directly taking it from Germany in order to finance consumption in Greece and similar places

If that's what you got from the discussions here you weren't paying attention. In fact no one here is asking Germans to pay a dime for Greece. Most people here (and complain if I overgeneralize) would have liked nothing better than to allow Greece to default in 2010 and let the banksters take the hit. These sort of debt crises are a mechanism in which "investors" and banks get bailed out at the expense of richer country taxpayers and indebted country workers. I would be very happy if the German parliament voted against the new loan to Greece. Accepting this loan would be a disaster for the country. I'll set aside of course the fact that Germany is not giving money to Greece but loaning money to Greece, at 5%, making a nice profit since it borrows it a 2%.
Money printing on the other hand is a reasonable process especially during depressions, as the 1930s taught everyone.

The idea that you can destroy democracy and drive everyone to poverty in order to "pay back debt" I thought was abandoned in the Middle Ages.

Note that austerity, isn't an answer to the debt problem (destroyed economies don't pay back debts), it's an elite political strategy against labor and against the achievements social Europe, everywhere in Europe. So if you think the buck will stop in Athens, you're in for a surprise...

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake