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‘Memorandum macht frei’: how one Greek paper views the second bailout

THE DRAMATIC IMAGE below is how one Greek newspaper is perceiving the latest round of EU-backed austerity required of Greece in order to secure its second international bailout.

The image below is the front page of yesterday’s Dimokratia newspaper – produced in the early hours after leaders of the national government parties agreed another major package of cost-cutting measures.

Those measures were required by other European leaders – most notably Germany’s Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy – before they would sign off on a new €130bn bailout, which still hasn’t been given the crucial all-clear by finance ministers.

For the benefit of non-Greek speakers, the large single word underneath the ‘MEMORANDUM MACHT FREI’ banner is the Greek translation of the word ‘DACHAU‘.

dimokratia

In case you were in any more doubt about Dimokratia’s feelings, here’s a selection of other news and politics pieces from the last two days, including their titles as offered by Google Translate:

- Now multinational blackmail!

- Swaddling clothes by direct labour!

- Will stand the bankruptcy of Greece!

- Reactions to blackmail Merkozi

They really make our own tabloids’ take on the last couple of Budgets seem pretty tame by comparison.

Read: EU withholds Greek bailout until new conditions are met

Previously: Greece leaders reach deal on more austerity and cuts

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Comments (36 Comments)

  • John Conniffe 10/02/12 #
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    Melodramatic, but they do have a point. Imperialism through economics..

    Reply
    • Gary Clowry 10/02/12 #
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      What point? Nobody forced the Greeks to do anything up until the whole debt crisis blew up. Sure now they are forced to do things otherwise no one will give them any more money. Imagine they had to actually pay back all the money they borrowed.

  • Declan Carroll 10/02/12 #
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    Zis von’t go down vell in ze Fatherland !!

    Reply
    • john g mcgrath 10/02/12 #
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      Re education beatings will continue till compliance is achieved.
      Wait till the boys start bigger cut backs here jack o Connor will break his silence then.

    • Muc Beag 10/02/12 #
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      @John

      As if. That dithering fatcat and his “Brethren of the Beard” know the score, they know how much they fucked up teh country. They won’t do shit.

    • Colm Mooney 10/02/12 #
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      again with the chip on.your shoulder john.g…find a hobby!

  • Tigerisinthezoo 10/02/12 #
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    Remember Magda” Be careful with the Google translate!

    Reply
  • Derek Durkin 10/02/12 #
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    Wish we had a newspaper over here that told it like it is.

    Reply
  • Colm Flaherty 10/02/12 #
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    Acting like a dictator’s a comment they’re entitled to make, but the nazi imagery’s a step too far. It’d be like calling Barack Obama an “N” word.

    Reply
    • Declan Carroll 10/02/12 #
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      U can argue that, Colm F. However, it is freedom of speech & Germans who are offended do have a right to reply.

    • John Conniffe 10/02/12 #
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      True, but it helps to know that Greece, especially Crete, was treated tremendously badly during WWII. Before the German military arrived, the Greek people were fairly neutral, but within a year their actions turned the population against them. Since the war’s end the Greeks have always felt that Germany hasn’t paid the proper reparations, financial or otherwise. Given that, and putting aside the Greek’s need to smile through gritted teeth to win the German tourist Euro, the lack of tact in how the German government has dealt with Greece could be taken, and has been taken, as a deliberate insult. At best, the German government has been woefully mishandling the situation. At worst, it has been wilfully aggressive. Putting the dirty foreigners in their place as an all-too-common attitude in Germany these days I’m afraid, they may be well on their way to becoming the most hated people in Europe. Some deserve it, but many don’t. They do need to cop on however, before it all blows up in their faces. I’ve lived in Greece, and I currently live in Germany, so this is just my opinion of the feelings if the average bod in both countries.

    • Peter Brülls 10/02/12 #
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      Absolutely. And it’s not like the German media hasn’t had use negative imagery to paint the Greek in a bad light. Though I don’t remember them calling them Nazi or banana-eating apes.

      However, such imaginary will certainly offend the very same Germans who elect the German Members of Parliament.

      Of course, the bailouts benefit mostly banks, but a default will certainly hurt the Greek a lot. They still run a deficit, being cut off from money will mean that they can’t pay their pensioners and public sector at all. Unless, of course, they start taxing their rich and impose – surprise – austerity taxes.

    • Eileen Gabbett 11/02/12 #
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      At least they won’t be sending money out of the country to fill the vaults in german banks ,while their young and old still go without …

  • Simon Gates 10/02/12 #
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    Karatzaferis is in firey form. Earlier, he said Greece could not live outside the EU but it can live without the German “boot”. Gernany has ordered that Greece impose an additional €325 million in new even more severe cutbacks by next Wednesday – an order that must be obeyed. Total subjugation and absolute humiliation, and nothing less, is what Berlin and Brussels are demanding of Greece. http://www.athensnews.gr/

    No wonder Enda & Eamon are getting patted on the head by the Troika for the good little boys they are. They’ve no stomach for a fight – just like most of the rest of the population here in Ireland. We’ve never valued our own independence or our own people. Emigration and poverty are nothing new to most of us and our future is as grim as our past.

    Reply
  • Aidan Coughlan 10/02/12 #
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    So do this lot honestly believe that imposing austerity measures is the same as rounding up ethnic minorities, shunting them off to camps in overcrowded, freezing trains, starving them and then loading them into gas chambers to die?

    Maybe they do. Or maybe they’re just pulling a disgustingly cheap stunt in order to shift some units.

    Hard to say, really.

    Reply
  • Peter Carroll 10/02/12 #
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    Smells of the Greek political parties shifting blame ahead of the general election in April.
    They do not want to come clean on the fact that the austerity measures will be imposed, or not, as the case may be, by Greek politicians on the Greek people to pay for previous prolifigacy and corruption.

    The Greek government have a choice; implement an agreed plan to achieve fiscal balance over the next several years or find another source of financing. To blame the Germans or any other member of the EU is playing to the gallery and lying to their electorate.

    Reply
  • Oskar Fritsche 10/02/12 #
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    Ha ve lost var bought haaaa europa

    Reply
  • Oliver Brennan 10/02/12 #
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    Angela look looks disturbingly in that uniform. :P

    Reply
  • Oliver Brennan 10/02/12 #
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    Disturbingly attractive I meant to say. You need an edit function here…

    Reply
  • Mike Hall 10/02/12 #
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    Merkel is merely the PR spokeswoman for the policies, tho’ doubtless they suit her ideological bent (she wouldn’t be there otherwise).

    What shouldn’t be forgotten is the finance, banking & economics establishment, yes, particularly German, that not only created the mess & a flawed currency union but are making a bigger mess following whilst avoiding any accountability.

    The IMF are no strangers to destroying 3rd world countries (with the aid of a local elite) with precisely the policies being applied to Greece. When they are saying so much austerity is destroying economies (tho’ not offering much alternative of course) in Europe, we should be very concerned indeed about the motives & direction of the EU Commission & the ECB. Thinking dominated by neo liberal ideologues.

    Greece has already implemented near two years of draconian austerity under the diktat of the ECB etc. & it has failed miserably. Simply doubling down on this policy will not produce recovery. It’s insane & inhuman.

    Reply
  • Michael Everson 10/02/12 #
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    It is the Greek “transliteration” of Dachau, not the Greek “translation”..

    Reply
  • Niall Clarke 10/02/12 #
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    When looking at these stories you have to look at all angles and apportion the blame. Firstly as was pointed out above it was Greek politicians who ran up such levels of debt, the Germans do have a right as their the ones paying for the majority of the fund to ask where its going. The German people have a right to be annoyed at bailing out smaller countries and it’s naive for us to think we shouldnt pay back what we can afford. The key sentence is afford. Greeces haircut on its debt presents a shift in thinking which is necessary yet may not have went far enough. The German politicians need to stop with this whole crusade approach as if there doing this to save the world when the total honest thing is that they’re looking after their own backs first and foremost

    Reply
  • Paul Lanigan 10/02/12 #
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    The Greeks want their have their cake and eat it. They have and continue to be reckless

    Reply
  • Mark Rodgers 10/02/12 #
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    The average German citizen work hard and dutifully pays all appropriate taxes and follows the old time view of never a lender or a borrower be!
    The fraudulent behavior of Greek governments and huge swathes of the working population expect everyone else in the Eurozone to bail them out rather than facing up to their responsibilities and repaying their debt.
    While German Banks have been one of the lenders they are only one of many including every other European State and the average German is frightened that his abstemious behavior will ultimately overwhelm him and Bankrupt his country. This naturally puts political pressure on the German politicians in an election year and the response by Greece is to have their National newspapers issue the ultimate insult by picturing Angela Merkel in a Nazi uniform.
    If this picture were to be published in Germany the Editor would be jailed and rightly so. I would urge Ms Merkel to seek an urgent injunction and sue for damages.
    This outrage is a watershed and now is the time for the rest of the Eurozone to say to the cheating Greeks that they must go their own way as we cannot tolerate them bringing us all down with them.
    A disgusting headline and picture from people who have been “revolting” in their behaviour!

    Reply
    • Robert Foster 10/02/12 #
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      @ Mark Rogers.
      You fool,you bloody fool. It’s coming down anyway, we were just as wreck less as Greece, as we’re Ze Germans and that little Fool in France. Germany is doing what all big countries do, bully. End of. Get off your high horse you clown.

  • Karl O Flynn 10/02/12 #
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    Has anyone thought about the banks who loaned this money to Greece in the first place. They must have known that Greece was a basket case for years. They still loaned the money. No due diligence. Hardly!!! This just stinks of corruption at the highest levels of power.

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    • Report this comment

      The Greek government deliberately falsified the economic data, making its debt levels out to be much lower than the actually were. That’s the equivalent of a company publishing false end of year accounts…

  • Karl Doyle 11/02/12 #
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    Now that’s how you put it as it is!

    Reply

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