“So far she’s kept her cards hidden, which I think is smart,” said Michael Stürmer, the chief correspondent for the German newspaper Die Welt. “In principle, her tactic is to hold herself in reserve, hold Germany in reserve.”

Image The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, with Prime Minister George A. Papandreou of Greece in Berlin on Friday. Credit... Jochen Eckel/Bloomberg News

Even before Mr. Papandreou arrived in Berlin on Friday, the German economy minister, Rainer Brüderle, had a stark message for him. “The German government does not intend to give one cent,” Mr. Brüderle told reporters here in the capital.

In an interviewpublished Friday in the German daily newspaper The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung before his visit, Mr. Papandreou aimed to calm public sentiment in Germany.

“We have not asked the German taxpayers to rescue us, to pay for our retirements and vacations,” Mr. Papandreou said. “We are not asking for money. What we need is the support of the E.U. and our European partners so that we can receive credit from the market at better terms.”

German news outlets have accused the Greeks of corruption, tax evasion and falsifying budget numbers to join the euro zone. Greek politicians have asked for reparations for damages inflicted by Nazi occupiers during World War II.

Germany has the most fiscal flexibility among European Union members to help Greece, but public opposition to any assistance has been vehement. The debate has crystallized broader German misgivings about the European project into a public outcry. “It’s like a mosaic and the Greece crisis is the last stone,” said Wolfgang Nowak, a former senior adviser to Mrs. Merkel’s predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, and head of Deutsche Bank’s International Forum. “More and more there is the feeling that French farmers, Polish farmers, Spanish infrastructure, that Europe is not a community but something held together by a German paycheck.”

While protesters have not taken to the streets of Berlin in large numbers the way that they have in Athens, Mrs. Merkel faces rising dissatisfaction at home. A new poll on Friday found nearly three-quarters of Germans critical of her government’s performance since she was re-elected last September.