History of Greek Jewish Community
Ocupation
Greece became involved in the Second World War on October 28, 1940, when
the Italians simultaneously invaded Albania and presented an ultimatum to
the Greeks. The Greek dictator, Ioannis Metaxas, who had been in power
since 1936, responded with an adamant ‘ochi’, no, and moved the army
north to meet the attack. What Mussolini had seen as a war of a few weeks
became a grinding stalemate. The Italian war machinery bogged down in the
exceptionally heavy snows of that winter, and by the spring of 1941 the
Italians were forced to withdraw. From this embarassing situation the
Italians were saved by the Germans, who invaded Greece in 6 April. The
exhausted Greek army no longer had the arms to repel the new attack, which
overran Athens on 21 April and defeated the last resistance on Crete by
the end of May. Germany and her allies, Bulgaria and Italy, were jubilant
at the success.
Greece was divided into three occupation zones. The Italians were
affirmed in their hold over the Dodecanese Islands, the Ionian Islands, a
large section of mainland Greece, and the Peloponnesos. The Bulgarians
were given eastern Macedonia and Thrace, with its accompanying access to
the Aegean, the goal of their 900 year old expansionist dreams. The
Germans laid claim to western Macedonia, Thessaloniki, a strip of
land lying along the Turkish border in eastern Thrace, the major Aegean
islands, and Crete. They also, of course, maintained rights of
intervention in the areas under Bulgarian and Italian occupation.
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