This won’t go over well with the Germans. The Greeks are now playing the Nazi/WWII card.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accused Germany on Tuesday of using legal tricks to avoid paying reparations for the Nazi occupation of Greece and said he would support parliamentary efforts to review the matter.
His comments are likely to heighten tensions between Athens and Berlin as Greece’s new, leftist government struggles to persuade its euro zone partners to renegotiate the terms of a 240 billion euro ($260 billion) bailout.
Germany last month rejected renewed calls from Greece for war compensation, saying the issue had been settled at world power talks that led to German reunification in 1990.
But Tsipras said his government approved plans to revive a parliamentary commission to look into the issue.
Forget whether the Germans owe anything. Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. Legally, I have no idea, as legalism are made up by the victors. Morally, maybe, I’m not God. But clearly, this is a soured attempt by the Greeks to actually pathetically bully the Germans into giving them more money, and it is so plainly obvious it won’t work that you have to wonder if Tsipras is such a dark red commie that maybe he’s actually insane.
You don’t bully a country that’s bailing you out to the tune of $240B. It’s just nuts. If Greece is daring Germany to kick it out of the Eurozone, this pissant move might actually accomplish that.
The Jewish Libertarian 
At first I thought that since they really need the money, then it’s worth a shot.
Then I saw that Germany is already bailing them out.
So, then not only is this very hutzpadik, but very stupid biting the hand that is feeding them.
Unless,…
It there some brilliant, albeit way out there, strategy he has up his sleeve?? Emotional blackmail?? Nazi guilt still gonna work for them?? Will Germany be embarrassed if they don’t pay up?
I’m afraid this will just be very anticlimactic, though.
No, I don’t think they will be so embarrassed that they’ll pay up.
People here in Germay are pretty outraged, not because the Greek government brought up the compensation question (again), but as it is seen as one of many Greek moves to get EURO zone members, esp. Germany, to cough up money in return for empty promises or nothing at all. Most newspapers als ran articles on the history of Greece as a country that goes bankrupt every couple of decades and failed to make it in the last pre-Euro monetary union, so people think that Greece is labouring under structural problems that they aren’t adressing properly.
It doesn’t help that the Greek government tend to insult the German government in the media or also on European platforms.
However, the Greek government are still wholeheartedly supported by socialist or leftist groups who claim that the government have the answer to the problems of the EURO zone (less austerity, more money for social systems) and are being silenced and blackmailed by the EURO zone states. Everybody else is getting very, very fed up.
This demand has been on the table from 2008 and Angela exploded when she heard of it. I now think that maybe talked this was a subject discussed before the eurozone and somehow they convinced Greece to enter euro instead.
This demand has been on their table since the 80’s Mary. Maybe even earlier!
@Athanasia – Well then it looks like they will never play. I am not sure it’s Greece’s fault, but there are rumors that the basis of EU – Germany and France – are no longer such good friends. And France can also remember debt from WWI (because they are very pushy too when they want to be) which was also not paid and France has nuclear weapons and France is not part of NATO and proud of not being in it. This is how we are going to the same old, and now people play with weapons 400 more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Germany can always argue that in order to pay that debt they have to have an economy that is working, they can’t be pushed around. But then they don’t like that, is not enough for them, so…what next? What difference does it make to the German taxpayer if their money go to the national football team or to pay some war debt? I don’t see the logic.. it’s better we walk the trail of violence than to try to do the right thing…