"The country is bankrupt. We have to face the truth," Hans-Werner Sinn, the president of a prominent Munich-based think tank, said in an interview with Deutsche Welle.
On Wednesday, Sinn's Ifo Institute in Munich issued data stating Germany stood to lose 78.8 billion euros if Greece were unable to repay its debts and left the eurozone. It said that outcome would be only slightly less expensive than the 79.7 billion euros it would cost Europe's largest economy if an insolvent Greece kept using the common currency.
German economists have always been able to voice uncomfortable truths that politicians cannot.
Germany's exposure to Greek debt has put elected officials here who advocated for a bailout in a precarious spot. Failing to recover Greek arrears in full could indeed cost votes as most Germans remain skeptical of an extension for Greece.
In reality, a recent survey by INSA indicated that only 21 percent were in favor.
This hasn't prevented Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister
Wolfgang Schäuble from lobbying lawmakers this week to approve an
extension of Greece's 240-billion-euro bailout programme.
A vote in the Bundestag is expected on Friday, a day before the rescue programme is due to expire. Germany's authorities see repayment of its loans to Athens as hinging on keeping Greece solvent and within the eurozone.
Mr Sinn, however, says Athens once failed to follow creditors' orders and loaning it more money now would only postpone the inevitable from happening again.
"The money's gone," he said. "The illusion that it could be recovered by increasing the amount, by piling on more loans, is ludicrous."
Return to drachma
Sinn said Athens should better scrap its bailout agreement and come back to using a devalued drachma, Greece's former currency. A return to the drachma would be the fastest and most reliable way for the indebted country to kick-start its flagging economy and become competitive again, he said.
Price tags would just need to be swapped out, work contracts rewritten and account balances converted. Coming back to the drachma would also drive up the price of imports. As the cost of foreign goods rose, Greeks would theoretically be more inclined to buy locally, stimulating businesses and leading to job growth.
A weaker currency would also spur the country's tourism industry and it could tempt wealthy Greeks to repatriate money they had invested elsewhere.
But the debate over a Greek exit from the eurozone, colloquially referred to as a "Grexit," has drawn speculation over the future of the euro zone itself and the repercussions if a member were to leave.
Some see such a move as setting an impossible precedent, while others view it as a chance for weaker countries to devalue their currencies and become more competitive before returning to the currency bloc.
