BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany has grown inured to criticism over its role in Europe's woes and, seeing itself vindicated by events, is unlikely now to give up its insistence private investors accept risk in future euro zone crises.

When Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Wednesday that Germany was not to blame for the euro zone's problems and would stick to its proposal for a new crisis mechanism, he was not so much being defensive as saying what Germans find obvious.

Greece, Ireland and some European Commission and European Central Bank officials accuse Germany of causing a sell-off in peripheral euro zone bonds by insisting, with French support, that investors must in future share the sovereign default risk.

"Taken out of context there is obviously merit to the Franco-German proposal. But the timing could not have been more damaging," wrote Simon Tilford, chief economist of the Centre for European Reform in Brussels.

According to German logic, European Union leaders already accepted at their October summit Berlin's proposal to replace the European Financial Stability Facility, which was set up in May and expires in mid-2013, with a new mechanism making private holders of euro zone debt accept some exposure to risk.

So when the same leaders like Greece's George Papandreou say Germany could "break backs" and prompt bankruptcies by insisting investors face the risk of default, or a haircut, the German conclusion is that they are just playing to domestic audiences.

Merkel said yesterday she was "completely convinced" this would happen. A day earlier, Sueddeutsche Zeitung wrote in an editorial "the chancellor should not sacrifice her principles".

"The indebted countries are attacking their chief financier, Germany, and the main attackers innuin the blame game are the most indebted countries," said the newspaper.

Apart from a few isolated editorials, though, the criticisms have largely fallen on deaf ears in the German media.