I think we can summarise the differences between Germany and Greece by looking at the numbers of patents coming from the two countries, which is a good measure of how inventive and productive they are.
For this we can look at the website of the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
First up Germany, which has 80 million people.
Just look at the first column, the number of patents broken down by year.
http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/country_profile/profile.jsp?code=DE
Now for Greece with 10 million people.
http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/country_profile/profile.jsp?code=GR
Oh dear....
But Greece has one very good exclusive patent: living on free money.
It is complementary with the German patents. German patents make money and the Greek patent spends it.
Economically the Greek patent is very important because it can spend more money than the German patents can generate. That's how they keep the Germans busy.