Gilt or War Guilt?

“Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks. And sell the Acropolis too!” may not have been an accurate quotation of German sentiment, but there was some truth to it, writes Slate. Anne Applebaum writes that while tabloid newspaper Bild may have taken the German politician’s remarks out of context, the article did “cut to the essence of the story” which is that Germany is fed up with bailing out the rest of Europe. She writes that if Germans felt less guilty about the Second World War they wouldn’t be making economic sacrifices to help fellow Eurozone countries. She says: “With an unerringly poor sense of timing, the Greeks have, in response, chosen precisely this moment to flaunt their own set of resentments. One Greek minister complained to the BBC that the Nazis ‘took away the Greek gold that was in the Bank of Greece, they took away the Greek money and they never gave it back.’ The mayor of Athens has demanded 70 billion euros for the ruins the Nazis left behind after the war. The Greek consumer organization, not exactly thankful for the German bailout or Europe’s demands for Greek budget cuts, has called for a boycott of German products. Officially, the Germans have described these comments as ‘not helpful.’ Unofficially, the German press is foaming at the mouth, for once reflecting accurately the views of both German politicians and German voters.”