The first European country to extend an official invitation to the President of West Germany was the exhausted from the Occupation and Civil War Greece.

It was Greece, with its one million dead, which paved the way for reconciliation and peace with the successors of its conquerors.

It was the first that accepted the installation of the Goethe Institute in Athens.

And after a few years it was the same country that sent migrants en masse to Germany, who contributed to its post-war reconstruction.

The small and poor Greece also spearheaded the effort to write off its debts in 1953, precisely to close the wounds of the war.

Greece, which is being ridiculed today by the German rulers, extended a small but warm embrace to soothe the hatred and passions of the Second World War.

Germany today acts just like everyone else who is ungrateful.

It declares itself to be the great enemy and punisher of a country and people which has acted in the kindest possible way.

The worst of all is that it contradicts itself, refusing the ideals upon which the modern German nation was constructed.

The Germans forget their love for the ancient world, the waves of Greek culture which they absorbed to build their country.

At present Berlin treats Greece as the greatest evil, as a source of disorder for the German hegemony, as a troublemaker country and basis for the dissolution of Europe.

These ideas make no sense, they are baseless and the result of obsessive fixations of certain parts of the dominant German political class.

The bankrupt and torn Greek society has accepted a slew of restrictive measures over the past five years, it lost wages, pensions and countless jobs; it paid humongous taxes, depreciated worker rights, freedoms and capabilities; it lost its finest work force – more that 150,000 educated young men and women – and sank in the recession, destroyed historic parties and traditional forces; it did everything that was humanly possible to tackle the major financial crisis, and instead of understanding and solidarity it is met with hostility and brutality.

Greece has reduced its deficits and has survived without the money and kindness of its partners since last summer – it lives and breathes with its own resources and yet Mr. Schäuble demands full submission, when at the same time he will forgive the French deficits and swallow Italian debts.

And the banker Mario Draghi is close behind, acting like a miserable moneychanger. Under international pressure he set up a program to purchase bonds in order to control the symptoms of the recession and deflation in Europe and he excluded the country that has been harmed the most from the recession and generalized collapse of values. And all of this is happening with the argument that monetary financing is not allowed by the European Central Bank, as if the program is not essentially printing money.

Unfortunately the stance of Berlin and Frankfurt towards Greece is hypocritical, biased and undemocratic, as it is being defined by political motives.

They were shocked by the dispute and rather than adapt, they are punishing an entire people who has tolerated everything and everone, but is not exhausted and cannot endure any more despots.

Enough is enough.

Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Schäuble must come to terms with the idea that the Greek people does not believe them anymore and cannot stand their calls.

The Greek people have decided to carry on without fear or threats; they have proven that they can live with less. The Greek people have given everything they had to give and then some. It is their time now to give.

Antonis Karakousis