greece before ww2

As in some occupied European countries, a Greek puppet government was formed from the outset by the Occupation authorities, initially headed by General Georgios Tsolakoglou and later by Konstantinos Logothetopoulos. [12] Crete was organized as a fortress ("Festung Kreta") garrisoned by the Fortress Division "Kreta", and after August garrisoned by the crack 22nd Air Landing Division. But by April 13, the Italian front in Albania finally began to move, prompted by the general Italo-German joint attack. Given that even in peacetime, Greece was dependent on imports of wheat to cover about a third of its annual needs, the Allied blockade of German-dominated Europe further exacerbated the situation, creating the conditions for the "Great Famine" (Μεγάλος Λιμός): in the greater Athens–Piraeus area alone, some 40,000 people died of starvation, and by the end of the Occupation "it was estimated that the total population of Greece [...] was 300,000 less than it should have been because of famine or malnutrition" (P. The Greek army evacuated Thessaloniki in early 1941, and the population was urged to stock up on supplies in preparation for the hard times ahead; before the arrival of Germans, local anti-Semites began posting warnings on Jewish businesses saying "Jews Not Welcome Here". The generals at the front began exploring the possibilities for capitulation (to the Germans only), despite the High Command's insistence on continuing the fight to cover the British retreat. Italy had hoped Bulgaria would also invade the country, but that never happened. The reprisals were carried out rapidly, omitting formalities and by the same units who had been confronted by the locals. The Bulgarian occupation zone included the northeastern corner of the Greek mainland and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace i.e. [120] In the Bulgarian zone, death rates surpassed 90%. there was no clear distinction between the civil and military administration, while even the military administration was divided among various sectors (Italian 11th army, German 12th army, "fortress Crete" etc.) [76] As a result, EDES was confined to Epirus, Zervas's birthplace, and only managed to survive due to British support. The first British troops under General Scobie arrived in Athens on 14 October 1944. However, political tensions between the Resistance groups resulted in the outbreak of a civil conflict among them in late 1943, which continued until the spring of 1944. After the war, a Special Court on Collaborators in Ioannina condemned, in absentia,[34] 2,109 Cham collaborators of the Axis to death. The military history of Greece during World War II began on 28 October 1940, when the Italian Army invaded from Albania, beginning the Greco-Italian War. The primary occupation, however, was finding as much food as possible to sustain the German army. Groups of economic advisers, businessmen, engineers and factory managers came from Germany with the task of seizing anything they deemed of economic value, with both the Economic Ministry and the Foreign Office involved in the operation; these men were not only in competition with the Italians to plunder the country, but also with each other. At the outbreak of World War II, Metaxas tried to maintain neutrality, but Greece was increasingly subject to pressure from Italy, whose dictator Benito Mussolini sought an easy military triumph to match those of his ally Adolf Hitler. However, German garrisons remained in control of Crete and some other Aegean islands until after the end of World War II in Europe, surrendering these islands in May and June 1945. About the same time the Commonwealth forces made a last stand at Thermopylae before their final retreat to the ports of Peloponnese for evacuation to Crete or Egypt. They had little to do with them so did not form much of an opinion. World War II - World War II - Central Europe and the Balkans, 1940–41: The continued resistance of the British caused Hitler once more to change his timetable. After the end of the war, there was a bitter civil war until 1949. Of the country's 7.3 million inhabitants in 1941, it is estimated that fully 2.5 million were recipients of this aid, of whom half lived in Athens, i.e. With Maleme airfield secured, the Germans flew in thousands of reinforcements and captured the rest of the western side of the island. To conquer it, the German High Command prepared "Unternehmen Merkur", the first mass-scale airborne operation in history. The very same day in Athens, Lt. General A. Papagos resigned his office as Supreme Commander whereas the King and his government embarked for Crete. From 1941 to 1944, during World War II, Axis occupation of Greece and the fierce fighting with Greek Resistance groups had unprecedented devastating effects on the infrastructure and economy. [5][6] Over 40,000 civilians died in Athens alone from starvation, and tens of thousands more died from reprisals by Nazis and collaborators.[7]. They were initially sent by train to concentration camps in Bulgaria. Active Greek resistance started immediately as many Greeks fled to the hills, where a partisan movement was born. [105] A short-lived German attempt to coopt EDES and use them against ELAS partisans failed and by July 1944 EDES attacks against the Germans resumed. The invasion of Greece delayed the invasion of the USSR, which gave time … [13], The occupation of Greece was divided among Germany, Italy and Bulgaria. The initial attack came against the Greek positions of the "Metaxas Line" (19 forts in Eastern Macedonia between Mt. [58], Increasing attacks by partisans in the latter years of the occupation resulted in a number of executions and wholesale slaughter of civilians in reprisal. [103] During October 1943-October 1944 Zervas consistently rejected active collaboration though he favoured a temporary coexistence. [126], In October 1942, Merten implemented measures to extract any and all objects of value (jewelry, etc.) The Legion collapsed in 1942 with the departure of the Italians, and most of its leaders fled into Romania or Greek cities. In addition, British and Greek forces tried to occupy the Italian-held Dodecanese, but they and their Italian allies were defeated in a short campaign (see Dodecanese Campaign).[15]. Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum, "The Italian Holocaust: The Story of an Assimilated Jewish Community", The Catastrophe of Salonikan Jewry and the Looting of their Property, Memorandum to the Note to the Greek Government, 6 April 1941, Note of the Reich Government to the Greek Government, 6 April 1941, Pictures of the German Army in Greece and Greek collaborationists, Hellenic Socialist Patriotic Organisation (ESPO), Political Committee of National Liberation (PEEA), United Panhellenic Organization of Youth (EPON), Organization for the Protection of the People's Struggle (OPLA), Slavic-Macedonian National Liberation Front (SNOF), National Bands of Greek Guerrillas (EOEA), Panhellenic Liberation Organization (PAO), Panhellenic Union of Fighting Youths (PEAN), Gorgopotamos Bridge (Operation "Harling"), Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, National-Socialist Patriotic Organisation, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Axis_occupation_of_Greece&oldid=991169026, Articles lacking in-text citations from December 2014, Articles which use infobox templates with no data rows, Articles containing Italian-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2018, Articles needing additional references from December 2014, All articles needing additional references, Articles with multiple maintenance issues, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 28 November 2020, at 17:12. The Greek successes forced Nazi Germany to intervene. [25][26] Although this aid alleviated the threat of starvation in the cities, little of it reached the countryside, which experienced its own period of famine in 1943–44. On 13 December 1942, Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, wrote in his diary, "The Italians are extremely lax in the treatment of the Jews. In November 1945, after the end of the war, some of then tried to capture Florina but were repulsed by the ELAS. Nazi Germany intervened on its ally's behalf in southern Europe. [131] At the end of their stay, the railroad to Salonica that had been built by the historical Baron Hirsch, originally intended to help Jews escape from Russian pogroms, was used to send Salonica's Jews north to Auschwitz. [153] Famine was narrowly averted in 1945 only by massive aid provided by the Allies and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). In 1942, the Bulgarian club asked assistance from the High Command in organizing armed units among those populations, but the Germans were initially very suspicious. Furthermore, unlike the Germans, and aside from some local commanders, the Italian military protected the Jews in their zone. Signs written in Greek, German and Ladino warned Jews not to exit, and the non-Jewish population to not enter, on pain of death. "Св. [75] By September 1943, the reorganization of ELAS bands along conventional lines had been completed, and ELAS strength was about 15,000 fighters with additionally 20,000 reserves. Although several proposals for territorial annexation had been put forward in Rome, none were actually carried out during the war. [64] The government itself was wracked by internal disputes and held in low esteem by the Greek public, especially after the Italians replaced the Germans throughout much of the country in June 1941. [28] In December 1942, tsolakologlou was succeeded by Konstantinos Logothetopoulos, a professor of medicine whose main qualification for Prime Minister seemed to be his marriage to the niece of German Field Marshal Wilhelm List. In general thousands of people were sentenced to prison, while ca. The Italians were thus responsible for the greater part of Greece, especially the countryside, where any armed Resistance might take place. – октомври 1944 г.). After mid-1942, with the growth of armed Resistance, and the spectacular destruction of the Gorgopotamos bridge (Operation "Harling") by a force of Greek guerrillas and British saboteurs on 25 November, the Italian authorities tried vainly to contain the surge in acts of resistance directed against their forces. After a few months, he was hunted down by government units and executed. The guerrillas were largely successful against the Italians, allowing for the creation of "liberated" areas in the mountainous interior, including sizeable towns, by mid-1943. After the fall of Greece to the Axis, elements of the Greek armed forces managed to escape to the British-controlled Middle East. ): Munoz, Antonio J. [57] The majority of the Slav-speakers in Macedonia after mid-1943 joined EAM and were allowed to retain their organization. The Germans attacked the three main airfields of the island, at the northern towns of Maleme, Rethimnon, and Heraklion, with paratroopers and gliders. Finally, with the advance of the Red Army and the desertion of Romania and Bulgaria, the Germans were forced to evacuate mainland Greece in October 1944, although isolated garrisons remained in Crete, the Dodecanese and various other Aegean islands until the end of the war in May 1945. The three occupation zones. The Jewish population of Greece was nearly eradicated. [38] Unlike Germany and Italy, Bulgaria officially annexed the occupied territories, which had long been a target of Bulgarian nationalism. [95][96][97] EDES called for a future democratic constitution and the punishment of wartime collaborators. The attack was launched on May 20, 1941. From 1942 onwards, the German occupation zone was ruled by the duumvirate of the plenipotentiary for South-Eastern Europe, Hermann Neubacher, and Field Marshal Alexander Löhr. The Bulgarian government's attempts to win the loyalty of the local Slavic-speaking population and recruit collaborators among them did see some success, with the Bulgarians being greeted as liberators,[45][46] but the ethnic composition of the region meant that the vast majority of its inhabitants actively resisted the occupiers. These resistance groups launched guerrilla attacks against the occupying powers, fought against the collaborationist Security Battalions, and set up large espionage networks. However, few of the members of the Security battalions shared a pro-German ideology. Nearly 700,000 of the total Greek population were refugees and lacked the basic necessities of life. [108] A conference in Lebanon on 17–20 May 1944, where representatives from all resistance organizations and the Greek government-in-exile participated, the unification of all resistance groups under a "Government of National Unity", headed by Georgios Papandreou was agreed. The occupation ruined the Greek economy and brought about terrible hardships for the Greek civilian population. [111] The Germans made an effort to spread anti-Semitic sentiments among the local population, and revived local anti-Semitic publications that had been banned under the Metaxas regime. As P. Voglis writes, the German sweeps "[turned] producing areas into burned fields and pillaged villages, and the wealthy provincial towns into refugee settlements". In early 1944, months before the German exodus, the communist-dominated EAM set up a provisional government in the mountains of northern Greece, openly defying both the EDES forces and the royalist government in exile. By 1946, however, a civil war erupted between the foreign-sponsored conservative government and leftist guerrillas, which would last until 1949. Of its pre-war population of 75–77,000, only around 11–12,000 survived, either by joining the resistance or being hidden. Before World War II, approximately 80,000 Jews lived in Greece in 31 different communities. [65], General Georgios Tsolakoglou – who had signed the armistice treaty with the Wehrmacht – was appointed as prime minister of the Nazi puppet regime in Athens. [129][130] As spring approached, Jews were shoved into ghettos, the largest of which was called Baron Hirsch, after a Jewish railroad builder in the Habsburg Empire. [7], Two other notable acts of brutality were the massacres of Italian troops at the islands of Cephallonia and Kos in September 1943, during the German takeover of the Italian occupation areas. As a result, armed collaborationist militias composed of pro-Bulgarian Slavic-speakers, known as Ohrana, were formed in 1943 in the districts of Pella, Florina and Kastoria. Cham Muslim Albanians: Perspectives on a Conflict over Historical Accountability and Current Rights", Examining policy responses to immigration in the light of interstate relations and foreign policy objectives: Greece and Albania, "XIV. Some days later, when the Reichskriegsflagge was waving on the Acropolis' uppermost spot, two Athenian youngsters, Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas, climbed by night on the Acropolis and tore down the flag. A part of the Vlach (Aromanian) population in the Pindus mountains and Western Macedonia also collaborated for a variety of reasons. Beles and River Nestos and 2 more in Western Thrace). In a "ritual humiliation" in extreme heat, fully clothed, the 9,000 men were forced to take part in a "gymnastics drill" lasting six and a half hours, under the threat of being beaten, whipped, shot or set upon by dogs if they did not do as they were told. [89], EAM accused its rival organizations, and particularly EDES, of collaboration with the occupation forces. [125], In July 1942, forced labor was imposed on the Jewish population by Doctor Max Merten, the German chief civilian administrator of Thessaloniki. [111] On 15 April the Jewish leadership within the city was arrested, and in June, the Rosenburg Commando began confiscating Jewish cultural property including manuscripts and art, and sending it back to Germany. [136] Except for five who died in the Bulgarian camps they were sent to Treblinka extermination camp where they died in the following days. Officially, Greece claimed the lands of Northern Epirus (from Albania), Northern Thrace (from Bulgaria) and the Dodecanese from Italy, but gained only the Dodecanese, as the new communist-controlled governments of Albania and Bulgaria had Soviet support. [76], ELAS, and to a lesser extent EDES and the other surviving resistance groups, assumed control of the countryside, but all groups refrained from trying to seize control of the Athens-Piraeus area, in accordance with their previous agreements. In March 1941, a major Italian counterattack failed. Originally, invading Greece wasn’t necessarily in Germany’s battle plan. [66], As in other European countries, there were Greeks willing to collaborate with the occupying force. The raw facts of Greek involvement in the First World War belie the complexities and intrigue that went with it. [109] Conflict between the monarchist Right and the republican and communist Left soon erupted, despite the initiatives of Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou. Greek forces ultimately proved too overwhelming for the Italian army, which forced the Germans to intervene. This meant that only a small minority of Slavic-speakers could be lured to collaborate with the occupiers. He thus managed to achieve closer ties with the British mission. [94] For Zervas the first priority was EAM/ELAS. There was a failed attempt by the British to take advantage of the Italian surrender to reenter the Aegean, resulting in the Dodecanese Campaign. Napoleon Zervas, the leader of a rival guerrilla group, was approached but could not be enticed to join ELAS. [144] This provided a temporary respite from open warfare but Greece was in ruins. By mid-December, the Greeks had occupied nearly one-quarter of Albania, before Italian reinforcements and the harsh winter stemmed the Greek advance. 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