Supposedly lots of German banks were investing in Greece and Spain because returns there were good compared to the abysmal rates in Germany. So the ECB/IMF 'bail out' ended up being a bit of a rescue of the German banks:
> According to a study by the European School of Management and Technology only €9.7bn or less than 5% of the first two bailout programs went to the Greek fiscal budget, while most of the money went to French and German banks.[84] (In June 2010, France's and Germany's foreign claims vis-a-vis Greece were $57bn and $31bn respectively. German banks owned $60bn of Greek, Portuguese, Irish and Spanish government debt and $151bn of banks' debt of these countries.)[85] According to a leaked document, dated May 2010, the IMF was fully aware of the fact that the Greek bailout program was aimed at rescuing the private European banks – mainly from France and Germany. A number of IMF Executive Board members from India, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, and Switzerland criticized this in an internal memorandum, pointing out that Greek debt would be unsustainable. However their French, German and Dutch colleagues refused to reduce the Greek debt or to make (their) private banks pay.[86][87]