The President of the Standing Committee on National Defense and Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Parliament, Miltiades Varvitsiotis told the German financial newspaper Der Handelsblatt that Germany should pay reparations to Greece for damage done in WWII.
Germany has refused the claims outight, insisting it has paid reparations for the war and that the issue is in the past, but some Greek officials are pushing for payment to help offset Greece’s crushing economic crisis.
According to the newspaper, Varvitsiotis estimates that “legally founded claims wouldn’t burden bilateral relations.” He said on the contrary, “our relations would be burdened permanently, if there weren’t justified claims because that would mean that I don’t claim my right, because I truckle.”
The newspaper also refers to the findings of the expert committee concerning the compensations and to Greek Member of Parliament Manolis Glezos, a Greek Resistance war hero against the Nazis, who said Germany owes 108 billion euros ($140.9 billion) and that claims of more than 54 billion euros ($70.45 billion) should be added to this amount, for the forced loan the German Reich had received from the Greek central bank in 1941.
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