Greek bailout crisis: Athens threatens to seize German assets 'as compensation for Nazi war crimes'

Greece has threatened to seize German assets as compensation for Nazi war crimes – 70 years after the end of the Second World War.

The threat, made by the Greek justice minister and reported in the daily Kathimerini newspaper, has been supported by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who told the Greek parliament he would pursue the “very technical and sensitive” matter.

Justice minister Nikos Paraskevopoulos has reportedly called for “war reparations, the repayment of a forced loan and the return of antiquities” from Germany, and said that an old court ruling gave him the power to sanction “the foreclosure of German assets in Greece” as a form of compensation.

The issue was dismissed out of hand by Germany, with Angela Merkel’s spokesperson rejecting questions about reparations that “have been legally and politically resolved”. “We should concentrate on current issues and, hopefully, what will be a good future,” Steffen Seibert said.

“Germany is very aware of its moral obligation to keep alive the memory of Germany's guilt for the Second World War and the suffering it caused in many countries. That doesn't change anything about the legal and political assessment of the question of compensation and reparations.”

But it represents a further souring of relations between Athens and Berlin, already fraught amid the ongoing wrangling over Greece's financial bailout. Germany has been at the forefront of countries demanding strict austerity measures from Greece in return for financial aid.

“We should look forward together,” German Finance Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger told reporters in Berlin. “Making these emotional and backward-looking allegations doesn't help in the context of the work we need to tackle together with the Greeks.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greek-bailout-crisis-athens-threatens-to-seize-german-assets-as-compensation-for-nazi-war-crimes-10101329.html

Central to Greece’s grievances was a loan the Nazis forced the Greek national bank to pay them of 476 million Reichsmarks, now worth roughly $12 billion. The loan was never repaid, while Greece is also seeking further reparations from Germany due to the destruction wrought upon the nation during the Nazi occupation - See more at: http://guerillamedianetwork.com/greek-pm-says-germany-used-legal-tricks-to-avoid-paying-wwii-reparations/#sthash.p5gqXx3T.dpuf

This could get interesting!

living in the past
Europe needs some progressives to bring it into the modern era

Actually Veya, it isn't living in the past, this is something that the Greek government have been trying to do for some time, and it is particularly relevant now, when it is the Germans in the EU who are holding the Greeks to randsom and trying to force austerity measures on them that the Greek people know don't work and are want to change.

Sorry but Greeks have ruined their own economy. 70 years too long ago.

Do you know in that time Japan has been nuked and Rebuilt to what it is now

China has have a revolution that has wipe its institutions to the ground and rebuilt to the 2nd largest in the world.

Greeks have sat on their ass and done nothing. they Perfectly highlight WHY we are now in the Asian century.

Oh totally agree that the corruption in Greece ruined it, but it's the ordinary people who are paying and they have had enough of the austerity being imposed on them, because they know that they will never get back on their feet with it.