Bundesbank head condemns action against US Federal Reserve chairman

Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel has condemned the US government's action against Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

"This is absurd," Nagel told the Tagesspiegel newspaper in an interview published on Saturday. "The way he is being attacked politically shocks me to the core."

After all, it was the US that taught Germany the importance of independent central banks after World War II, Nagel said.

US President Donald Trump has been targeting Powell for months with a mixture of public pressure, personal insults and legal threats.

The Washington prosecutor's office is investigating Powell in connection with the costly renovation of the central bank building.

Critics of the move see it as an attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve, with the aim of enforcing the interest rate cuts demanded by Trump.

Central bankers have so far been slow to cut interest rates in order to avoid triggering a resurgence of inflation.

Nagel said he knows Powell well, and holds him in high regard. "He continues to pursue a very good monetary policy for the US and is fundamentally decent," Nagel said.