Greek President reiterates call for German WWII reparations

Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos once again has demanded Germany pay World War II reparations for the damage and atrocities done during the occupation.

Speaking during a visit to the village of Kimono, in Arta, northwestern Greece, where more than 300 people were executed by Nazi troops in 1943, Pavlopoulos said that the country was justified in seeking reparations and for a forced loan taken out by the Axis powers.

“Our claims are legally effective and judicially enforceable,” he said, the newspaper Kathimerini reported.

Germany has repeatedly rejected Greece’s claims and says it has honored its obligations, including a 115 million Deutschmark payment to Greece in 1960.

In October, 2016, he also insisted that Greece has a “self-evident right” to seek the reparations while speaking at an event marking the liberation of Athens from the Nazis.

He said Greece should get payment even though German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country is the biggest contributor to 326 billion euros ($383.65 billion) in three international bailouts for Greece, repeatedly said it’s not even open for discussion.

Greece’s odd couple coalition of the ruling Radical Left SYRIZA of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his partner, the far-right, marginal, pro-austerity, jingoistic Independent Greeks (ANEL) keeps asking for the reparations and keeps getting slapped down by Germany.

Tsipras has even said Greece might seek legal means to get the money, a tactic he won’t use to get back the stolen Parthenon Marbles kept in the British Museum.

Greece is seeking 160 billion euros ($178.65 billion) in compensation to cover the loan and damages resulting from the occupation. Previous Greek governments also pressed Germany but also gave up, as has Tsipras.

Two years ago, shortly after being elected, the Radical Left SYRIZA leader Tsipras also pressed for German reparations before backing down when he needed Merkel’s help in getting a bailout from Greece’s international creditors.

“Germany has never properly paid reparations for the damage done to Greece by the Nazi occupation,” Tsipras told the Greek Parliament then. “The crimes carried out by the Nazis are still vivid, and we have a moral obligation to remember what the forces did to the country.”

“After the reunification of Germany in 1990, the legal and political conditions were created for this issue to be solved. But since then, German governments chose silence, legal tricks and delay,” Tsipras said.

The 1990 settlement, Tsipras said, “does not include a forced loan given to the Nazis by Greece’s central bank or the destruction of the country’s infrastructure and economy at the time.”

Former parliamentary speaker Zoe Constantopoulou, who broke away from SYRIZA in 2015 and formed her own far-left party, said she’ll sue Greece’s government, President and Bank of Greece chief for allegedly not trying to get the reparations.