File Photo: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. (Associated Press)
The leaders of debt-wracked Greece and economic powerhouse Germany meet in Berlin today after weeks of bad feeling over Athens's borrowing woes, bitter wartime memories and an offensive hand gesture.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will receive Greece's radical left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who has blamed her insistence on tough austerity for his country's "humanitarian crisis" of poverty and mass unemployment.
Spain's Economy Minister Luis de Guindos turned the screw on Athens another notch yesterday by insisting that it will not receive any money until it implements all its proposed reforms.
Merkel also insists that if cash-strapped Greece wants more bailout loans, the biggest share of which is financed by Germany, it must accept the bitter medicine of cuts and reforms.
Talking to the Greek newspaper Kathimerini ahead of the visit, Tsipras said the meeting with Merkel would be an opportunity to talk "without the pressure of any negotiation".
"It's important because we will be able to talk about topics which are damaging Europe, and about how to improve relations between our two countries," he said.
"In this meeting two worlds will collide," said Hajo Funke, political scientist with Berlin's Free University.
"There is the political world of Greece, where a left-wing government faces a society in collapse, (of) societal decay... as grave as anything we have seen in western Europe since 1945," he told AFP.
"The other world is a content country that is dominant in Europe, Germany, which worries about maintaining its economic happiness, and which is now being asked to help the other, under conditions it doesn't fully understand."
WWII memories As tensions have flared, bitter historical memories have resurfaced, with Tsipras's government reviving reparation claims for the Nazi occupation of Greece in World War II - an issue which Berlin considers settled.
Greece's Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias appeared to offer an olive branch to Berlin on the eve of his leader's visit, telling the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that a Greco-German committee of experts could be set up to look into the thorny question.
When Tsipras took power in January he lost no time before laying flowers at a memorial near Athens for dozens of Greek leftists executed by the German occupation troops in 1944.
The two months since have seen a war of words escalate between Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble, who has been caricatured in Nazi garb in a Greek newspaper.
This month the Greek embassy launched a formal complaint about disparaging comments it said Schaeuble had made about Varoufakis.
The latest flare-up was sparked by a video clip ostensibly showing Varoufakis in 2013 making the middle-finger gesture to Germany.
Both Varoufakis and the presenter whose satirical programme apparently put the video together have said it is fake, but the channel that aired the footage has said it is being checked by experts.
Seeking to overcome the tensions, Merkel said last week she was looking forward to in-depth talks with Tsipras, who would be received with military honours at 6 pm (local time).
"We will have some time to talk in detail, and perhaps even argue," she said last week, while quashing expectations that a solution to the Greek debt crisis would be found quickly.
'Grexit' opposition She reiterated her opposition to a "Grexit" of Greece leaving the currency union, saying that "if the euro fails, Europe fails," and insisting a solution could only be reached at the European level.
To pave the way for the summit, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will meet his Greek counterpart in Berlin yesterday.
Greece's creditors agreed in February to extend its $240-billion euro ($255 billion) bailout by four months in exchange for promises of further reforms.
At an EU summit last week, Greece lobbied Brussels to release vital funds to help it make payments to creditors in the coming days, and avoid bankruptcy and a possible exit from the euro.
But Spain's Guindos told the Financial Times that Athens will not receive any more money from the eurozone rescue fund "before there is a real test that the reforms have been approved and implemented".
Greece's negotiations have taken on particular significance in Spain where anti-austerity Podemos, a sister of Greece's governing Syriza party, took third place in a regional vote seen as a crucial test for upcoming general elections.
They have also fuelled popular opposition in Germany to the new Greek government, as many voters fear public funds are disappearing into a bottomless well.
Mass-circulation daily Bild last month asked readers to send in selfies holding up "Nein" (no) signs it had printed to protest against the German parliament approving emergency aid for Greece.
Some German lawmakers have openly mused about how the eurozone could survive a "Grexit" - an outcome that more than half of Germans would welcome, according to a recent poll.
Despite such "rampant prejudice" and ill-will on both sides, said Funke, "the hope is that there can be a historical compromise, which presupposes that the partners trust each other."