I would recommend you to follow Michael Pettis[1]. He used to focus on China but recently also wrote about Europe. I find his explanation convincing but by no means is his view the consensus amount economists.
I think much of your question can be answered by this piece: http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/07/no-the-spanish-cant-be-m...
In short, prolonged trade imbalances are mostly because of policy reasons, in this case suppressed German wages, and individual preference or things like "hardworking culture" are most likely results instead of causes.