Jew World Order

Mr Athanassiadis, 33, is well aware of the dangers. Having lived in Germany
for 11 years, much of it in the country’s financial capital, Frankfurt, he
admits that he has adopted a Germanic attitude to debt, duty and legality.

“As soon as I arrive at the airport in Greece, the taxi driver asks where
I am from and then begins ranting about how Germany is destroying Greece,”
he said.

“But then I say to the taxi driver: ‘Are you helping Greece? Do you pay
all your taxes?’ and he will look shocked and say ‘Of course not!’

“That is the problem; if we Greeks can live in Germany as dutiful, law
abiding citizens then why can’t we do it at home?”

He said that the last time he returned home to his village of Polykastro, in
the north, he made few friends “because I told it to them like it is.”
It is little easier for him in Germany. The Pakistani sandwich maker who
delivers to his central-Frankfurt office at lunchtime offered to give him a
discount because he was a suffering Greek.

At work, colleagues joke whether Greece would still have been able to play in
the Euros if it had dropped out of the euro.

“I still think Angela Merkel is just doing her job,” he said. “It’s
like a big brother telling the rebellious little brother what to do. We need
a more German system – albeit one with Greek flexibility. She is right that
we need to change our way of thinking.”

But Mr Athanassiadis’s support for the German chancellor is far from universal
among Greeks living in Europe’s financial centre. Athanassios Kotsopoulos is
a financial lawyer, who worked in-house for a German bank before setting up
his own practice, specialising in Greco-German finance.

“Angela Merkel is not being straight with her own people,” he said. “She
is not explaining to them how essential it is for Germany that Greece stays
in the eurozone, and the whole euro does not collapse.

“She won’t admit to her electorate that, at the end of the day, she will
have to do anything necessary to support Greece and keep the euro alive.”

Mrs Merkel has so far refused to waver from her position: that Greece must
stick to the austerity measures prescribed by the EU, and that greater EU
fiscal integration is not possible without political union.

She dismisses the idea of “Eurobonds” – proposed by the French
president, Francois Hollande and Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s prime minister – as “counterproductive”
quick fixes.

“I’m hearing that she will be forced to accept a ‘European solution’ –
meaning a common budget, pan-European financial oversight, Eurobonds, the
lot,” said Mr Kotsopoulos, who believes that it is inconceivable that
Greece will leave the euro.

Others are not so sure. One German economist told The Sunday Telegraph
he was certain Greece would leave the single currency.

“In the short term, they may buy themselves a bit more time. But in the
longer term, there’s no way they can stay in the euro,” he said.

In a video-conferencing room above the trading floor of Commerzbank – one of
Germany’s largest banks – Christoph Weil, its Greek specialist, was more
diplomatic.

“The only thing I know for sure is that Monday will be a very busy day,”
he said. “If Greece leaves the euro, it will cost Germany 75 billion.
How much will it cost to keep them in the euro? The German public is not
ready to pay forever, but then is this an acceptable cost?”

The German banker, who was part of a Commerzbank team that travelled to Athens
to assess the situation last year, said that Greece was in dire need of a
dramatic restructuring of its public sector, which he described as “over-sized,
highly inefficient and nepotistic”.

“It was absolutely wrong for Greece to enter the euro,” he said. “People
said ‘It’s only a small country of 10 million people; it can’t possibly
destabilise the EU’ – but they were mistaken.

“And now we need a solution. A banking union is not a good thing, as the
very problem is structural weaknesses in the peripheral countries. Eurobonds
are not a good idea – but I think they will come. A fiscal compact is a good
idea – but only if all countries stick to it.”

And that may be a big ask. “The only solution for Greece is a return to
the drachma,” said Alexis Valavanis, a Greek businessman in Frankfurt. “Then
we can devalue our currency, sort ourselves out, and return to focusing on
growth.”

Surely his friends back in Thessaloniki cannot share his view, given that
every survey shows an overwhelming majority of Greeks want to remain in the
euro?

“It’s only because they do not understand what is happening. The press is
all controlled by Pasok and New Democracy, the parties who insist that
Greece will be destroyed if we leave the euro.

“But now we have a situation where we are not free to make our own
decisions and do what is right for our country.”

He pulled out his mobile phone and gleefully showed The Sunday Telegraph
a video of Nigel Farage, the Ukip MEP, haranguing Jose Manuel Barroso,
president of the EU commission, and Herman Van Rompuy, EU President, for
depriving people of their sovereignty.

“I am flying back to Thessaloniki on Sunday morning just to vote,”
he said proudly. “We live in a world where democracy has been taken
away from us. My vote is the only thing left for me and I must do it for my
country.”

Given all the obvious patriotism among Greeks in Germany, would any of them
ever go back permanently?

“They say we Greeks all have the eyes of Odysseus – always looking for a
way to go home,” said Aris Athanassiadis, the investment manager. “But
given all the turbulence at the moment, I don’t think that will be for a
while yet.”