I've just returned from a Böhm Bawerk lecture given by Hans-Werner Sinn, entitled "Bazaar Economy Germany – world export champion or economic slowcoach?" His theory which is capable of explaining the coincidence of unemployment and booming exports has led to many discussions in the German public over the last year. Sinn in a nutshell [Source]:

Germany is gradually becoming a bazaar economy ... because nowadays it specializes in packaging and selling its products, while outsourcing an ever-larger share of its high value-added manufacturing to low-wage countries. In other words, Germany’s role in the world economy is shifting from that of a producer to that of a merchant. As a result, its exports contain an ever-increasing share of imported goods and services and the share of domestic value-added in its exports per unit of output is rapidly declining... Excessive wages destroy the labor-intensive upstream product stages too fast and also impairs other labor-intensive sectors like textiles, simple services, tourism, and construction. As a result, these labor-intensive sectors must release a lot of labor and capital, which push into the capital-intensive export sectors that are better able to cope with high wages. But, while these sectors therefore grow especially fast, their high capital intensity means that they cannot fully employ the released labor, with the result that some of the unemployed workers have nowhere to turn but the welfare state.

The take home message is that German enterprises will remain competitive on international markets thanks to their Eastern European hinterland (= keep putting your money into the DAX), but many German workers have lost their competitiveness and the situation will become even more worse if nothing is done against the unflexible labor market, especially the downward rigidity of wages. Sinn even said that the shock to wages due to the additon of China, India and other ex-communist countries to the world economy will be felt for the next 50 years.