One of the Most Popular Hashtags These Days: BoycottGermany

• 07.16.2015, 15:57
•  Europe,  World

In response to Germany's hard-line stance in the Greece bailout crisis, which has resulted in a third bailout proposal, people showed their anger on social media calling for a boycott of German products.

The hashtag #BoycottGermany started picking up speed on Twitter at the beginning of the week, and quickly became the most talked about hashtag. It has been used over 30,000 times, although many mentions also come from people criticizing the movement, BBC reports.
The hashtags urge people to avoid products with barcodes starting with a sequence of numbers which indicates German origin, some are even calling for specific targeting of German luxury goods. "Don't buy that Volkswagen or Miele".
The matter is that across Europe and increasingly in Germany itself, the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel is being blamed for acting as a ''villain'' in all this Greek drama. As Time puts it, Germany is treating Greece like a disobedient stepchild rather than an equal member of the European currency union. 

But it was not only Greeks that blame Germany; the German government has also faced criticism at home. While Merkel’s ruling coalition has mostly toed the party line, opposition figures have been sniping at the Greek bailout deal all week from across the political spectrum. ''This negotiation result is a German diktat and nothing other than blackmail,'' told Dietmar Bartsch, the deputy head of a left-wing party that has about 10% of the seats in the German parliament.

Besides the campaign to boycott German products, there also appeared some vicious cartoons comparing Germany’s current leaders to the Nazis. As Spiegel Online reports, ''The German government destroyed seven decades of post-war diplomacy in a single weekend.''