Don't mention the war

Don't mention the war

Old grievances have bubbled to the surface here in Europe, as the eurozone creaks under the pressure of the Greek financial crisis.

The Greek and German press are, metaphorically at least, at war, and some politicians, who perhaps should know better, have waded into the argument, invoking Nazis, stolen gold, and Second World War atrocities.

A little bit of context; if (although many believe it's "when") Greece needs financial support to pay off its enormous debts, it's certain that Germany, as Europe's biggest economy, will be asked to pick up a substantial part of the bill. Unfortunately there is not much sympathy for Greece in Germany today. In fact, quite the opposite.

In an open letter to the Greek people published in an Athens newspaper this week, a German journalist, Walter Wullenweber of Stern Magazine, put it in blunt terms. He told Greeks that, "spending beyond your means, swindling and living at the expense of others cannot continue indefinitely". He pointed out that German tax payers have been generously subsidising Greeks, through the EU, for decades.

Other German journalists have been even less diplomatic. Focus magazine depicted the famous ancient Greek statue, Venus de Milo, making an obscene gesture. The sentiment of most Germans, as Angela Merkel is well aware, is that Greece got itself into this mess, and it deserves all the hardships and humiliations now coming its way.

This is too much for some Greek politicians, already hurt by the barrage of international criticism their country is facing. Parliamentary speaker Filipos Petsalnikos said German press reports "surpassed all limits", and invited the German ambassador to Greece to discuss this "offensive coverage", (as if the ambassador had anything to do with it).

Others went further. The mayor of Athens, Nikitas Kaklamanis, is known to make occasionally intemperate remarks. This time he excelled himself, saying that as mayor of the city of the "Parthenon and the Acropolis Museum" he urged "men of culture across the world to protest" against the "shameful" Focus magazine cover. Better still, he called on Germany to pay Greece reparations for losses suffered during the Nazi occupation during the Second World War. "You owe us 70 billion euros for the ruins you left behind", he said.

Next, it was the turn of Greece's deputy prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos to drag up the War. In a fascinating interview with my Athens BBC counterpart, Malcolm Brabant, Mr Pangalos said "They [the Nazis] took away the Greek gold that was in the Bank of Greece, they took away the Greek money and they never gave it back."

Perhaps I should give a little more context here; the Nazi occupation of Greece was indeed extremely brutal, and, to their eternal credit, many Greeks fought back with great heroism. But I'm not sure that those terrible events, 70 years ago, have too much relevance in today's eurozone crisis.

I also doubt that Greece's prime minister, George Papandreou, and finance minister, George Papaconstantiou, will be very impressed by Mr Pangalos' words, as they struggle to steer their country through a financial quagmire, and hope for sympathetic support from Paris, Berlin and Brussels.

I'll leave the last word to Alexis Papachelas, editor of Greece's Kathimerini newspaper, who injects some realism into this debate, in this commentary.