if the government is to be believed -- is very real. But Wednesday's announcement is just too freighted with historical and political meaning for it to just be taken at face value.

The nationwide daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung, to begin with, takes on the number itself. Everyone's worried about the big 5 in front of all those zeroes, "yet the statistic lies," writes the paper. "If you also count all of those pushed into early retirement, training programs, or personal service agencies, the number of people without work would be 6 to 7 million -- a level that, according to the calculations of experts, was already reached during the period from 1995 to 1998, and has been reached again every year since 2003." Despite the fact that things have been bad for a while, people are descending into a deep funk over the new announcement. "Maybe this country can't handle the truth. Maybe it's better when Germans betray themselves," the paper writes. "After all, they're already the world champions of pessimism." Instead, they should take a page from the Americans and Brits, both of whom have ably recovered from major recessions in the 1980s. In Germany, though, the obstacles in the way of innovative expansion of the economy are personal. "Germans are worried even before taking the first step. They don't trust themselves, but only trust the state - that's their problem."

The conservative Die Welt says the "sonic barrier" of 5 million is not just depressing for those poor folk who've actually lost their jobs. "The fear of losing one's job has already long since fixed itself in the upper income brackets. For in the meantime, it's become clear to everyone that something is going fundamentally wrong in Germany." All the attempts of the government haven't helped at all, and in some cases just make it harder for people to find jobs. "It has little to do with 'social,' and nothing whatsoever with the 'market economy.'" People who lose their jobs quickly realize the state is going to take care of them, "and it's then, at the very latest, when some people realize that it's not worth it to try and get a new job."

In Bild, Germany's most widely-read tabloid, commentator Franz Josef Wagner writes an open letter to Labor and Economics Minister Wolfgang Clement: "4 million, 5 million, 6 million unemployed - how many is it really? I don't believe any number from you or your work agency. You're talking about plus or minus 1 million people. I think you've gone crazy. Are you even interested in these people? There are thousands of Germans today living without light or heating. Do you know, Minister Clement, how many Germans are freezing today?"

Meanwhile, Financial Times Deutschland notes the political side of the hullabaloo over unemployment. Five million is a psychologically important number for many reasons, not least because it was a level last reached during 1933, when Hitler came to power. "The labor minister doesn't want to recall that; he refuses to accept the 'absurd comparison' with the past." But Clement has tied his political future to the labor market - and there, perversely, he stands to come out alright. The employment numbers are bound to improve between now and the 2006 elections, and will help Clement and the current governing coalition: things will look better then than they do now. Still, the reforms know as "Hartz IV cannot achieve what Germany needs most: more investments, more business, more positions -- above all for lower qualified workers." The government must do more than play with statistics and create one-euro jobs. "Giving wage subsidies to private-sector jobs promises to do much more than state organized labor."

The FTD also weighs in on the day's other main topic, President Horst Koehler's trip to Jerusalem. "The president fulfilled his duty without a mistake, admittedly without setting out an explicit course." He knew that he had to walk a very careful line, and said that "it's almost impossible to find the right words in Israel as a German politician." His speech in the Knesset may not go down in the history books, but the fact that he was visibly shaken during his visit to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, had a greater effect. "This humane display of emotion revealed much more than carefully chosen words."