Tsipras sees himself as the hero Odysseus, leading a great nation of seafarers through Skylla and Charybdis, represented by evil Germany and the rest of the eurozone, and after that adventure (translates into referendum), everything will be fine. Unfortunately, he might not have read the saga complete, because Odysseus lost half of his crew during that episode, and in the end, he was the the lone survivor, forever famous, but without any crew.
Greece already received a debt relief of 100 billion Euros, and certainly will receive further debt reliefs in the future. Greece doesn't have to pay interest rates, the payment of the rates have been prolonged until 2052.
But, as everybody is only looking at gtreece, one forgets that all those other governments in the eurozone want to be reelected one day, so its crucial to sell the the truth slice by slice and not in one piece. All nations have to look after their budgets, and the instant loss of 87.6 billion euros for germany would have great impact to the economy and political scene.
It would help everybody to see what greece is: a country with institutions and authorities have the level of a threshold country, it needs support for nation building. But unfortunately, is to proud to accept help. Germany supposed to send tax specialists to support the build up of a working tax system, greece didn't accept this (I can very well understand that there are historical reasons for that).
But the greek government does not only want to get more financial support without reforming the country, it wants to change the way europe works. This has become evident in every negotation between Iannis Varoufakis and the ministers of finance of the rest of the Eurozone. They have always been complaining that Mr. Varoufakis gives them marxist lessons of how they should run europe. In every negotiation it doesn't seem wise to call ones counterparts idiots and then to ask for more money. Or to negotiate a treaty to the end, only to announce a referendum the next day asking the greek people to vote 'NO'. Mr Varoufakis is calling the other members of the eurozone and the ECB terrorists, because they are not longer supplying greece with money.
According to andromeda's link to the german debt relief in 1953: very good comparison. It was mostly debts germany couldn't pay back because of the self inflicted catastrophe of the third Reich and WW2. It was mainly debts from reparations after WW1. The protest against these 'unjust debts of shame' helped in 1933 the Nationalsozialisten to be elected..........
The result of this debt relief was helping germany's economy, but compared to greece we had definitely not the social system we have now and Greece wants to keep. Germany paid back the complete amount , the last payment was made in October 2010. The US strongly supported this debt relief for Germany, as they wanted a strong Germany at the frontier of the iron curtain.
We should want to keep greece in the Eurozone, but not with the greek conditions and not for the price of the loss of the complete EU.