Greek-German Disagreements Over War Reparations

• 03.31.2015, 18:00
•  Europe,  "Insight" Analytical Center ,  World,  Analytics

As the new Greek government of Syriza tries to soften the critical socio-economic situation in the country after coming to power, no real improvement of the situation is being recorded, forcing the new government refuse its pre-election promises step-by-step.

It seems that the new PM Alexis Tsipras sounds more and more desperate in demanding World War II reparations from Germany every time he meets German Chancellor Angela Merkel. While Merkel refuses any thought of reparations, Tspiras says Berlin has 'a moral obligation' to compensate for years of Nazi occupation. The Greek parliamentarians established a committee for claiming war reparations.

"After the reunification of Germany in 1990, the legal and political conditions were created for this issue to be solved. But, since then, German governments chose silence, legal tricks and delay",- Tsipras said during his recent speech in the Parliament.

The issue of war reparations has long been present in Greek-German relations, but Athens’ decision to again bring the matter on the table comes at a particularly sensitive time. Now that negotiations on keeping the debt-stricken nation afloat and in the Eurozone are underway, Greece is trying to preserve the dignity towards Berlin – the provider of the vast bulk of its €240 billion bailout program.

Since being elected, the Greek government has sought to fulfill its election promises and to get rid of its debt and to end EU-imposed austerity. For Tsipras, whose radical-left Syriza party campaigned on an anti-bailout platform, this reparations issue could be a real victory, even if they end up failing to change the bailout program.

Talking on the reparations German Deputy Chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, said the Greek demands are outright, stressing that "the probability is zero" and some call the wartime repayments as something that the Greeks use trying to cover their debts by tricking "poor" German taxpayers out of their hard-earned euros.

So, what reparations are the Greeks speaking about? In 1990s the most common argument against reparations by German polititians was the time period. But the thing is that in 1970s Germany was forced to pay for World War I damages 60 years after the start of the war to the Allied and Associate Powers, among them the Triple Entente. Once one reparation payment had been granted to one country, there would certainly be many more with the same demands. After WWII both West and East Germanies were obliged to pay war reparations to the Allied governments by the Postdam conference. While other allied states got very little.

The claims of the Greek are connected with the monthly loans demanded from the Greek government in 1942-1944 by the Nazis. In this case the distinction between reparation payments for war crimes and repayments of so-called monthly loans demanded from the Greeks for the maintenance costs of the German army in Greece and further military activity in the Mediterranean should be understood properly.

In early 1945, in the final days of the Third Reich, a group of high-ranking German economists calculated this "German debt to the Greek state" to amount to 476m reichsmarks, which would be roughly 10 billion euros today.

In 1960, Greece accepted 115 million Marks as compensation for Nazi crimes. Nevertheless, past Greek governments have insisted that this was only a down-payment, not complete reparations. In 1990, immediately prior to German reunification, West Germany and East Germany signed the Two Plus Four Agreement with the former Allies (the US, Great Britain, France, and Russia). Since that time, Germany has insisted that all matters concerning WWII, including further reparations, are closed because Germany officially compensated to the Allies and to no other parties, including Greece can now demand any further compensation.

As the war ended another argument was used to avoid reparations: Greece had since received generous bilateral support from NATO and the EU, in which Germany would have been the largest contributor. 

The president of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki, said German reparations could finance a Holocaust memorial on the site of the train station from which Jews departed for Poland during World War II. So it may be derived that this kind of cases may become the solution for the future of the issue with reparations.

Nikos Paraskevopoulos, the Greek justice minister on Wednesday even declared that German property in Greece could be seized as compensation.

After coming to power Tsipras' first move as PM was to visit a memorial honoring Greek resistance fighters killed by the Nazis in 1944 - a symbolic gesture that did not go unnoticed in Berlin. But this was what he aimed at. Demanding WWII reparations from Germany is a move that will hardly succeed, but is one of the main cards that can be played for the country's future, the future of its debts and for the success of Tsipras, also for Syriza's election campaign. So if the goal is not reached there is very little left for Greece to undertake in terms of its debts to the Troika in the little time that has remained.

Today the talks between Greece and its creditors are continuing with just a week to go before Greece is to make a payment to the IMF and amid uncertainty over how much cash the government has left.

Greece handed in a list of potential reforms to Eurozone officials on Friday and experts spent all weekend working on turning the ideas in something that will eventually trigger the release of a €7.2 billion tranche of bailout money.

Thus taking into consideration all the above-mentioned, it can be stated that the issue of reparations is afloat until Greece needs it so. After so many years the question was raised in a very sensitive time. It is an instrument for pushing Germany to make concessions concerning the deal on the Greek bailout program and it will be a good contribution for the Greek relations with Germany, and a plus for Greece.