BERLIN – Germany's finance minister said Monday he is considering creating a “shield” that would protect the country's entire financial sector, arguing it would not be possible to continue to address troubled financial institutions on a case by case basis.

However, Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck made clear that Germany does not envision making its move as part of a U.S.-style bailout plan for all of Europe. He said he and Chancellor Angela Merkel agree that the German government must remain the sole “master of the process.”

Steinbrueck spoke after the government on Sunday put together a new 50 billion euros ($69 billion) rescue package for distressed lender Hypo Real Estate AG. Steinbrueck's ministry reached a deal with private banks late Sunday to infuse an additional line of credit worth up to 15 billion euros ($21 billion).

“We must now try – beyond a single solution at Hypo Real Estate – to stretch a shield across Germany as a whole, so we do not stagger from one case to the next,” Steinbrueck said on Deutschlandfunk radio.

“I am very conscious of the fact that, at some point, we won't be able to move forward with individual solutions,” he told reporters later Monday. Steinbrueck said the aim was to have a “plan B” available, but declined to provide details.

Steinbrueck was unyielding in his opposition to a Europe-wide shield.

“The chancellor and I reject a European shield because we as Germans do not want to pay into a big pot where we do not have control and do not know where German money might be used,” he said in a separate interview with WDR 2 radio.

Merkel said Monday that there had been no alternative to going through with the Hypo Real Estate bailout if further damage to the country's financial sector was to be avoided.

“We were successfully able to stabilize an important bank,” Merkel said at a conference in Wiesbaden.

Still, Hypo Real Estate's top managers – chief executive Georg Funke and supervisory board chairman Kurt Viermetz – faced heavy pressure to step aside.

“I consider it unthinkable to continue working together under the current management,” Steinbrueck said.

“Hypo apparently did not lay all of the facts on the table,” said Fritz Kuhn, parliamentary leader of the opposition Greens. “If the government is going to have to guarantee Hypo Real Estate, then it must be able to ... have a say in the bank's development and personnel.”

In August, Hypo reported a 28 percent drop in net profit for the second quarter, but Funke insisted at the time that the company's two main pillars of commercial real estate and public finance were “strong and viable” because of strict management and shrewd lending.

Hypo Real Estate's shares dropped by nearly 36 percent on Monday, trading at 4.81 euros ($6.56) in Frankfurt.