The German finance minister is preparing to deal with a Greek default, Der Spiegel reported September 12. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble “no longer believes that the Greeks will be able to fulfill the stipulated conditions, and that they are likely to run out of money as early as October,” it wrote.

German Economy Minister Philip Rösler said that an orderly default should be considered for Greece. “In order to stabilize the euro, we must not take anything off the table in the short run,” he wrote in Die Welt September 12. “That includes as a worst-case scenario an orderly default for Greece, if the necessary instruments for it are available.”

“Rösler’s commentary represents a significant change in discourse in the German government, as it confronts the difficult reality that Greece’s debt problems may be too big for the eurozone to solve,” writes Deutsche Welle.

“It feels like Germany is preparing itself for a debt default,” chief European economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Jacques Cailloux, said. “Fatigue is setting in. Germany could be a first mover or other countries could be preparing too.”

A whole chorus of German politicians have warned that Greece could even leave the eurozone. Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union (csu), said that “you can’t rule out” Greece leaving the eurozone. Georg Nüsslein, one of the csu’s economic policy spokesmen, said: “The Greeks have to withdraw. They can’t get back on their feet while they are in the eurozone.” Volker Bouffier, deputy chairman of the cdu, said: “If the Greek government’s austerity and reform efforts are not successful, we will also have to ask ourselves whether we need new rules to enable a eurozone country to withdraw from the monetary union.” German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich made similar statements, as did the Free Democratic Party’s Hermann Otto Solms.

“With a mixture of resignation and fatalism, Merkel and Schäuble are facing up to the inevitable and thinking the previously unthinkable: Greece is going bankrupt, and not even its withdrawal from the monetary union can be ruled out anymore,” the Spiegel report said.

In doing so, the Finance Ministry is sending a message “that Europe also has an alternative to helping: If necessary, it can also withdraw its help,” writes Der Spiegel.

German politicians have good reason for fearing for Greece’s future. On September 11, Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos warned that the Greek economy would shrink by 5.3 percent instead of the 3.8 percent forecast previously. Greece seems to be struggling to meet the conditions of the bailout. Schäuble is threatening to withhold bailout money from Greece, unless it “does what it agreed to do.”

Shares in French banks plummeted September 12 over concerns that they could be hit hard by a Greek default.

“We have never been so close to emu rupture,” warned the Telegraph’s international business editor, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, September 11. “Friday’s resignation of Jurgen Stark at the European Central Bank is literally a kataklysmos, a German vote of no confidence in emu management.”

He wrote: “The vehemence of his protest against ecb bond purchases confirm what markets suspect: that the ecb cannot shore up Italian and Spanish debt markets for long without losing Germany.”

The eurozone is heading rapidly for a crisis—a crisis that will change Europe forever.