ASOLO, Italy – On Tuesday, Generoso Armenante, a 49-year-old former security guard at a convenience store in the southern town of Salerno, left home after having lunch with his wife – and quietly found a secluded spot where he hanged himself. 

Armenante had been fired more than a year ago, and had been struggling to find another job ever since. Next to his body he left a letter: “I decided to end it because I am a failure. I can’t live without work.” 

Unfortunately, he is not alone. Tens of other Italians have also chosen to take their own lives in response to the strain of the economic crisis and the consequent austerity measures. 

On Tuesday, two other people committed suicide, apparently due to financial hardship. A 60-year-old businessman in Milan hanged himself from a tree after failing to repay his debts.

And a 64-year-old bricklayer in Salerno, who lost his job around Christmas, shot himself in the chest. He left a similar message: “I can’t live without a job.”

The three men are casualties of the debt crisis that has pushed Italy’s economy to the brink over the past year and put considerable strain on most Italians, especially those who own or work for small businesses. At least 34 people have killed themselves citing economic reasons since the start of the year, according to the Italian Association of Small Businesses. 

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‘If my business fails, I fail with it’
A dramatic hike in taxes, combined with large cuts in public spending, a clampdown on tax evasion and a credit crunch from banks have pushed many Italian businesses to the brink of bankruptcy. 

Some have stuck to the old Italian script, griping about the government measures at the local cafe over a cappuccino and hoping for better times. But others have seen no way out, and have opted for death.  

The most affected region is the relatively prosperous Veneto in the northeast of Italy, home of Venice and an abundance of businessmen. 

In a part of the country that has had a reputation for skilled merchants since Venice was a maritime republic, as many as one in 10 own their own business. Some of the most recognized Italian brands, such as Benetton and Diesel, originate from the area. 

“My business is like my family,” Massimo Zappia, who owns a window frame business in Asolo, a town about 20 miles north of Venice, told NBC News. “I feel responsible for each of my employees. If my business fails, I fail with it.” 

Zappia, 42, blames the credit crisis for some of his woes as a small business owner.  “These days it takes six months for banks to make their mind up for small loans of just a few thousand dollars. And as a businessman, I feel left alone.” 

Struggling to ‘soldier on’
This feeling of failure and loneliness is at the very heart of acts of desperation among the business community in Italy. The message left by Armenante, the security guard who hanged himself on Tuesday is the same mantra repeated by workers and businessmen who either tried to kill themselves and lived to tell the tale or by those who thought about trying, but found other reasons to live. 

Giovanni, who is in his mid-40s and also lives in Asolo, admits that he thought about ending his life after failing to repay a debt of $25,000. The self-employed plumber, who asked that his last name not be used, told NBC News that he only stopped himself because he didn’t want his family to pay for his mistakes, adding that he has a disabled son and a wife with a history of psychological problems.

“It was a dark moment, and I thought there was no way out,” he said. “They strangled me economically; I just can’t keep up with repayments. I got to the point where I couldn’t go back home and look at my wife and children in the eyes, and tell them I didn’t know how to carry on,” he said. 

“There are moments when you think that there is an easy way out. It only takes a moment to die. But then you think of your family and you realize you can’t. You just need to soldier on.”

To help ease the problem, a workers’ association near Asolo started a helpline for people in distress. They received at least 60 calls in their first two months of activity, but say that it’s worried families who tend to call rather than the businessmen themselves. 

“It’s their wives that call the most, because businessmen around here are very proud,” said Stefano Zanatta, president of Confartigianato Veneto, a local business association. “They wouldn’t admit to having a problem until it becomes so big they can’t tackle it anymore.”

Some, however, do call. “Once we got a call from a businessman who couldn’t even afford to send his daughter to school,” Zanatta said. “We offer them psychological support and financial advice before it’s too late.” 

Zanatta says that he expected a dramatic hike in the number of calls during the month of June. That’s the deadline for filing tax returns in Italy, and the time when many businessmen may realize they just can’t survive the economic crisis.  

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Reporter's Notebook  
 
ATHENS – When you touch down in Athens, the signs of an economic slump are immediately evident. The arrivals hall in the domestic terminal is almost deserted, with flights within Greece having been cut back by about 25 percent. Outside the taxi pick-up point stretches a long line of yellow cabs going nowhere. It is symbolic of Greece's economy – stretched and stuck.

On the ride into town the driver explains that he's been waiting for me for seven hours. I was his second and last fare of the day.

Greece still holds the magic of an ancient Mediterranean country. The Acropolis, its columns lit majestically at night, juts grandly above Athens. It is a testament to one of the world's great civilizations.

But down here on the street, there is fear that Greece is unraveling as a modern state.

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‘Economic death spiral’
You don't expect to see so many hungry people in a major European city. They line up each day looking for a handout in the soup kitchens and bread lines run by the municipality. But the 40 workers under contract to prepare a basic lunch of pasta and bread say they will lose their jobs in June because the city has run out of money to pay them.

Essentially, the country is broke. And to borrow enough money to stay solvent, the Greek government has agreed to severe austerity measures imposed by the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The money will run out next month unless another chunk of the bailout is handed over. But the European Union wants even more cuts in government job, salaries and benefits.

Public employees have already taken a 40 percent pay cut and pensions are being reduced. The private sector has also been hit and unemployment is nearing 20 percent. A staggering 40 percent of youths between the ages of 18 and 24 are without jobs.

Take, for instance, Leo, a 64-year-old painter of religious icons for devout Greeks and tourists. His business dried up. The money ran out and he ended up living on the street. Evicted for not paying rent, Leo, who didn’t give his last name, took warm clothes, books and ten boiled eggs to his new home – a metal bench near a park in central Athens. He spent 45 days in the open with what he called the “unhappy homeless.” 

What makes Leo unhappy is the realization that the government is to blame. "They borrowed," he said. "Every time they needed money they borrowed and then borrowed some more."

Successive Greek governments borrowed an estimated $498 billion, in essence to bribe the Greek people into being happy. Governments who could offer cushy office jobs, fat pensions and long vacations got re-elected. It made perfect political sense, but it was economic suicide.

A businessman in the aviation industry described the country, "as gripped in an economic death spiral."

Enough to make you sick
Yiannis Varoufakis, a professor of economics at Athens University was just as blunt when he told me, “This is Greece's Great Depression. If you look at the statistics it is indeed a deeper slump than what Greece went through in the 1930s.”

Imagine for a moment taking a 40 percent pay cut. Then suffer an increase in sales tax to 23 percent. Add on increased rates for electricity, a new tax on heating oil and the cost of a gallon of gas hitting almost $10. Oh and your pension is not secure, and your kids stay home because there aren't enough teachers. It is enough to make you sick.
 
And that's precisely what the Greeks are doing. Getting ill. Hospital admissions are up 25 percent. At the same time hospital budgets have been cut 40 percent so there are shortages of medicine and staff.

Nikitas Kanekis is the director of Doctors of the World, a charity that runs health clinics. He has the genteel manner necessary to be a pediatric dentist, but the economic decline has unsettled him. "We have seen four times the number of Greek patients over the last year,” he said. “We are afraid the humanitarian crisis can develop into a humanitarian catastrophe."

It may already be happening. The department of health reports that suicides are up 40 percent. And violent crimes including murder are up almost 100 percent.  “We have all the characteristics we see in big cities in the Third World,” said  Kanekis. “People with no shelter, starving people and people looking for doctors and medicine."

Fears about what may come next
Greek coalition leaders are meeting Wednesday to prepare their response to a draft deal on steep cutbacks demanded by creditors in return for a $170 billion bailout that could protect the country from looming bankruptcy.

They need the money to stave off crunch time on March 20 when a big bond redemption payment is due. Without the bailout, they risk a default that could send shockwaves throughout financial markets and the global economy.

No one is certain it will happen. To receive the previous handout, Greece promised to cut 30,000 public-sector workers, but only 1,000 have been let go. The government also promised to sell off 65 billion euros in state owned assets. So far only 2 billion have been sold.

The government is trying to raise money through increased taxation. There's a new property tax that is collected through the state-owned electric company. If you don't pay the tax your electricity is cut off. There's a luxury tax to hit the wealthy – a 30 percent tax on sports cars and yachts. There's even a tax on private swimming pools. The government is reportedly using Google earth to pinpoint pools even as some Greeks are said to be using camouflage nets to hide them.

Even the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Hieronymos II of Athens and All Greece, who rarely comments on issues not related to the church, is worried.  “The unprecedented tolerance of the Greek people is being exhausted, rage pushes fear aside and the danger of social upheaval cannot be ignored anymore,” he warned in a letter sent to interim Greek prime minister.   

The origin of the words tragedy and economy are Greek. In this crisis, they are too close to home.

by Andy Eckardt, NBC News Producer 

ATHENS – Greece’s recent financial and political crisis has led to tension between once friendly European neighbors.

Many Greeks blame the German government, as the major economic force of the European Union, for the radical austerity measures that threaten to cause a decade of misery for many Greeks.

The tone hasn’t been helped by some graphic depictions – such as a poster seen around Athens depicting Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel in a full Nazi outfit.

"Almost every German tourist who visits our restaurant these days asks me whether the Greeks hate Germany," Christos Mentissidis said Sunday as he set up tables and cleaned the floors at the Greek Taverna, a tourist-frequented restaurant in the heart of Athens.
"I immediately tell them that only a minority complain about Germany and other rich EU countries. But, it hurts to see what kind of image is painted of Greece in this crisis, here and abroad."

For Mentissidis, 50, the differences are personal – he spent nearly 20 years living in Germany, where he worked as a taxi driver, at a security company, at Lufthansa Cargo and in several jobs in Greek and German restaurants. Perhaps more significantly, he has a son who was born and raised in Germany and still lives there.

"Both countries are home for me," Mentissidis said. "But the love for the country where I was born was a little stronger in the end.”

He returned to Athens in 2006, but said he was immediately disillusioned by the corruption and byzantine bureaucracy of his homeland – and now is even contemplating going back to Germany. 

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‘It was a great mistake to come back’
"I once was asked to pay a bribe at a dentist's office in order to get an early appointment for a simple filling. Otherwise, I would have had to wait two months or more for the treatment," he said. 

"Corruption, tax evasion and the whole pension plan structure are just some of the burdening problems here. Nothing is secure in Greece."

The recent upheaval has also had a direct effect on Mentissidis’ bottom line because his job is at a restaurant that appeals to tourists.

"This year started great for us,” he said. “In May, tourism really picked up and we were quite busy, with lots of foreigners visiting our restaurant. But then the first violent demonstrations happened and pictures of burning cars and masked protesters … were sent around the world and suddenly, we saw a decline in business of more than 40 percent.”

However, that doesn’t mean Germans have stopped going to Greece – it remains a popular beach destination and statics show there was actually a 6.5 percent rise in Greek tourism this past summer – supported by a jump in the number of German visitors especially to the Greek islands.

Mentissidis is not alone. As private businesses suffer, tax revenues shrink, meaning the Greek government cannot pay salaries and pensions to more than 2.5 million people.

"Economically, it was a great mistake to come back to Greece and I am very worried about the future," he said.

Bluer skies
It’s a different story for his 26-year-old son, Themistoklis, back in Germany. 

"When my father returned to Greece, I strongly considered going with him, but I am so happy now that I stayed here. There is no future for young people in Greece," said Themistoklis, 26, during a recent interview in Ruesselsheim, a town close to Frankfurt, Germany’s financial capital. 

While Greece's unemployment rate currently hovers above 16 percent, with the jobless rate among 15-24 year olds soaring to 42 percent, Themistoklis has a job as a machine operator at a big pharmaceutical company in Frankfurt.

There are, however, constant reminders of the plight of his ancestral country.

"Every time people in Germany hear that I am Greek, there is no other topic than the [economic] crisis and I often have to justify things when I hear negative remarks about my country," he said.

The young man and his Greek girlfriend say that the "unnecessary tensions" are often caused by adverse depictions in the German media and, on the Greek side, by references to the 1941-45 Nazi occupation of Greece.

The situation was not helped when Greek Prime Minister Papandreou announced last week that he planned to hold a referendum on the European bailout measures (a decision that was later reversed).  

"Take the euro away from the Greeks!" was a headline on Germany's mass-circulation tabloid BILD after Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy raised the prospect of Greece’s exit from the Eurozone for the first time.

"We've had enough!" BILD wrote in the article, signaling growing exasperation in Europe's largest economy. "We're spending hundreds of billions of euros to save the Greeks and now a referendum there should make clear whether they want to make savings at all. Now we want our own referendum: No more billions for the Greeks, Greece out of the euro!" the article wrote.

But that would be a worst-case scenario as far as Christos is concerned.

"Despite all the criticism I am still very proud to be Greek, but the last thing we want is a return to our old drachma currency," said Christos.

But he’s not dismissing a return to his old stomping ground. "With all the chaos here, I am strongly thinking about going back to Germany, where I would rather take up a low-paid taxi driver job than approach retirement age in a country that lacks a real system.”

NBC News’ Andy Eckardt is based in Mainz, Germany, but is currently on assignment in Greece.