That means nervous breakdown. Having them is a favorite German pastime. These days especially.

Germans on the verge of a nervous breakdown – It’s a sign of the nation’s fraught state of mind that many seriously believe this week’s unlikely plotters could have toppled democracy.

Early Wednesday, thousands of balaclava-clad German police officers fanned out across the country, arresting 25 people and seizing weapons to upend what authorities described as a diabolical plot to overthrow the country’s government and reinstate the monarchy. The group’s “military arm” was surreptitiously building “a new German army,” the lead prosecutor on the case said.

A day later, however, the case looks more like the script of a Monty Python episode than a sequel to the Day of the Jackal…

Al Qaeda it was not.