Greece makes fresh WWII reparation claims from Germany
The Athens government has rekindled its demand for talks with Germany on wartime reparations just before the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Greece by German troops in World War II.
“The question remains open until our demands are met. These demands are valid and active, and will be affirmed by any means, “Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexandros Papaioannou told the German news agency DPA.
Greece last made an official call for negotiations in 2019, under leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. But the government of current Conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in January 2020 that Athens still considered the issue open, although it had so far refrained from pressuring Berlin on it.
Billions in damages
The cost of damage caused by Nazi Germany in Greece during the war has been estimated at 289 billion euros ($ 339 billion) by a Greek parliamentary commission. That amount includes a loan that Greece was forced to make to the German central bank.
After invading Greece on April 6, 1941, the German armed forces carried out numerous massacres in the country, and tens of thousands of civilians were killed during the conflict.
Germany has said that it considers the issue to have been resolved through the so-called Two Plus Four Agreement, signed in 1990, which allowed a united Germany to become fully sovereign the following year. The signatories to the treaty were the former East and West Germany and the former occupying powers, France, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
The repairs were not explicitly mentioned in the document. Countries like Greece and Poland that had been invaded by Germany in the war were not included in the treaty negotiations.
A 2019 Bundestag report found that Greece’s claims carried legal weight, calling the German government’s position “acceptable” but “in no way mandatory” under international law.
Domestic criticism
Germany’s Green and Left parties have harshly criticized the government’s refusal to participate in the negotiations. In a recent parliamentary debate on the invasion that took place in the presence of the Greek ambassador Maria Marinaki, they called for a change of course, but the call was rejected.
Bundestag Vice President Claudia Roth of the Greens said she was ashamed of Germany’s attitude, while left-wing lawmaker Heike Hänsel called the government’s position “neither morally nor legally acceptable”.
The German government says that instead of paying for reparations, it wants to promote reconciliation with Greece through memorial and educational projects.
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