I've noted on Twitter regarding demonizing any particular national group, in this case some Greeks versus Germans, for past acts is a dangerous and I think foolish course. David Rieff deals with the whole bloody mess in his book Against Remembrance and his recent essay in Harper's: After 9/11 The limits of remembrance (also you can listen to him on ABCs Late Night Live talking to Phillip Adams about it here )
Confabulating current economic messes with past horrors is a mistake made by the panicked and fearful. These individuals need some sense that history is not going to repeat itself in any form. This sense can come from a respected political leadership. However in the case of Greece the political elite appears bankrupt and completely inadequate for the current crises. I, also, suspect now that the elite is considered illegitimate in terms of its governance and maybe even be being considered by some as quislings. In other words Greece's political class is now kaput.
The vast majority of the present day population of Greece, over 83%, was born after the situation described below in an excerpt from Richards Evans 3rd volume of the history of the Third Reich titled The Third Reich at War. However that doesn't stop myths and other elaborate tales being woven about the time and events by families and passed down as grievances ready to be trotted out nationally by any wishing to add to or benefit from the present chaos.
As German troops entered Athens, tired, hungry and without supplies, they began to demand free meals in restaurants, to loot the houses in which they were billeted, and to stop passers-by in the streets and relieve them of their watches and jewellery. One inhabitant of the city, the musicologist Minos Dounias, asked:
Where is the traditional German sense of honour? I lived in Germany thirteen years and no one cheated me. Now suddenly . . . they have become thieves. They empty houses of whatever meets their eye. In Pistolakis’s house they took the pillow-slips and grabbed the Cretan heirlooms from the valuable collection they have. From the poor houses in the area they seized sheets and blankets. From other neighbourhoods they grab oil paintings and even the metal knobs from the doors.
While the ordinary troops were stealing what they could, supply officers were seizing large quantities of foodstuffs, cotton, leather and much else besides. All available stocks of olive oil and rice were requisitioned. 26,000 oranges, 4,500 lemons and 100,000 cigarettes were shipped off the island of Chios in the first three weeks of the occupation. Companies such as Krupps and I. G. Farben sent in agents to effect the compulsory purchase of mining and industrial facilities at low prices.
As a result of this massive assault on the country’s economy, unemployment in Greece rocketed and food prices, already high because of the damage caused by military action, went through the roof. Looting and requisitioning led to peasant farmers hoarding their produce and attacking agents sent from the towns to collect the harvest. Local military commanders tried to keep produce within their region, disrupting or even cutting off supplies to the major cities. Rationing was introduced, and while the Italians began to send in extra supplies to Greece to alleviate the situation, the authorities in Berlin refused to follow suit, arguing that this would jeopardize the food situation in Germany. Soon hunger and malnutrition were stalking the streets of Athens. Fuel supplies were unavailable, or too expensive, to heat people’s houses in the cold winter of 1941-2. People begged in the streets for food, ransacked rubbish bins for scraps, and in their desperation started to eat grass. German army officers amused themselves by tossing scraps from balconies to gangs of children and watching them fight for the pieces. People, especially children, succumbed to disease, and began dying in the streets. Overall death rates rose five- or even sevenfold in the winter of 1941-2; the Red Cross estimated that a quarter of a million Greeks died as a result of hunger and associated diseases between 1941 and 1943.
….
The general state of hunger and exhaustion of the Greek people meant that there were few attempts at armed resistance in the first year or so of the occupation, and no co-ordinated leadership.
The Third Reich at War 1939 - 1945, Richard J. Evans (Penguin Books 2010) 156 - 157