German unemployment shot up to 5.2m last month, its highest level in 73 years, dragging Europe's largest economy deeper into its most serious political crisis in months.

The statistics, officially released on Tuesday, had been obtained by Financial Times Deutschland, the FT's sister newspaper in Germany, on Monday night. They will increase public pressure on the government to reconsider the wait-and-see attitude it has adopted on economic reforms since the beginning of the year.