Out of the Ashes of Two World Wars — German’s Resolve To Help Greece

Franz Ferdinand and Sophie von Chotkovato

While Greece continues to not meet the deadlines for cutting its budget deficit, Germany has come up with a plan to hold talks with private creditors to extend the maturity of its bonds — in other words, reschedule its debt according to an article, “Euro Nations Divided Over Greek Debt”, in the May 9, 2011 Wall Street Journal. Germany likes this plan because of the growing unpopularity of paying for Greece’s debts among the German public. Rescheduling Greece’s debt will mean less money out of the pockets of ordinary Germans — thus the political will to do what is in the best political and economic interest of Germany.

Other Euro members don’t like this plan. They think rescheduling Greece’s debt will have a domino effect. They fear that many other European countries will try to do the same thing. This doesn’t bother Germany. Their own deomestic economy did well last year. They fear more a Lehman Brothers type crisis that occurred in the U.S. In 2008, dragging the whole economy down with it into d double dip recession.

Rumors said that Greece was ready to drop out of the Euro Zone. Junckers insisted that was a crazy idea. Greece would cause more problems out of the Euro Zone than in it. It’s not as if a country can go bankrupt and liquidate as a company can. It will be there no matter what. And if an economy spirals out of control, you are risking civil war and revolution.

Germans remember all too well the cause of World War I. A Balkan state, Serbia, was the scene of the assassination of ArchDuke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, in 1914. Greece is also a Balkan state. The Germans fear that if conditions are allowed to get worse in that “pig” country, a civl war or revolution might rock all of Europe and endanger the European Union, so carefully constructed out of the ashes of World War II. That is the risk that Germany doesn’t want to take.