Cold War versus Symbolic Battlefield : The Crisis in Greek-German Relations as a Result of the Dispute over Compensations for WWII and the Way to Overcome It: Case Study

Abstract

It is difficult to speak of a historical dispute in the case of Greek compensation claims for losses suffered during WWII by Nazi Germany� This is because the German side has repeatedly taken responsibility for the harm done to the Greek people� Germany is also a country that has paid over 75 billion in damages by 2016 with various categories of victims from different countries, including Greece (Barcz & Kranz, 2019, p� 155)� In the discourse on Greek demands against Germany, metaphors of the Cold War (Kalpouzos, 2015) or a symbolic battlefield (Christodoulakis, 2014, p� 20) appear, suggesting primarily a significant importance of this issue for internal political decisions made at the Acropolis and the local historical awareness� Despite this, since the “outbreak” of this “Cold War” in Germany, both — ABSTRAKT —