Sputnik: Will Germany pay further reparations to Greece and Poland?
Dr Michális S. Michael: I'm not sure how it's going to pan out. It's a complicated matter and obviously a substantial amount of time has passed, there's a lot of politics in this and of course there is a moral question about whether Germany has fulfilled its obligations vis a vis World War Two, or whether there are still lingering responsibilities to countries like Poland and Greece and there's also a whole series of other countries.
When we're talking about reparations from an ethical standpoint; there needs to be reparations to the actual victims, not directly to the state per se, but to the families and religious communities. It's an interesting discussion, an interesting debate, it's not something new but obviously the current governments in Poland and Greece feel that it's time to apply some soft pressure on Germany.
READ MORE: Greece to Seek WWII Reparations from Germany
Sputnik: What impact did World War Two have on Greece's development?
Dr Michális S. Michael: It's hard to speculate whether with our without World War Two, what the trajectory of Greece's development would have been. In terms of history; it was one of the seminal historical turning points for Greece in a lot of respects.
We've got to understand that World War Two in terms of the Italo-German invasion of Greece and occupation of course was bookended between two other regimes; we had the Metaxas dictatorship in 1936 and then we had of course the Greek civil war at the end of World War Two, which lasted until 1949.
In many ways; the consequences of that period are still felt even today in Greece, which shows you to the extent and the degree of its impact, not only in Greece, but to the Greeks of the diaspora, many of whom fled because of the consequences of World War Two and the Civil War.
The views expressed in this article are those of the speaker, and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
