Greek demands for reparations: It is time-barred, nothing

The Greek Parliament discussed today again on reparation claims on Germany. The Federal government sees the issue as done, but Bremer historian provides new fuel.

By Michael Lehmann, ARD-Studio, Athens

Approximately 330,000 Greeks were killed by the raiding of the German Wehrmacht in the Second world war. They were murdered by soldiers of the Wehrmacht or starved to death, because they had to give food and sometimes the whole of the harvest on the fields of the occupiers had lost.

"Greece has been systematically robbed"

The historian Karl-Heinz Roth has examined, in conjunction with other researchers, for years, what damage is caused during the German Nazi rule in Greece:

"When Greece was occupied, it was robbed in a systematic way. The tobacco harvest of many years, then the reserves of raw materials were captured, especially Chromerze. The Germans confiscated the whole of the Greek merchant fleet, the confiscation. They have destroyed up to your retreat to three-quarters. And in their retreat they destroyed the Greek infrastructure, for the most part."

There was resistance to this long-standing raiding of the German Wehrmacht, German soldiers responded to this resistance with great brutality:

"It came to an escalation, because the Germans believed that because of the weakness of their forces, the resulting resistance to physically eradicate. It came to the terrible hostage-taking and shooting of hostages. 50 to 100 Greeks were brought to a wounded German soldier killed. From then on it was after the 1943 massacre in the villages. It is an incredible Dimension to the violence, you can't undo".

Bremer historian Roth has published, together with other researchers, a more than 600-page book on the German occupation of Greece.

an Important source for discussions

The what published Roth and his team of researchers at the Bremen-based Foundation for social history under the German title "reparation debt" in a more than 600-page book, published in 2019, as a Greek edition.

In the Greek Parliament will discuss the issue this week, and certainly during the election campaign for the Parliament election in the autumn. The data of the German historian Teams to Roth to be an important source, says the Athens correspondent John Psarapoulos: "this is The first book after a long time on this topic - and it is the only book that covers the subject for many years, also from a German perspective," says Psarapoulos.

It will attract a lot of interest and was "a valuable addition to the facts, of which we believe that we know them," he believes. The crisis in Greece made many people of the importance of reparations. "And in order to improve the relations between our countries, it must be addressed now in any way. And this is what the author of the book, Mr. Roth says."