A brief history of German-Greek relations

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/23/brief-history-german-greek-relations

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From the foundation of modern Greece, the country’s relations with Germany have rarely been easy. Often bitter and tumultuous, bilateral ties got off to a rocky start when a Bavarian king was put on the throne of the newly created state.

1832 Otto of Wittelsbach becomes first king of the new state of Greece. The young Bavarian arrives with an entourage of thousands of German-speaking advisers. Until 1835, when the teenaged king turns of age, the country is governed by a regency council of three Bavarians. The “Bavarocracy” is soon resented, not least for its policy of enforcing heavy taxes on Greeks.

1843 King forced to grant a constitution. The Bavarian royal had refused to convert from Catholicism to Orthodoxy.

1862 Assassination attempt against the queen followed by coup and Otto’s overthrow.

1940 December: Hitler, after Greek forces defeat Mussolini’s invasion, sends German troops across the Bulgarian border to invade Greece. Desperate to avoid hostilities, Greek politicians and generals plead with the Germans not to attack.

1941 April: Wehrmacht invades Greece. Greek army overwhelmed, with German troops reaching the strategic town of Ioannina on 20 April, Hitler’s birthday. Athens capitulates the next day.

1941-44 Brutal occupation by Germany ensues; 300,000 Greeks die of hunger in one of Europe’s worst famines; 130,000 are killed in reprisals (150 Greeks for every German soldier); hyper-inflation, five times worse than that seen during Weimar period in the 1920s, flourishes. more than 1.2 million Greeks made homeless; the Jewish community, one of the most ancient in Europe, is almost exterminated. National gold stock, in the form of a forced loan, is snatched from the vaults of the central Bank of Greece to finance Hitler’s campaign in North Africa.

1944 Waffen-SS march into village of Distomo, near Delphi, on 10 June and kill 218 men, women and children in reprisal for guerrilla attack in which seven German soldiers die. Bodies are left dangling from trees in one of the most heinous atrocities of the second world war.

1950 onwards 300,000 Greeks flock to Germany in search of work after country is ravaged by the 1946-49 civil war.

1953 At the Conference of London, creditor countries agree to forgive West Germany’s massive debt. laying the ground for the country’s economic miracle. Greece is among the signatories.

1960 In a bilateral out-of-court, state-to-state agreement, Germany gives Greece 115m deutschmarks (€57.5m) in damages for Nazi crimes. With the gesture, Germany says the outstanding issue of war reparations is closed. Greece subsequently virulently disagrees. Victims argue that the Treaty of Settlement had allowed them to file individual claims at a later date.

1990 The issue of war reparations is considered to have expired when the two Germanys unite.

1997 Survivors and relatives of victims of Distomo massacre file for compensation before a Greek district court that rules in their favour. Athens’s supreme court orders seizure of German assets in Greece (an order no justice minister has enforced to date).

2011 Socialist PM George Papandreou, battling a debt crisis, says he will formally support demands for war reparations in a case that no Greek government had previously dared to touch. “This is not anti-German. This is about history,” he says.

2012: International court of justice at The Hague rules in favour of Germany, saying governments have immunity from foreign court judgments in cases brought by individuals.

2015 Tensions between Greece and Germany, provider of the bulk of Athens’s international bailout, peak following election of the anti-austerity Syriza party. The prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, accuses Berlin of employing “tricks” to evade war reparations with his government, openly raising the prospect of the seizure of German assets, including diplomatic buildings and the Goethe Institute. Athens says the forced loan, alone, with accrued interest would amount to a large part of the €240bn it has received in emergency funds from the EU and IMF. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, invites Tsipras to Berlin on 23 March in effort to ease relations.