Now not only Société Générale, but the British-German monster Deutsche Bank is demanding that the European Union suspend its “bail-in” rules and conduct a “European TARP” bank bailout to avert looming bank failures.

Deutsche Bank chief economist David Folkerts-Landau, interviewed by Welt am Sonntag, demanded a EU150 billion (roughly $165 billion) Europe-wide bailout to “recapitalize” banks, specifically without “bailing in” bank bondholders or depositors. Folkerts-Landau called his demand a TARP for Europe, but apparently thought it would be reassuring that he was recommending only $165 billion and not $700 billion. One might anticipate checking back with the distinguished bank economist on that figure in a week or two.

Immediately, the statement knocks the props out from under German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s opposition to allowing Italy to conduct such a “no bail-in bank bailout.” Schäuble has said that he is ready to “stand by” Deutsche Bank in its difficulties, while claiming they were not serious. Folkerts-Landau evidently knows better; but he particularly called a bailout for Italian banks “urgent,” and said that “to stick so strictly to the [bail-in] rules would cause greater destruction than setting them aside.”

He obviously was asking for Deutsche Bank and other London-centered giants as well. “Europe is extremely sick, and must attack the existing problems extremely quickly, otherwise we are threatened with an accident,” he told the Sunday edition of Die Welt. These illnesses, with bank stock collapses as their symptoms only, included “a fatal combination of weak growth, high government debt and the approach of dangerous deflation.”

Folkerts-Landau is an investment banker who heads both the research division of Deutsche Bank’s investment bank, and the “think-tank” of the bank holding company. This was rightly called dangerous when he took over the jobs in 2012; but since Deutsche Bank is essentially not a bank but a giant broker-dealer/hedge fund, it was not surprising.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told reporters during a recent joint press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven that, no matter how serious Italy’s banking problems are, they are dwarfed, by comparison, with Deutsche Bank.  “If this non-performing loan problem is worth one, the question of derivatives at other banks, at big banks, is worth one hundred.”  Renzi’s remarks were described by Alex Christoforou as a not-so-subtle pressure move by Renzi against German Chancellor Angela Merkel and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, over their refusal to bend the rules to allow Italy to bail out Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena without invoking the EU’s bail-in policy, in force since Jan. 1.  The “derivatives at big banks” referenced by Renzi was directed at Deutsche Bank, which has been widely described in recent weeks as the most volatile bank in the entire trans-Atlantic system, with a derivatives exposure of $75 trillion, 20 times bigger than the GDP of Germany, and a 40:1 leverage rate, far beyond the Lehman Brothers case in 2008.

Zero Hedge on Saturday further detailed the Deutsche Bank disaster under the headline “Charting the Epic Collapse of the World’s Most Systemically Dangerous Bank.”  Tyler Durden wrote “If the deaths of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were quick and painless, the coming demise of Deutsche Bank has been long, drawn out, and painful.”  But according to a time-line of recent events, Deutsche Bank is now on the edge of blowout, with massive implications for the entire London-Wall Street centered system of trans-Atlantic finance.  On June 2, two former Deutsche Bank employees were charged in the ongoing U.S. Justice Department probe of the Libor rigging scandal.  A total of 29 Deutsche Bank officials are still under investigation in that probe.  Following the Brexit vote, Deutsche Bank, the largest European bank operation in London, has been further reeling.  On June 29, the IMF issued a warning that “DB appears to be the most important net contributor to systematic risks.”  The next day, the Fed announced that DB had failed the stress test as the result of “poor risk management and financial planning.”

Deutsche Bank shares are now selling at 8% of the peak price in May 2007, with 9,000 employees having been recently laid off, and the bank shutting down operations in 10 countries.  However, the real problem is Deutsche Bank’s enormous derivatives exposure, the largest of any bank in the world.  Zero Hedge warned:  “Now that Deutsche Bank’s dirty laundry has been exposed for all to see, Renzi’s gambit is clear: If Merkel does not relent on bailing out Italian banks, the collapse of Italian banks will assure the failure of Deutsche Bank in kind.  And since in a fallout scenario of that magnitude DB’s derivatives would not net out, there will be no change to save the German banking giant, bail out, in or sideways.”