From German philosopher, cultural critic, poet, composer, and Latin and Greek scholar Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche:
Eveything that is ponderous, vicious and pompously clumsy, all long-winded and wearying kinds of style, are developed in great variety among Germans.
There is something to Mr. Nietzsche’s condemnation of his countrymen. The Germans have long complained about the harsh terms imposed on them in the Treaty of Versailles after WWI. The complaint is valid. John Maynard Keynes savaged the treaty and predicted another war in The Economic Consequences of the Peace. The burdens of debt and financial reparations contributed to German hyperinflation and the severity of the Great Depression in Germany. Economic hardship was in part, but only part, responsible for the rise of Hitler.
One of the lesser known WWII depredations of Hitler and the German Army came after the Germans overcame fierce Greece resistance and occupied the country from 1941 through 1944. The Germans took everything of value that wasn’t nailed down, including food. There was probably no deliberate plan of extermination, but between 250,000 and 300,000 Greeks died from famine. The Germans also took control of the Bank of Greece and inflicted a hyperinflation that rivalled their own hyperinflation. In 1941, a British sovereign, a gold coin weighing not quite one-quarter ounce and worth a pound sterling, was worth 1,200 drachmas. When Germany left Greece in 1944, a sovereign was worth 71 trillion drachmas.
Learning something from WWI, in 1953 German creditors granted Germany relief from war debts, reducing principal, limiting repayment to times when Germany ran a trade surplus, and limiting repayment to 3 percent of export earnings. This created an incentive for creditor nations to buy German exports, and eventually the German economy took wing and Germany repaid the entire amount of the reduced debt, including debt that only became due when Germany was reunified.
Given its own history—the Treaty of Versailles, hyperinflation and the Great Depression, the famine, ruin, and hyperinflation inflicted on Greece, and the rescheduling of its debts after WWII allowing repayment on preferential terms—a certain humility and grace was to be expected from the Germans during the Greek debt negotiations. The Treaty of Versailles was vindictive, but understandable—Allied casualties in WWII were in the millions. The Greeks haven’t killed anybody, they’ve just lived beyond their means for years. The Germans well know the destructive economic, financial, and political repercussions that can befall a country struggling under a burden of debt for which payment is impossible. The Germans also well know the potential benefits of debt forbearance.
With the ponderousness, viciousness, and pompous clumsiness Nietzsche noted, the Germans gave not one concession, and seemed to delight in brutally humiliating the Greeks. They have sent Tsipras back to Greece with his tail between his legs, where he must try to sell his people on a deal worse than the one they just rejected. The overbearing Germans do not seem to realize that by acting as they have, they stoke Greek resentment and reduce the chances that the Greeks will accept their deal. Or perhaps that is their intent, and they want to see Greece exit the Eurozone in the most humiliating and punitive way possible. For the Greeks, there is only one appropriate gesture: the middle finger. For the Germans, there is only one appropriate word: schande.
