Ochi day
The Ochi Day ( Greek Επέτειος του "Όχι" , Epétios tou Ochi , anniversary of the "No") is an annual holiday that in October 28 Greece (and for a memorial in the Greek Diaspora is committed). The background to this is the rejection of the ultimatum given by Benito Mussolini to Greece on October 28, 1940 before the start of the Greco-Italian War .
Historical background and motifs
On April 7, 1939, Albania was occupied by the Italians . This was a warning to Greece. To be sure that Greek politics understood this message, Mussolini had the light cruiser Elli torpedoed in the port of the island of Tinos on August 15, 1940 by the Italian submarine Delfino under the then commander Giuseppe Aicardi, who was there for the festivities had anchored on Mother's Day. As a result, Elli sank while losing nine lives. After the investigation of the incident, the remains of the torpedo found later could be clearly assigned to an Italian make, which means that Italian authorship of the sinking was very likely. The authoritarian Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas nevertheless wanted to keep his country neutral in World War II and therefore did not react to this provocation.
Mussolini interpreted this reluctance to be a weakness. At the same time he felt offended that he had never been involved in Hitler's attack plans: "This Hitler always presents me with a fait accompli, this time I will pay him back with the same coin," he told Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano .
Preparations
On October 15, 1940, Mussolini presented his plans to attack Greece to a narrow circle of employees. Present were Galeazzo Ciano , Pietro Badoglio , Francesco Jacomoni and Sebastiano Visconti Prasca. Arguments were the numerical superiority of 70,000 to 30,000 soldiers and the availability of armored vehicles and airplanes. After taking the Epirus, Thessaloniki and then Athens should be taken. He also discussed an attack against Greece with Francisco Franco , which he advised against. Franco had met with Hitler on October 23, 1940. Mussolini publicly took the position of preferring an attack in the western Mediterranean against the British, and friendship with Greece was also propagated. The Italian embassy in Athens organized an opera gala on the night of Saturday, October 26-27, 1940. Giacomo Puccini's opera “Madame Butterfly” was performed. The Italian ambassador Emanuele Grazzi toasted with Metaxas and the Greek King Georg on the Greek-Italian friendship. Then a cake was brought with the inscription "Long live Greece".
The Italian ultimatum
Shortly after three in the morning on Monday, October 28, 1940, the Italian ambassador Emanuele Grazzi visited the Metaxas house in the Athens suburb of Kifissia . A bodyguard opened the door and let the ambassador into the house unaccompanied. Metaxas received the ambassador in his dressing gown and slippers and invited him into the living room.
The ambassador handed over a telegram that his government had sent him. It included the demands that Greece should allow the Axis powers to enter Greek territory and to occupy unspecified "strategically important points", a rejection of this demand would be answered with war from 6:00 am.
Although Metaxas could hardly hold his tears, his words remained very factual: "I see both the matter and the way as a declaration of war by Italy." As Grazzi writes in his memoirs, Metaxas' literal answer, formulated in French, was “Alors, c'est la guerre” (“Well, then it's war”). Grazzi then replied “Pas nécessaire, mon excellence” (“Not necessarily, Your Excellency”), to which Metaxas replied “ Non , c'est nécessaire” (roughly: “Yes, it is necessary”). Because of his origins in the Ionian Islands, Metaxas had sympathies for Italy and was considered a friend of Germany (although not necessarily the National Socialists), so the ultimatum hit him personally.
In response to Metaxas' rejection, Italian troops marched from Albania - what was then an Italian "protectorate" - into northern Greece at 5:30 am. Greece had thus entered World War II as a belligerent party. On the morning of October 28, large parts of the Greek population, regardless of their political orientation, took to the streets to express their protest against the Italian invasion.
term
The conversation between Metaxas and Grassi was abbreviated as "Ochi" in the headline of the daily newspaper Elliniko Mellon in its October 30, 1940 edition ; this contributed significantly to the dissemination of this abbreviation.
Consequences and meaning
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The small Greek army fought back the numerically far superior, but poorly organized and unmotivated enemy and marched as far as northern Epirus . Instead of a “walk to Athens” (as Mussolini called the attack at a meeting in Florence) to mark the anniversary of the March on Rome , the Axis powers suffered their first defeat, which was also the first in the almost 20-year success story of fascism in Europe . The reaction of the press in England and the USA was scorn and ridicule. The neighboring Turkey also congratulated with the words "We prefer the hell of war to dishonorable peace".
Despite the positive response, there was no major support from the free world. Winston Churchill offered Metaxas in January 1941 the dispatch of two divisions and one tank brigade. This could hardly have stopped a German attack, so that Metaxas refused and hoped for a future agreement or a milder Berlin.
Hitler, who was in the middle of planning a war against the Soviet Union, saw Mussolini's undertaking as a weakening of the axis and rebuked him for complaining to his son-in-law that Hitler had tapped him on the finger with a ruler .
In April 1941, Hitler launched the Balkan campaign against Greece, which ended in May 1941 with the conquest of Crete . Hitler ordered the surrender to be carried out “without notification to Italy” in order to possibly give Mussolini a reminder for the failed attack on Greece. Mussolini abandoned this disgrace, but demanded that his ally stage a second surrender of Greece to his troops. Since Hitler was dependent on Mussolini, he complied with this request. The planned attack on the Soviet Union (" Operation Barbarossa ") was delayed and shifted into a worse starting position every season.
The anniversary
On October 28, 1943, a memorial ceremony was held in front of its headquarters on the initiative of employees of the Greek National Bank without official approval. Wehrmacht soldiers who witnessed the event forced the demonstrators at gunpoint to hold up their hands until the evening. Then about 20 people were arrested and sent to concentration camps, some of whom never returned.
During the war, communities of the Greek diaspora around the world commemorated the anniversary of “Ochi” on October 28th. To this day, especially in the USA, events with a Greek context are scheduled as "Greek Heritage Night" in various sports leagues, such as the Chicago Blackhawks' ice hockey home game on October 20, 2019. The Washington OXI- On the anniversary, the DAY Foundation is awarding a prize worth USD 5,000.
In Greece itself, the anniversary was declared a public holiday after the Second World War. Until the end of the military junta in 1974, it was compulsory to flag private buildings, today only public buildings and certain monuments.
It is the second most important secular holiday after March 25, which commemorates the liberation of Greece from Ottoman rule. On this day, military parades and school and student parades are organized. Every year the school parades cause discussions. The flag bearer is usually the best in school or a well-deserved student, some find it gratifying that more and more students with a migration background are taking part, others criticize participation as an uncritical attitude towards the political system.
Individual evidence
- ^ Costello / Hughes: Battle of the Atlantic. The War at Sea 1939-1945. Bindlach 1997 p. 24.
- ↑ Joachim Käppner: 1941 - The attack on the whole world. Rowohlt, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-87134-826-6 , p. 135.
- ↑ https://www.protothema.gr/stories/article/833675/28i-oktovriou-1940-agnosta-stoiheia-gia-ton-ellinoitaliko-polemo/ accessed on November 2, 2019.
- ↑ Peter Kleist: You were there too: a contribution to dealing with the past. KW Schütz, 1959 p. 249.
- ↑ https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/axis-denied-mussolini-tried-and-failed-invade-greece-hitler-had-bail-him-out-29157 Roy Morris Jr .: Axis Denied: Mussolini Tried and Failed to Invade Greece. Hitler Had to Bail Him Out. accessed on November 1, 2019.
- ↑ http://www.ovimagazine.com/art/969
- ↑ http://metaxas-project.com/australia-media-outbreak-greco-italian-war/
- ↑ Gianluca Falanga: Mussolini's Outpost in Hitler's Reich: Italy's Politics in Berlin 1933-1945, p. 169.
- ↑ https://www.welt.de/geschichte/zweiter-weltkrieg/article154374804/Die-Griechen-wollten-sich-nur-den-Deutschen-erhaben.html
- ↑ https://www.oxidayfoundation.org