Let’s say that in response to several heartbreaking pleas, you lent a friend a fair amount of cash. He’s a pretty good friend, but of late fairly profligate. Last year, drowning in contrition, on his knees in a manner of speaking, he threw himself on your mercy, swearing almost instant repayment, total fealty, and eternal gratitude for your generosity. Just give him a year. Or so ...

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However, as the months pass, your buddy somehow fails to abide by his end of the bargain. In fact, he wants yet more cash, insisting that you, being you—i.e., a pal and a wealthy pal to boot—should continue the lending, instead of ruthlessly demanding cash from the penniless. And all of your deadbeat pal’s own friends (the same friends you once thought were also your friends—erroneously as it turns out) agree. You should keep on lending, these friends insist. What are friends for? Especially since your deadbeat buddy arouses torrents of sympathy in very high places.

President Obama calls you up (late at night, to make matters worse) to drive this point home. David Cameron, Britain’s prime minister, informs you that your friend’s indebtedness is actually (a) your problem and (b) might just end up ruining everyone he knows and that’s your problem too, and certainly not his.

And your grateful friend? Instead of looking abashed or scuttling about for ways to cough up cash—he goes on the offensive. No longer is repayment his responsibility or his failure. In the newest twist, you have been transformed from pal to predator, from creditor to creep. In fact, your erstwhile buddy has a name for you.

He calls you a Nazi.

This is the latest chapter in diminishing Greco-German relations. The deadbeat nation, which happens to be Greece, is short on cash but not hyperbole. As the London Times pointed out on Saturday, the cover of the popular Greek magazine Crash depicts a rising moon illuminating a giant swastika slipping over the Parthenon—and behind that swastika the face of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Another publication offers readers a DVD with an obscene photo of Merkel. Yet a third features a picture of Horst Reichenbach, the German head of the European task force on Greece, wearing a Wehrmacht uniform.

Well, no good deed goes unpunished, as any number of creditors around the world have lately discovered. But to my mind the Greek chutzpah award goes to the business columnist Antonis Papagiannidis, who told the London newspaper why Germany deserved to drown in a Greek shitstorm:

"The extremely blunt German comments on the Greek impasse, emanating from Chancellor Merkel,” he began. “The building of offensive stereotypes of Greek laziness, or Greek profligacy—all this has awakened deeply rooted resentment on the Greek sides."

In other words, candor is out of fashion in the new European Union. How to fend off a centripetal disaster? Keep on borrowing. Keep on lending. Keep those eyes wide shut.