Sounds like a losing strategy... for the Germans.
Would you lend money to someone to buy your widgets who you know is not going to pay you back?
It's a great deal for the Germans. They loan the money, the elitists grab it for themselves and spend it on your most expensive widgets. Then everyone else in Greece until the end of civilization has to pay the Germans back the interest on those loans that can never be paid off.
The rich got the Porsches, the little folk got screwed.
It doesn’t make sense long-term, but I guess the politicians figure they get a good economy now and somebody else will probably have to write off the debt in the future.
for decades, the USSR sold weapons to deadbeats taking various financial instruments for payment. the deadbeats included syria and iraq. they may had some money but the soviets accepted financial instruments
the sales produced jobs for the workers that were required to meet production quotas set by the planners. The weapons company purchasing agents bought materials from other soviet companies using money received from banks. the funding was not really a loan because the banks got the financial instruments from the customers
By 1990 , the banks had tons of the foreign payment guarantee instruments but still no money. the system unraveled
In that time, American companies were allowed to visit on trade missions. the russians wanted everything, especially computers and fax machines. selling was easy, make an offer at reasonable price. the problem was getting paid. the money men of say the Hermitage Library had no money with which to pay the American company. so, they dug around in the safe and came up with the Iraqi payment instruments. as Payment for the computers, the russians offered the paper obligating the Iraqi government to pay in Iraqi currency on a date now past.
it was pathetic...... and true