Between Germany and Greece, a Chorus of Sturm, Drang and Pathos
By NICHOLAS KULISH In recent days, novel solutions to the Greek debt crisis have surfaced, though perhaps not the constructive ones European leaders desperate to hold their struggling union together were hoping to hear. A pair of German politicians, incensed at the thought of paying for a bailout of the profligates to the south, suggested Thursday that the Greeks consider plugging the large hole in their budget by selling off some of their lovely islands. Several Greek politicians and commentators have argued that the Germans should pony up reparations for the death and destruction wrought by the Nazis during World War II. These would not be the coolest heads prevailing. In times of economic growth and rising prosperity, the continent’s shared and all-too-often unhappy history was a lot easier to paper over. Now that there’s room for blame and recrimination, the history suddenly matters. Germans, still smarting from the replacement of their beloved Deutsche mark with the euro, harbor deep suspicions that European unity boils down to them perpetually handing out their hard-earned money, an inerasable debt for the horrors of Nazism. The German news magazine Focus recently summed up t…
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