The politics of the German war reparations to Greece

Crises are often described as moments in which the barriers between normality and its exception break down. The controversial German jurist of the previous century, Carl Schmitt, argued that during exceptional times when given definitions, established habits and standard procedures are called into question, every issue -be it social, economic, juridical or even aesthetic- can assume a political quality. The dispute between Greece and Germany over the issue of World War Two reparations is apriori beset not only by the complexity inhered in judging claims to historical justice by contemporary standards but by its entanglement with debt-related political controversies evoking strong emotional responses from both sides.