Greece turns tables on debt
Looks to Germany to repay WWII loan
BERLIN – Last week in the Greek village of Nafpolio, Germans Ludwig Zaccaro and Nina Lange handed 875 euro, about $940 at the current rate, to the local mayor. The money, which the mayor said would be given to a local charity, was what the couple figured was their share of Germany’s World War II debt to Greece.
They’d always loved Greece, they said in an interview shown on Greek television, and felt bad about their country’s role in the current economic difficulties.
“Our politicians pretend the Greeks owe debt to Germany, but the reality is that it is the other way around,” Lange said.
Their point of view differs widely from the general German attitude about Greece – 80 percent, polls show, don’t want Germany to give any more aid to Greece and 50 percent want Greece gone from the eurozone – but it strikes at an argument that the new Greek government is pressing: Germany owes Greece money, not the other way around.
Germany has never repaid money it forced Greece to lend it during World War II, says the Greek government. Now the Greeks would like it back, to help repay the $330 billion the country owes – $67 billion to Germany.
The German government of Chancellor Angela Merkel bristles at the suggestion. It insists that any German debt from World War II was eliminated with the so-called Two-plus-Four Treaty that made possible the reunification of Germany in 1990.
“Greece will not be able to cover their debts by constructing German responsibilities dating back to World War II,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said recently. “Greece suffers not because of Berlin, or Brussels, but because its own elites have failed for decades.”
But the view is not unanimous. Norman Paech, a retired law professor at Hamburg University and one of Germany’s leading experts on war reparations, has been saying for more than a decade that the Greeks have a case.
He said the legal problem is that the 1953 London Treaty officially put all claims against Germany on hold until a lasting peace treaty could be reached. The 1990 treaty that unified Germany is that document, but it was signed only by the two Germanys and the United States, Great Britain, France and Russia. That means claims from any other countries are now active – for example, from Greece.