Greece should have flirted with Russia earlier? I don't get that.
Of course, regarding requirements for compensation from Germany, it would have made sense to ask those in 1980, i.e. before joining an economic community with Germany, a community whose purpose was to put back wars and their compensation requirements, and start up a free trade area and bind economies together to avoid further clashes and wars.
Greece couldn't have asked in 1980. There was a debt conference in the early 1950s -by the world war winning superpowers of the time- that postponed compensation questions until the reunification of Germany (then thought to be coming soon). In 1990, after the reunification, the same superpowers convened again, and decided _instead of all countries and without consulting_ to drop the debt.
A mandatory loan from the Greek government to finance the German war effort would be at around 11 billion euros now. It is a multiple of that for many other EU countries.
I'm not saying that this "repay the war debt" is a good idea, but there certainly are a lot of hard to contest historical arguments for the validity of a small part of their claim.
Just for the record: Greek governments did demand war compensation before 1980, but Germany argued that that question has to wait until unification. After 1989 it was "too late"
Of course, regarding requirements for compensation from Germany, it would have made sense to ask those in 1980, i.e. before joining an economic community with Germany, a community whose purpose was to put back wars and their compensation requirements, and start up a free trade area and bind economies together to avoid further clashes and wars.