Balkan campaign (1941)
In the Balkan campaign during the Second World War , the German Wehrmacht attacked the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Kingdom of Greece on April 6, 1941 and occupied both countries within a few weeks after the attack by the Italian ally on Greece had ended in disaster. The Wehrmacht invasion was supported by Italian, Bulgarian and Hungarian troops. On April 17th the Yugoslav armed forces surrendered, Greece on April 23rd. The fighting on the island of Crete where British troops landed, but dragged on until June 1, 1941.
Mussolini attacked Greece on October 28, 1940, but was soon on the defensive and had to surrender parts of Albania . As a result, in November 1940, the German side came up with a plan to intervene in the Balkans in favor of Italy. For its part, Germany was at war with Great Britain (→ Battle of Britain ) and intended to attack the Soviet Union in early summer 1941 . Originally the Nazi regime had hoped to bring neutral Yugoslavia into its sphere of influence with an alliance and thus secure its southern flank. Shortly after the Yugoslav government to the Tripartite Pact was signed, staged a coup but a counter-government on 27 March 1941, the power and declared the agreement invalid. So Hitler felt compelled to take action against Greece and Yugoslavia at the same time. The Balkan campaign delayed the start of the war against the Soviet Union by six weeks and made the Wehrmacht's plan to take the capital Moscow in a blitzkrieg before the onset of winter more difficult .
prehistory
After Germany had brought France and the Benelux countries as well as Denmark and Norway under its control by the summer of 1940 , the countries of the Balkans were caught between the interests of Soviet, British, German and Italian superpowers. Hitler initially tried to keep the Balkans free from political and military entanglements. In addition, economic relations with the Southeast European countries were intensified in order to secure their resources for the needs of the German Reich.
The oil-weapons pact of May 27, 1940 with the Kingdom of Romania was followed by the dispatch of German soldiers in mid-October 1940 to train the Romanian army and, in an emergency, secure the strategically important oil wells of Ploiesti . For this deployment of troops, diplomatic consultations should have taken place beforehand in accordance with Article III of the German-Soviet Pact of 1939 . The deployment of German and Romanian armed forces against the Soviet Union should also be prepared. At the end of June 1940 , the Soviet Union annexed not only Bessarabia , as agreed in the secret additional protocol of the pact, but also northern Bukovina . Although Germany and Italy gave a guarantee for Romania, the Soviet Union occupied a group of islands in the mouth of the Danube and the Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov made claims on southern Bukovina. The conflicts between the Kingdom of Romania, the Kingdom of Hungary and Tsarist Bulgaria were resolved by Hitler in the Vienna arbitration on August 30, 1940. Romania had previously orientated itself politically towards France, which, however , had been defeated by Germany in the western campaign in June 1940. With the appointment of Ion Antonescu as Prime Minister and State Leader, it now leaned on Germany.
The great power ambitions of Italian fascism under Mussolini had already been directed towards the establishment of an Italian living space ( spazio vitale ), which also included the Balkans, since the 1930s . The new Italy should culture and progress as back in the days of the Roman Empire ( imperium spread). Rome and Berlin had different objectives here. As the guarantor of the Vienna arbitration award, Italy turned its interest to Yugoslavia and Greece. Both were neutral states that were more pro-German. On June 10, 1940, Italy entered the war against the British-French alliance and thus in the Second World War. In August 1940, Hitler made it clear to the Italian Foreign Minister, Ciano , that he considered "calm in the Balkans" to be extremely important and that he opposed an Italian attack on Yugoslavia. Italy had asked Germany to prepare a joint military action against Yugoslavia. Without consultation with the German Reich, on October 28, 1940, Italian units with around 155,000 soldiers attacked Albania, which had been Italian-occupied since 1939, from Greece . October 28 is still today a national holiday ( Ochi day ) in Greece because the ruler Ioannis Metaxas responded to the request of the Italian diplomat with a resolute "No" ( modern Greek όχι, óchi ). In response to the Italian attack, British troops occupied Crete and mined the Greek coastal waters against attempted landings. On November 4th, the Italian attack was stopped and Mussolini's Blitzkrieg had failed. The Italian troops had to retreat behind their original positions. On November 12, 1940, Hitler ordered the Army High Command in his instruction No. 18 to prepare a German attack on Greece via Bulgaria. One day later he signed the corresponding directive No. 20 ( company Marita ).
Greece tried to prevent a military conflict with the German Reich. In January 1941, the Metaxas government informed the German side that British military aid was limited to air support against Italy and that there were no British troops on the mainland. She suggested that the German Reich should settle the dispute with Italy with an arbitration award, as it had already done in August 1940 in the border dispute between Hungary and Romania . However, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had already mentioned the transfer of British associations from North Africa to the Aegean Sea in a speech on December 19, 1940. Greek Prime Minister Metaxas was negotiating with Great Britain around the same time, calling for at least nine British divisions. In early February 1941, Churchill agreed, but did not want to allow much more than three divisions.
From the perspective of the German Reich, the British engagement in Greece threatened the Romanian oil fields, which were important to the war effort. In November 1940, the Bulgarian Tsar Boris granted the Wehrmacht the right to march through to Greece. The Soviet Union tried to prevent Bulgaria from joining the Tripartite Pact and offered a declaration of guarantee, but it was refused. The German Reich made it clear to the Soviet Union that Bulgaria was in the German security zone and that it wanted to ratify an assistance pact with Bulgaria. Bulgaria secured itself vis-à-vis Turkey on February 17, 1941 by exchanging declarations of friendship and non-aggression. Bulgaria received from the German Empire the assurance of territorial gains in Greece and access to the Aegean Sea. Representatives of the Bulgarian General Staff and the 12th Army agreed the scope of duties of Bulgarian troops in the German operations in Greece. On March 1, 1941, Bulgaria joined the Tripartite Pact. The very next day, German troops crossed the Danube and advanced to their Bulgarian operational areas. Great Britain then recalled its ambassador from Sofia and cut economic ties with Bulgaria. The German Reich had officially informed the Soviet Union, with which it was linked by a friendship treaty , of the planned invasion. Moscow regretted the German move, but did not mention any negative consequences for the mutual relationship. Up to March 28, 1941, 14 German divisions were in Bulgaria, mainly on the Bulgarian-Greek border.
On March 25, 1941, representatives of the Yugoslav government signed the accession to the Tripartite Pact in Vienna. Yugoslavia had been close to the German Reich since 1934, but there was no military cooperation until 1941. As a result of this news, anti-German demonstrations broke out in Yugoslavia. On March 27, 1941 , officers put a coup in Belgrade against the government of Prime Minister Dragiša Cvetković and put 17-year-old Peter II on the throne; Prince Regent Paul of Yugoslavia fled to Greece. General Dušan Simović formed a new government, but declared that he wanted to keep all obligations of the Three Power Pact towards the German Reich. Cvetković and other signatories to the pact were arrested. Thereupon Hitler decided to attack not only Greece but also Yugoslavia. On the same evening Hitler ordered in directive no. 25 that Yugoslavia be "destroyed militarily and as a state structure" in a lightning campaign. In Austria, the 2nd Army was made available to invade Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav plan of operations "R-41" provided for a defensive deployment of 27 divisions along the border.
The new Yugoslav government immediately sent a delegation to Moscow to start negotiations with the Soviet government on a mutual assistance pact. This rejected the request; but she declared herself ready to conclude a friendship and non-aggression pact. This was signed after two days of negotiations on April 5, one day before the German attack.
campaign
Destruction of Yugoslavia
On April 6, 1941 at 5:15 a.m., Wehrmacht units attacked Greece and Yugoslavia with 33 divisions , including six tank divisions and a total of 680,000 soldiers, without a prior declaration of war or an ultimatum . For the organization of the forces, see the schematic structure of the armed forces on April 6, 1941 . 484 bombers and Stukas as well as 250 fighter planes of the Axis Powers opened the war with a devastating air raid on Belgrade and on Yugoslav airfields for the civilian population . On the same day the attack by two army corps of the Wehrmacht on the right and left wings of the Greek East Macedonia Army under General Bakopoulos began. Air attacks by a few Bristol-Blenheim bombers of the Yugoslav Air Force on targets in Austria were only symbolic; two of these planes dropped a few bombs on supply facilities in Graz on April 6, causing a fatality and minor property damage.
The Yugoslav army was divided into 32 divisions and nine brigades, and the air force had 400 aircraft. Greece had 21 divisions, four brigades and 80 aircraft. There were also two British infantry divisions, a tank brigade and seven squadrons with 84 machines of the Royal Air Force .
The German 12th Army ( GFM List ) came from Bulgaria to Salonika front, the 2nd Army ( Colonel-General von Weichs ) and the Panzer Group 1 (Colonel General von Kleist ) with 15 divisions operated from Styria , Hungary , Romania and Bulgaria made against Yugoslavia. After a short time, the Hungarian 3rd Army ( FML Gorondy-Novák ) intervened with ten brigades and the Italian 2nd, 9th and 11th Army with 38 divisions. 1153 German and 320 Italian aircraft were used. The Italian 2nd Army stationed in the Fiume area consisted of 13 divisions (including one armored and two motorized divisions), which were combined into three corps. The commander of the Italian army, General Vittorio Ambrosio , had another division available as a reserve, which was stationed in the Zara region on the coast of Dalmatia . The Italian 11th Army under General Carlo Geloso , located in the south of Albania , was supposed to attack the Yugoslavs from the south and unite with the German troops in the Serbian part of Macedonia .
On April 8th and 9th, the LI approached . Army Corps of the German 2nd Army the Belgrade area from the north. During April 10th, Zagreb was occupied. In the south, the German 9th Panzer Division took Skopje on April 7 and Prilep on April 9 . The city of Belgrade was captured on April 12 by Panzer Group 1 advancing from the east. On April 17th at 9 p.m. General Danilo Kalafatović, as representative of the Yugoslav Supreme Commander in Belgrade, signed the unconditional surrender of the Yugoslav armed forces, 6,298 officers and 337,864 NCOs and crews of Serbian and Montenegrin descent went into German captivity . King Peter and his government left the country.
Yugoslavia was divided into ten parts with different constitutional status. Croatia had already declared itself an Independent State of Croatia on April 15th . The German Empire diplomatically recognized this new vassal state , which was ruled by the Ustasha and to which Slavonia , Syrmia and almost all of Dalmatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina belonged. Serbia fared differently: it only had its territory within the borders of 1912 (excluding Macedonia and the West Banat ). Its area covered more than a quarter of the total area of the former Yugoslavia. Of the areas that belonged to Serbia before 1941, Hungary occupied southern Baranja and Batschka , while Bulgaria occupied most of Macedonia. Serbia received its own state government, but it was dependent on the Germans. The country was declared an exclusively German zone of influence and placed under German military administration.
The Yugoslav prisoners of war were treated according to ethnicity. The Slovenian, Bosniak, Croat, Hungarian, German ( Danube Swabian ) and Macedonian soldiers - half of the Yugoslav army - were released. Around 180,000 Serbs were brought to Germany to work .
Four infantry divisions were specially formed to occupy the Balkans: the 704th, 714th, 717th and 718th (the last two in Austria in military district XVII and XVIII respectively). Even after the reorganization of the 717th as 117th Jäger Division and the addition of officers and men from other military districts, Austrians made up the majority of the men. Both divisions established in the Austrian military districts remained in the Balkans until the surrender; the 718th Infantry Division in Croatia, the 717th Infantry Division and later the 117th Jäger Division were relocated from Yugoslavia to Greece in the spring of 1943.
Operations in Greece
The German 12th Army stationed in Bulgaria under General Field Marshal Wilhelm List illegally crossed the border into Greece on April 6, 1941. Contrary to the Hague Agreement , the German envoy Victor Prinz zu Erbach-Schönberg only delivered a corresponding ultimatum shortly after crossing the border, which Prime Minister Alexandros Koryzis rejected.
Like a few months earlier under Metaxas after fighting the invading Italians, there were differences between Prime Minister Koryzis and the Commander-in-Chief of the Greek Armed Forces , King George II. A few weeks after his successful campaign, Metaxas had died of tonsillitis, which gave rise to various conspiracy theories gave. All kings of Greece since 1833 were German nobles and from 1863 came from the house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg . During their reign they were decidedly pro-German and refused to mobilize against Germany in both World War I ( Constantine I ) and now in World War II (George II). The Wehrmacht also benefited from the supply problems of the British troops, which resulted from the bombing of the ships and damage to the port of Piraeus during a German air raid on April 6th and 7th.
The attack by the German 12th Army (Field Marshal List) focused on two main directions: In the west, the majority of the Kleist tank group advanced towards Skopje in order to cross the Greek border at Florina . The 2nd Panzer Division , commanded by General Rudolf Veiel , was deployed via Strumica in the direction of Thessaloniki. The XVIII. Mountain Corps under General of the Mountain Troops Franz Böhme had been entrusted with the breakthrough of the Metaxas Line, while the German and Bulgarian infantry divisions had the task of occupying the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace and then the Aegean islands in the first phase .
On April 9th the XVIII. Mountain Corps with strong support from dive bombers the mountain fortifications of the Metaxas line at Fort Roupel in the valley of the Strymon . On the same day, German tank units occupied Thessaloniki . Despite only minor losses on the Greek side, the enclosed Greek 2nd Army surrendered on the orders of their headquarters. At the same time, after the capture of the Vardarska banovina in what is now North Macedonia , German units advanced along the Vardar Valley and on the Florina - Bitola plain to Greece and met the western flank of the mixed British and Commonwealth units under the command of General Henry M. Wilson held the Aliakmonas line. On April 11, 1941, German units, including the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler division , captured the Klidi Pass southeast of Florina and on April 14, Kozani .
The British expeditionary force then withdrew behind the Aliakmonas and in the east to Platamon at the foot of Mount Olympus . On April 16, General Wilson announced his decision to the Greek commander-in-chief Alexandros Papagos to give up the Aliakmonas line and build a new defensive position at Thermopylae . At the same time, preparations began for the evacuation of the Allied troops. This enabled the German troops to travel over the Pindus Mountains to Epirus . On April 16, Wehrmacht units blocked the retreat from the Greek 1st Army from the Epirus Front through the Katarra Pass near Metsovo . The Greek troops enclosed by the mountain range were now being harassed by the Axis powers in the west and east.
In a crisis meeting between the King and Prime Minister Koryzis on April 18, the two of them had a heated argument over the defense of the country. On the same evening, Koryzis is said to have killed himself in the presence of the Crown Prince in his house. The later portrayal of the royal family that he was right-handed and shot himself twice in the head with his left hand was questioned, but an official investigation was not carried out. Then Emmanouil Tsouderos was entrusted with the government.
On April 20, General Georgios Tsolakoglou, in consultation with two other officers, released the commander of the Epirus Army Ioannis Pitsikas from his command and apparently presented the surrender to SS-Obergruppenführer Josef Dietrich without first negotiating with the military leaders of the German and Italian war opponents . Ten days later he was appointed prime minister. The day after the surrender, he and Lists' Chief of Staff, General Hans von Greiffenberg , signed a protocol about it. The order of the commander-in-chief of the Greek armed forces, General Alexandros Papagos , had expressly forbidden surrender. He and Pitsikas were deported to the Dachau concentration camp in 1943 and evacuated to South Tyrol together with other celebrities as a potential hostage of the SS shortly before the end of the war . Shortly afterwards, the hostages were first taken under protection by the Wehrmacht and finally freed by the US Army.
The bilateral agreement between Tsolakoglou and Dietrich led to protests by the Italians. They saw their fighting performance too little taken into account, so that Tsolakoglou had to sign a second surrender the following day in the presence of Italian officers in Ioannina . Because this had not taken place in the presence of the commander of the German armed forces, Tsolakoglou had to sign a third, official, this time unconditional surrender of Greece to Germany and Italy in Thessaloniki on April 23 . On the same day, King George embarked with his government for Crete .
On April 21, the Allied Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean and Middle East, Archibald Wavell , finally ordered the evacuation of the remaining Allied troops to Crete and Egypt ( Operation Demon ). By April 30, the Royal Navy was able to evacuate around 50,000 men via ports in Attica and the Peloponnese , albeit with their heavy weapons and equipment behind. On April 24th, the Allied rearguard units gave up the Thermopylae position, which they had previously defended. On April 26, Wehrmacht units occupied Corinth and on April 27, advance divisions of the 5th Panzer Division advanced into Athens. The German campaign on the Greek mainland ended on April 29 with the capture of Kalamata in the south of the Peloponnese. Some larger Aegean islands, including Limnos , Lesbos and Chios , were occupied by German infantry and airborne troops until the beginning of May. Italian troops occupied the Ionian Islands at the same time .
As a military base, Crete gave Great Britain the opportunity to control access to the Aegean Sea and to bomb the oil fields in Romania. On May 20, the German airborne operation to conquer Crete began with the participation of army forces and the German and Italian navy. It succeeded only with relatively high losses of the German and Italian troops deployed. After partisan attacks, General Kurt Student ordered the Cretan civilian population to be punished collectively. According to Greek estimates, 2000 civilians were shot in Crete at that time. An application by Greece in 1945 to extradite Students as war criminals was denied. Student was convicted of war crimes against British troops in Crete by a British military tribunal and only remained in custody until 1948.
Before the surrender, around 210,000 soldiers of the Greek army were captured by the Wehrmacht, after which the entire 430,000-strong army was declared prisoners of war. They were soon released home. Some of the Greek armed forces were able to evade German access and gather in Egypt. They formed the approximately 20,000-strong Greek royal army, which fought under British command in El Alamein and in 1944 in Italy.
Greece under German, Italian and Bulgarian occupation
Greece was divided into zones of occupation in 1941. Italy occupied Athens and most of Greece, as well as the Ionian Islands and the Cyclades . It also received the so-called dominance on the mainland. Bulgaria annexed Eastern Macedonia west of the Strymon and Western Thrace , thereby gaining access to the Aegean Sea. The German Empire, which had no long-term plans with Greece, occupied a few but strategically important areas: Thessaloniki and its Macedonian hinterland up to the Yugoslav border, the Thracian border strip with Turkey, Piraeus and the islands of Lemnos , Lesbos and Chios off the Turkish Mediterranean coast. The western part of Crete received a German occupation, the eastern part an Italian one. King George II and his government went into exile in England.
The Balkan campaign resulted in a protracted partisan war against the German, Italian and Bulgarian occupation forces in occupied Yugoslavia as well as in Greece . They were fought by various partisan groups, whereby the Yugoslav People's Liberation Army under Tito was able to prevail. In occupied Athens, after the departure of the (German) king and on the initiative of the Communist Party of Greece KKE, four political parties came to an agreement and finally formed a coalition on September 27, 1941 to form the "People's Liberation Front" EAM, with between 1.5 and 2 million members were quantified. After the traumatic experiences of the following famine winter in 41/42 under the three occupying powers, the EAM organized a powerful military arm in February 1942, the Greek People's Liberation Army ELAS under the leadership of Aris Velouchiotis , Stefanos Sarafis and Andreas Tzimas with up to 120,000 armed men and women (As of 1944).
Resistance in Greece was fueled significantly by the great famine that resulted from the British naval blockade and the unprecedented exploitation of Greece by the occupiers: in 1942, occupation costs and government spending accounted for 90% of real national income . This and the war-related collapse of the most important branch of the Greek pre-war economy, merchant shipping , led to galloping inflation of the drachma . The price of the British Sovereign one-pound gold coin rose during the years of occupation of 1,087 drachmas to 70.8 trillion drachmas in November 1944. Food was since then almost exclusively in Greece on the black market to get, at prices that the purchasing power of many Citizens of the country exceeded. From the winter of 1941/42 there were many thousands of deaths from malnutrition , and child mortality in particular rose dramatically. Hermann Göring initially dismissed this as insignificant: “We cannot take care of the starving Greeks. That is a misfortune that will affect many other peoples. ”However, since the wages of the Wehrmacht soldiers were paid in drachmas, a further deterioration in the Greek economic situation threatened to dampen their motivation. The warring parties then agreed to allow humanitarian action, so the British eased their sea blockade. On March 21st, under the representative of the International Red Cross , Rene Burckhardt, wheat from Canada (later USA) could be delivered to Greece on Swedish ships and the situation got under control. In autumn 1942 Hitler appointed the Austrian National Socialist and economist Hermann Neubacher as the “Special Representative of the Reich for Economic and Financial Issues in Greece”, who brought the situation under control through a drastic deflationary policy , the introduction of compulsory labor and food imports from neighboring countries. After hundreds of thousands died of malnutrition in the big cities in the winter of 41/42 and the initially uncontrolled plundering of the Greek economy by the Wehrmacht increasingly stagnated, the private DEGRIGES (1942-44) was built up under Neubauer and given a state trade monopoly for the country exploit them more efficiently. Export prices to Germany were lowered, import prices from Germany were raised, and trade with other countries was prohibited. With British approval, the International Red Cross organized aid deliveries of Canadian wheat to alleviate the famine.
The Jews and the Holocaust
Yugoslavia
The Balkan campaign also made possible the murder of the Yugoslav Jews. Some of the Croatian Jews were murdered in the Ustasha regime's own camps from August 1941 , while others were deported to Auschwitz from August 1942 at German insistence . In Serbia, on the other hand, the Holocaust was largely a crime of the Wehrmacht . After fighting with partisans and from the beginning of October 1941 Chetnik units had increased considerably, it began under the command of the Commanding General Infantry General Franz Boehme , mostly Jewish civilians after the atonement command of the OKW as retaliation to shoot for the attacks. As a result, Serbia was the second occupied country after Estonia that could be described as " Jew-free ".
In order to protect Jews from access and extradition to Germany or the Independent State of Croatia , the Italian army interned around 3,000 Jews in the Governorate of Dalmatia under Italian control, including in the Kraljevica and Rab concentration camps, by order of October 1942 .
Greece
In Greece, almost 90 percent of the Jews living there were murdered , after Poland the highest percentage. This was not least due to the fact that most of the Greek Jews lived in Thessaloniki , which belonged to the German occupation zone from the start. Under the dictator Ioannis Metaxas, Greek Jews enjoyed his special protection up to and including 1941. He had nothing to do with Hitler's racism. Instead, he founded a youth organization and integrated Jewish Greeks in particular into it. He was close friends with the Chief Rabbi Zvi Koretz and Greece took in Jews fleeing Germany. He suppressed emerging anti-Semitic propaganda through strict press censorship until he suddenly died of tonsillitis at the end of January 1941 shortly before the German troops marched into Thessaloniki.
On Zakynthos , in Chalkis and Athens , the Jewish population was often able to save itself, in the case of Zakynthos even completely, because of the help of their Christian neighbors, partly also the authorities and the church. In Ioannina , Corfu and Crete this was not possible.
Consequences of the Balkan campaign
Delay in the attack on the Soviet Union
Together with the Africa campaign , the Balkan campaign contributed to the fact that the planned attack on the Soviet Union was delayed by several weeks. The counterfactual assumption that the winter war, which prevented the Wehrmacht from conquering Moscow in December 1941, could have been avoided if “Operation Barbarossa” had started earlier, is rejected by historians for various reasons: According to Klaus Schüler , the Wehrmacht's attack operations remained stuck in December 1941 by no means primarily because of the onset of winter. Rather, they failed because of the sustained Soviet resistance and the supply problems of the Wehrmacht, in particular because of the rail transport crisis. John Keegan and Richard J. Evans draw attention to the Rasputitsa , the Russian spring rain that was heavier than usual in 1941 and would not have allowed the attack on the Soviet Union to begin earlier, even without the Balkan campaign.
International Military Tribunal 1945
The war against Yugoslavia and Greece was rated as a German war of aggression in the Nuremberg trial against the main war criminals . High-ranking military, NSDAP functionaries and members of the Nazi regime were charged and convicted for their involvement in its planning, preparation, unleashing and implementation.
British Intervention and Greek Civil War
During the three years of the occupation, the Greek resistance organized by the EAM had a.o. With the support of England, a regular army of 120,000 men and women, borne by the population, was set up. However, when the EAM proclaimed a democratic government from April 1944, the Allies turned against it and reinstalled the (German) monarchy by force. In December 1944 a street fight broke out in Athens against the now British occupiers and their partly royalist, partly fascist collaborators , who were recruited by the SS in 1943 . In contrast to its northern neighbors, the situation in Greece remained unstable.
The situation worsened with the Yalta Conference . While Churchill and Stalin allowed Yugoslavia to remain non-aligned, Bulgaria and Greece were subordinated to geostrategic interests without democratic consent. The subsequent Greek Civil War lasted another four years, so that, in the opinion of the Greeks, the occupation and thus the Second World War did not end until 1949.
See also
- Crimes committed by the Wehrmacht and the SS in Greece
- Imperial fortress Belgrade , a projected center of a potential "protection zone" in the hinterland of the city during the Nazi era.
literature
-
Heinz Richter :
- Greece in World War II 1939–1941. Contingenza Grecia - Operations Barbarity, Luster and Marita. 2nd edition, Harrassowitz-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-447-06410-1 .
- Operation Mercury. The conquest of the island of Crete in May 1941. Harrassowitz-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-447-06423-1 .
- Jozo Tomasevich: War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945. Occupation and Collaboration. Stanford University Press, 2001 ISBN 0-8047-3615-4 .
- Detlef Vogel:
- The intervention of Germany in the Balkans. In: ders., Gerhard Schreiber , Bernd Stegemann (eds.): The German Empire and the Second World War , Vol. 3: The Mediterranean and Southeastern Europe - From the "non belligeranza" of Italy to the entry into the war of the United States. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-421-06097-5 , pp. 417-511.
- Germany and Southeast Europe - From Political-Economic Influence to Open Use of Force and Oppression. In: Wolfgang Michalka (Ed.): The Second World War - Analyzes, Fundamentals, Research Balance. Verlag Piper, Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-492-10811-3 , pp. 532-550.
Web links
- Balkan campaign at dhm.de.
- Sunny days in "Greater Europe". Photos from Greece from the album of a Wehrmacht tourist with corresponding comments by the Initiative Train of Remembrance
Footnotes
- ↑ see e.g. B. Dietrich Eichholtz : History of the German war economy 1939-1945. (3 volumes). Akademie-Verlag, 1969–1996. Volume I: 1939-1941. 1st edition 1969, 2nd edition 1971, 3rd continuous Edition 1984/85. Unchanged, true-to-page reprint of the 1984 (I), 1985 (II) 1996 (III) editions. Reading sample
- ↑ Rodogno, Davide: Fascism's European Empire: Italian Occupation During the Second World War . Cambridge. Cambridge University Press 2006, ISBN 978-0-521-84515-1 , pp. 46 f.
- ^ Alan Todd: History for the IB Diploma Paper 1 The Move to Global War. Cambridge University Press 2015, ISBN 978-1-107-55628-7 , p. 109 ff.
- ↑ Detlef Vogel: The intervention of Germany in the Balkans. In: ders., Gerhard Schreiber, Bernd Stegemann (eds.): The German Reich and the Second World War , Volume 3: The Mediterranean and Southeastern Europe - From the “non belligeranza” of Italy to the entry into the war of the United States. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-421-06097-5 , p. 428f.
- ↑ Detlef Vogel: The intervention of Germany in the Balkans. In: ders., Gerhard Schreiber , Bernd Stegemann (eds.): The German Empire and the Second World War, Volume 3: The Mediterranean and Southeast Europe. From the “non belligeranza” of Italy to the entry of the United States into the war. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-421-06097-5 , p. 443 f.
- ↑ Aleksandar M. Ognjević (ed.): BRISTOL BLENHEIM The Yugoslav Story 1937-1958. Zemun, Serbia, ISBN 978-86-917625-0-6 , pp. 57-70.
- ^ Air raids by the Yugoslav Air Force on April 6 and 7, 1941 , website regiowiki.at, accessed on December 6, 2014.
- ^ Emergency landing of a Bristol Blenheim near Markt Allhau , website regiowiki.at, accessed on December 6, 2014.
- ^ Walter Manoschek , Hans Safrian : Austrians in the Wehrmacht. In: Emmerich Tálos , Ernst Hanisch , Wolfgang Neugebauer (eds.): Nazi rule in Austria 1938–1945. Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-900351-84-8 , p. 342 f.
- ↑ Ο ξαφνικός θάνατος του Ιωάννη Μεταξά και τα σενάρια συνωμοσίας , viaDIPLOMACY, 2017.
- ^ ISO Playfair : The Mediterranean and Middle East. Volume 2: The Germans Come to the Help of Their Ally, 1941. HMSO, London 1956, ISBN 1-84574-066-1 , p. 86.
- ↑ 44 fallen Greek soldiers at Fort Roupel . Over 300 soldiers died on the German side .
- ↑ Violetta Hionidou: Famine and Death in Occupied Greece, 1941-1944 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006, p. 10; Yakovos Chondromatides: Η συνομωσία της Αγγλίας κατά της Ελλάδος 1935-1944 . Ekdoseis Thouli, Athens 2012, pp. 74-79; Κ. Kostas Kotzias: Ελλάς ο πόλεμος και η δόξα της ., 3rd edition, Athens 1947, p. 405.
- ↑ Mark Mazower : Greece under Hitler: Life during the German occupation 1941-1944 , Frankfurt 2016, ISBN 978-3-10-002507-4 , p. 218.
- ↑ Mark Mazower : Greece under Hitler: Life during the German occupation 1941-1944 , Frankfurt 2016, ISBN 978-3-10-002507-4 , p. 42ff.
- ↑ Communist Party of Greece KKE , Socialist Party of Greece ΣΚΕ, Union of People's Democracy ΕΛΔ, Peasant Party of Greece ΑΚΕ
- ↑ Lars Baerentzen: Η ΛΑΪΚΗ ΥΠΟΣΤΗΡΙΞΗ ΤΟΥ ΕΑΜ ΣΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΚΑΤΟΧΗΣ . In: ΜΝΗΜΩΝ 9 (1984), pp. 157-173 ( online , accessed March 3, 2019).
- ↑ ΤΙΜΕΣ ΑΓΓΛΙΚΗΣ ΛΙΡΑΣ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ 1940 on agora-xrysou.com, accessed March 3, 2019.
- ↑ Götz Aly : Hitler's People's State . Robbery, Race War and National Socialism . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, pp. 277 f. (Here the quote); Introduction. In: Sara Berger, Erwin Lewin, Sanela Schmid and Maria Vassilikou (arr.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 . Vol. 14: Occupied Southeastern Europe and Italy De Gruyter / Oldenbourg, Berlin / Boston 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-049518-8 , p. 63 f. (Accessed via De Gruyter Online).
- ↑ Introduction. In: Sara Berger, Erwin Lewin, Sanela Schmid and Maria Vassilikou (arr.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945. Vol. 14: Occupied Southeast Europe and Italy De Gruyter / Oldenbourg, Berlin / Boston 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-049518-8 , p. 64 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
- ↑ Götz Aly: Hitler's People's State. Robbery, Race War and National Socialism . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 279 f.
- ↑ Walter Manoschek : "Are Jews shoot" The extermination of the Jews in Serbia?. In: Hannes Heer , Klaus Naumann (ed.): War of destruction. Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941–1944. Hamburg 1995, pp. 39-56.
- ↑ Walter Manoschek: “Are you going to shoot with Jews?” - The extermination of the Jews in Serbia. In: Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann (eds.): Destruction War - Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941 to 1944. Hamburger Edition , 2nd edition, 1995, pp. 52–53.
- ^ Daniel Carpi: The Rescue of Jews in the Italian Zone of Occupied Croatia . P. 23 ff.
- ^ Heinrich August Winkler : The long way to the west . Volume 2: German history from the “Third Reich” to reunification. Munich 2000, p. 81.
- ↑ Klaus Schüler: The Eastern Campaign as a Transport and Supply Problem. In: Bernd Wegner (Ed.): Two ways to Moscow. From the Hitler-Stalin Pact to "Operation Barbarossa". Piper, Munich / Zurich 1991, pp. 203–220, here p. 214.
- ↑ John Keegan: The Culture of War. Rowohlt, Berlin 1995, p. 117; Richard J. Evans: The Third Reich, Vol. III: War. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2009, p. 215
- ^ Gerhard Werle , Florian Jeßberger : Völkerstrafrecht. Mohr, Siebeck 2007, ISBN 978-3-16-149372-0 , p. 533.