[1940 - 1944] World War II and Axis Occupation

It began not with the thunder of bombs, but with a single, defiant word whispered in the pre-dawn chill of October 28th, 1940. In Athens, the Italian ambassador had delivered an ultimatum from Mussolini to the Greek Prime Minister, Ioannis Metaxas. The demand was simple: allow Axis forces to enter and occupy strategic parts of Greece, or face war. The response, echoing the sentiment of an entire nation, was blunt. "OXI." No. As sirens wailed across the city, the people did not run for cover. They poured into the streets, waving blue and white flags, singing patriotic songs. It was a spontaneous, almost joyous defiance. They knew what was coming. Greece, a small nation still healing from past conflicts and a decade of political instability, had just challenged the might of the Axis. The initial fighting was a shock to the world. The Italian invasion, launched from Albania, was expected to be a swift victory. But in the jagged, frozen peaks of the Pindus mountains, something extraordinary happened. The Greek soldiers, many of them reservists in simple khaki wool uniforms and wearing traditional *tsarouchia* shoes with hobnails for grip, were outnumbered and technologically inferior. They had little air support and faced Italian tanks and modern artillery. Yet, driven by a fierce will to defend their homeland, they not only held the line but pushed the invaders back deep into Albanian territory. Stories filtered back from the front of soldiers fighting through blizzards in freezing mud, of village women hauling ammunition and food up treacherous mountain paths. It was Greece's finest hour, a David-and-Goliath victory that boosted Allied morale across a darkened Europe. But this triumph was short-lived. The spring of 1941 brought a new, more terrifying opponent. Humiliated by his ally's failure, Adolf Hitler unleashed the full force of the German Wehrmacht in "Operation Marita." On April 6th, German tanks and Stuka dive-bombers smashed across the Bulgarian border. The Greek and a small contingent of British and Commonwealth forces were simply overwhelmed. The speed was terrifying. Thessaloniki fell in three days. By April 27th, the swastika was flying over the Acropolis in Athens, a chilling desecration of the ancient symbol of democracy. Greece was carved up between three occupying powers. The Germans took the most strategic areas: Athens, Thessaloniki, Crete, and key islands. The Italians controlled the bulk of the mainland and the Ionian islands. And in the northeast, the Bulgarians annexed territory, enforcing a brutal policy of assimilation. For the average Greek, life transformed into a nightmare. The first and most brutal reality of the occupation was hunger. The German war machine systematically plundered the country's resources. Food stocks, livestock, and raw materials were requisitioned and shipped to Germany. Combined with the Allied naval blockade, this created an artificial and catastrophic famine, particularly in the major cities during the winter of 1941-42. This period is known in Greece as the Great Famine—the *Megálos Limós*. Daily life became a singular, desperate quest for food. The official ration cards were nearly worthless, providing as little as 150 calories a day. The price of a loaf of bread, when it could be found, skyrocketed by over 3,000%. The streets of Athens, once bustling with life, grew quiet and skeletal. People fainted from starvation in the gutters. Children’s bellies swelled from malnutrition. Families sold every last heirloom on the black market for a handful of flour or some olive oil. The sounds of the city changed: the laughter was gone, replaced by the shuffling of weary feet and the rumble of German patrol trucks. It is estimated that over 300,000 Greeks perished from starvation and related diseases during this period, a demographic catastrophe for a nation of just over 7 million. Yet, even in this darkness, the spirit of "OXI" flickered. In the mountains where they had once fought the Italians, a new kind of resistance was born. They were the *Andartes*, the guerrillas. Two major groups emerged: the communist-led National Liberation Front (EAM) and its military wing (ELAS), and the smaller, republican National Republican Greek League (EDES). Hidden in remote villages, supplied by daring airdrops from British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents, they began to fight back. Their most spectacular success came in November 1942. In a rare display of unity, guerrillas from both ELAS and EDES, working alongside British commandos, targeted the Gorgopotamos viaduct, a vital railway bridge that carried German supplies to Rommel's forces in North Africa. Under the cover of darkness, they overwhelmed the Italian garrison and planted explosives. The resulting blast sent a massive section of the bridge crashing into the gorge below, a sound of defiance that echoed across the occupied nation. But this defiance came at an unspeakable price. The Nazi response to sabotage was swift and barbaric. They institutionalized a policy of collective punishment, executing dozens of civilians for every German soldier killed. Entire villages were wiped off the map. In December 1943, in the town of Kalavryta, German troops rounded up and machine-gunned every male over the age of 13 in retribution for the execution of German prisoners by local partisans. Over 500 died in a single afternoon. In Distomo, in June 1944, SS troops went on a door-to-door rampage, slaughtering 218 civilians, including babies in their cribs, in another reprisal killing. These massacres were designed to terrorize the population into submission, but often, they only hardened the resolve to resist. By October 1944, with the tide of the war turning, the German forces began their withdrawal. The sight of the swastika being lowered from the Acropolis brought delirious celebration to the streets of Athens. Liberation was at hand. But the joy was tragically fragile. The common enemy was gone, and the deep political divisions that had been papered over during the resistance—between communists and royalists, republicans and monarchists—erupted with a vengeance. The guns that had been aimed at the occupiers were now being turned on fellow Greeks. The liberation was not an end to the suffering, but the bitter prelude to a new, even more devastating conflict: the Greek Civil War.