During WW2 Greece was partitioned by the Axis Powers. By the Germans,
the Italians and the Bulgarians. Did you know that the Axis powers also put in place
a Greek puppet government? This here is the story
of the Greek collaborationist government, a.k.a. the Hellenic State. Keep watching!
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history teacher and I like to cover history on location, like right now. I'm overlooking Athens. And if you find that interesting, well
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In April 1941 the German invasion of Greece began. Simultaneously the Germans invaded Yugoslavia as
well. The German divisions attacked from Bulgaria, crushed through the northern Metaxas Line
as Thessaloniki was taken on 9 April. Greek forces fighting in Albania found themselves
surrounded. Other Greek defenders hurled back in panic. It gave the Allied troops
little time to prepare their defences as they were pushed back by the Germans. On
27 April the Germans entered Athens and the swastika flag was raised on the Acropolis. The
surrender document was signed on 23 April 1941 in Thessaloniki. It was signed by Greek General
Georgios Tsolakoglou. He had capitulated without Athens orders. Reason he wanted
to come to terms with the Germans was that he didn't want the Italians to overrun his country.
The plans of possible Italian annexations
were shelved for after the war. For now it had to be occupied.
“Greece was less important strategically,
less contemptible racially. […] The Germans had no long-term plans for the country,
and Hitler had already decided that a domestic puppet regime would be the least expensive drain
on German energies and resources as the invasion of the Soviet Union came closer.”
General Tsolakoglou proclaimed that he was willing to serve the Germans. Tsolakoglou would lead
the Greek collaborationist government, known as: the Hellenic State. As an officer in the Hellenic
Army he had seen action in the Balkan Wars, the First World War and the Greco-Turkish War.
Tsolakoglu's Cabinet contained six other inexperienced generals. And civilian in the government
were only chosen because of their connections. And on top of that not many people, not many qualified personnel was willing to work for this
collaborationist government. Since they expected the Germans to leave soon and this would leave them behind as
traitors. Members of the
new government were afraid that the Italians would take over large parts of the country.
But that is exactly what happened. See, Hitler needed all his manpower for the invasion of the USSR.
Therefore in June 1941 large parts of Greece came under Italian administration. And as a result of this there was a massive outcry, because
the hatred against Italy was bigger than against the Germans. And this was because of the Greco-Italian War.
The Axis didn't officially recognize the new collaborationist government. That was because it proved to be very unstable. It basically fell apart quickly due to infighting.
Many Greeks held it already in low regard, especially when in June 1941 the Italians occupied
large parts of the country. But that was not the only problem, because
eastern Macedonia and western Thrace were allocated to Bulgaria.
Bulgaria annexed these territories and on top of that expelled over 100,000 people from the region. There was a massive outcry because of this.
The remaining country had become a patchwork of areas under German and Italian control. This would soon lead to disaster.
So the Bulgarians annexed their acquired territories. For a moment it seemed the Italians were going to do the same but
that did not happen. Needless to say, the collaborationist Greek government was under strict
Axis control. Two Axis plenipotentiaries – one Italian; one German – decided which
Greek officials would take part in the government. There was no rigid distinction between the civil
and military spheres of administration and this led to bureaucratic infighting.
“The stage was set for bureaucratic infighting of Byzantine complexity:
Italians pitted against Germans, diplomats against generals, the Greeks trying to play
one master off against the other. Even in the Third Reich the realities of National Socialist
administration were far removed from the smooth efficiency implied by the Fuhrer principle;
in Greece, the New Order had brought nothing less than administrative chaos.”
If things weren't already bad enough: Greece was on the brink of economic catastrophe, due to the
economic disruption as well as the large scale military requisitioning that took place. This was
because the Axis wanted the Greeks to cover the occupation costs. The end result was starvation:
an estimated quarter of a million Greeks perished in the famine. In a future video I'll cover the
Greek Famine indepth. Now we're gonna look at how the collaborationist government dealt with it.
Well, they didn't have the power to deal with it. See, most of the Greek grain came from remote areas
which had to be transported to the cities. They Axis, they created roadblocks and confiscated much of the grain.
At some point the Greek collaborationist government started to
sent demobilized Greek soldiers to the farms to get the grain, but they often sided with the farmers
who mistrusted the occupyer believing the grain would not go to their fellow countrymen but would be taken away by the occupyer.
And they had every right to believe that. Because that's what happened on a wide scale. But it also worsened the food crisis as the government managed to collect very little. And on top of that
distribution failed miserably. Because Greece had become a patchwork of areas under German
or Italian control.
Tsolakoglu saw that full economic collapse
was immenent. He was disillusioned.
He wasn't able to prevent Greece to be dismembered. And now hundreds of thousands of Greeks were dying because of famine.
He was dismissed and replaced by Konstantinos Logothetopoulos: a university professor from
the Athens medical school. The conflict between the Greek collaborators and the
Axis continued as they still refuse to scale down their demands. According to reports 95%
of the Greek population was hostile to the Axis. As war progressed the Germans needed more manpower for
their factories.
Some volunteered to work for the Germans, hoping for better living conditions. Many were already in ill health
and did not make it. The Germans then launched a civil mobilisation programme
but this led to protests. The authorities restored order, brutal reprisals were carried out, but
mobilisation was shelved. In April 1943 Logothetopoulos was replaced
by Ioannis Rallis. He set up his own security force: the Security Battalions. These units
assisted with garrison duties and participated in anti-guerrilla operations. They later functioned
as practical death squads. Rallis drove a wedge in the Greek resistance, between the nationalist and
communist factions. Meanwhile the deportations of the Greek Jews started. The Greek government
expressed its unease to the Germans, but was unable to stop the deportations. In October 1944
the Germans started to withdraw from Greece. Some collaborators joined them, while others stayed:
“Those Greeks who fled north were either genuine pro-Nazis, notorious killers,
or simply too stupid to have taken the precaution of maintaining contacts with Cairo.
Most collaborators, after all, had worked with the occupiers out of convenience, not conviction.”
After the war Tsolakoglou, Logothetopoulos and Rallis were arrested. Tsolakoglou and Rallis
died in prison. Logothetopoulos was released in 1951 and would pass away 10 years later.