Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos renewed the demand for war reparations from Germany owed to Greece from the time when the Nazi forces had occupied the country, during the World War II.
During a visit to the village Kommeno by Arta in Western Greece, Pavlopoulos reiterated the Greek demand.
The country was justified in seeking reparations for damages caused by the Axis forces and for the enforced loan, the Greek President said.
“Our claims are legally effective and judicially enforceable,” he said and noted that “our common European judiciary culture requires that the decision is taken by a competent judicial forum on the basis of the whole of the relevant international law. This position is now literally national and therefore non-negotiable.”
Pavlopoulos spoke at a ceremony to commemorate the brutal murder of 300 local people by the Nazis forces.
Kommeno was the site of a massacre perpetrated by 12 Company of the 98th Regiment, of the German 1. Gebirgs-Division (First Mountain Division), which, on 16 August 1943, executed 317 inhabitants and torched the village.
Germany has repeatedly turned down the Greek calls for reparations claiming that the whole issue was settled with an agreement in 1960.
GOOD LUCK
I think there might be some mileage in linking war reparations by Germany with debt write-off, since it’s Germany which is most resistant to that.
Keep Talking Greece!
Make sure copy of forementioned claims are simutaneously delivered in the three occupying countries of the united German Finanz GmbH (aka Bundesrepublik Deutschland):
– Washington D.C
– London City
– Paris
Interesting point HDR. I also read somewhere that Germany is not a state in the usual sense but a company set up by the 3 allies above, therefore their actions and policies are under the approval of the 3 occupying countries. If this is so, however, why do we see such subservience on behalf of France during the crisis years?
Ianni: if the Federal Republic of Germany had not been a full state, it would not have been allowed a seat in the United Nations nor permitted to sign the Treaty of Rome. The only strange thing about Germany is that it has a military presence of the Allied Forces still, and no seat on the UN Security Council.
Ianni, Germany is a State and is the successor State to the Third and Second Reichs. Its borders were defined by International Agreements and were imposed upon it by the Allied Powers. That aside, and the fact tht it was heavily garrisoned by those Allies, it is a normal Sovereign State. As to the reparations issue I am not sure this will make much headway. I would think the post war treaties and settlements preclude this being reopened, but I might be wrong.