The recent cover of Der Spiegel showing German Chancellor Angela Merkel in front of the Acropolis surrounded by Nazi officers serves an important purpose: it finally poses, in a way that cannot be evaded, the question of Germanophobia in Europe.
The abuse of Germany has dragged on for quite some time. Demonstrations in Cyprus in March 2013 included banners bearing caricatures of Merkel done up as Adolf Hitler. In Valencia at around the same time, on the occasion of the annual Fallas celebration, there was Merkel as an evil headmistress delivering to the head of the Spanish government and his ministers "The Ten Commandments of Angela the Exterminator." She ended up being burned in effigy in the flames of the bonfires of St. Joseph.
Two months later, in Portugal, similar parades featured the same Hitlerized Merkel caricatures, borne by howling demonstrators dressed in mourning clothes and decrying the German leader's "policy of massacring the poor."
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