The occupation of Greece by the Axis powers (Greek: Η Κατοχή, romanized: I Katochi) began in April 1941 after the German invasion of Greece to assist its ally, Italy, in the Greco-Italian War which had begun in October 1940. Following the Battle of Crete, Greece was occupied starting in June 1941. The occupation of the mainland lasted until Germany and its ally Bulgaria withdrew under Allied pressure in early October 1944, with Crete and some other Aegean Islands being surrendered to the Allies by German garrisons in May and June 1945, after the end of the Second World War in Europe.
Fascist Italy had declared war and invaded Greece in October 1940, but had been pushed back by the Hellenic Army into neighbouring Albania, an Italian protectorate. While most of the Hellenic Army was located on the Albanian front against Italian counter-attacks, a rapid German campaign took place from April to June 1941, resulting in Greece being defeated and occupied. The Greek government went into exile, and an Axis collaborationist government was established in its place. Greece's territory was divided into occupation zones run by the Axis powers, with the Nazi Germans administering the most important regions of the country, including Athens, Thessaloniki and strategic Aegean Islands. Other regions of the country were run by Nazi Germany's partners, Italy and Bulgaria.
The occupation destroyed the Greek economy and brought immense hardships to the Greek civilian population. Most of Greece's economic capacity was destroyed, including 80% of industry, 28% of infrastructure (ports, roads and railways), 90% of its bridges, and 25% of its forests and other natural resources. Along with the loss of economic capacity, an estimated 7–11% of Greece's civilian population died as a result of the occupation. In Athens, 40,000 civilians died from starvation (out of a total of 300,000 in the whole of the country) and tens of thousands more died from reprisals by Nazis and their collaborators.
The Jewish population of Greece was nearly eradicated. Of its pre-war population of 75–77,000, around 11–12,000 survived, often by joining the resistance or being hidden. Most of those who died were deported to Auschwitz, while those under Bulgarian occupation in Thrace were sent to Treblinka. The Italians did not deport Jews living in territory they controlled, but when the Germans took it over from them, Jews living there were also deported.
Greek Resistance groups were formed during this occupation. The most important of them was ELAS (Ellinikós Laïkós Apeleftherotikós Stratós – Greek People's Liberation Army), which was the military arm of the EAM (Ethnikó Apeleftherotikó Métopo – National Liberation Front). Both groups were strongly associated with the KKE (Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas – Communist Party of Greece). They were commonly named antartes from the Greek αντάρτης. Mark Mazower wrote that, the standing orders of the Wehrmacht in Greece was to use terror as a way to frighten the Greeks into not supporting the andartes (guerrillas).
This resistance group launched guerrilla attacks against the occupying powers, fought against collaborationist Security Battalions, and set up espionage networks.
Throughout the war against the Soviet Union, German propaganda portrayed the war as a noble struggle to protect "European civilization" from "Bolshevism". Likewise, German officials portrayed the Reich as nobly occupying Greece to protect it from Communists and presented EAM as a demonic force. The andartes of ELAS were portrayed in both the Wehrmacht and the SS as a "savages" and "criminals" who committed all sorts of crimes and who needed to be hunted down without mercy.
The British engaged in numerous intelligence deceptions designed to fool the Germans into thinking that the Allies would be landing in Greece in the near-future, and as such the German army forces were reinforced in Greece so as to stop the expected Allied landing in the Balkans. From the viewpoint of General Alexander Löhr, the commander of one Nazi Army Group in Greece, Army Group E, the attacks of the andartes, which forced his men to spread themselves out to hunt them down, were weakening his forces by leaving them exposed and spread out in the face of an expected Allied landing. However, the mountainous terrain of Greece ensured that there were only a limited number of roads and railroads bringing down supplies from Germany and the destruction of a single bridge by the andartes caused major supply problems for the German forces. The best known andarte operation of the war, namely the blowing up of the Gorgopotamos viaduct on the night of 25 November 1942, had caused Nazi Germans serious logistical problems as it severed the main railroad linking Thessaloniki to Athens. This interfered with overall operations of Nazi Germany, since Athens and its port Piraeus was used as a point of transporting supplies.
By early 1944, due to foreign interference by both Britain and U.S., the resistance groups began to fight amongst themselves. At the end of occupation of the Greek mainland in October 1944, Greece was in a state of political polarization, which soon led to the outbreak of civil war. The civil war gave opportunity to those who had prominently collaborated with Nazi Germany or other occupiers to reach positions of power and avoid sanctions because of anti-communism, even eventually coming to power in post-war Greece after the Communist defeat.
The Greek resistance killed 21,087 Axis soldiers (17,536 Germans, 2,739 Italians, 1,532 Bulgarians) and captured 6,463 (2,102 Germans, 2,109 Italians, 2,252 Bulgarians), compared to the death of 20,650 Greek partisans and an unknown number captured. BBC News estimated Greece suffered at least 250,000 dead during the Axis occupation.
In the early morning hours of 28 October 1940, Italian ambassador Emanuele Grazzi woke Greek premier Ioannis Metaxas and presented him an ultimatum. Metaxas rejected the ultimatum and Italian forces invaded Greek territory from Italian-occupied Albania less than three hours later. (The anniversary of Greece's refusal is now a public holiday in Greece.) Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini launched the invasion partly to prove that Italians could match the military successes of the German Army and partly because Mussolini regarded southeastern Europe as lying within Italy's sphere of influence.
Against Mussolini's expectations, the Hellenic Army successfully exploited the mountainous terrain of Epirus. Greek forces counterattacked and forced the Italians to retreat. By mid-December, the Greeks had occupied nearly one-quarter of Albania, before Italian reinforcements and the harsh winter stemmed the Greek advance. In March 1941, a major Italian counterattack failed. 15 of the 21 Greek divisions were deployed against the Italians, leaving only six divisions to defend against the attack from German troops in the Metaxas Line near the border between Greece and Yugoslavia/Bulgaria in the first days of April. They were supported by British Commonwealth troops sent from Libya on the orders of Winston Churchill.
On 6 April 1941, Germany came to the aid of Italy and invaded Greece through Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, overwhelming Greek and British troops. On 20 April, after cessation of Greek resistance in the north, the Bulgarian Army entered Greek Thrace without firing a shot, with the goal of regaining its Aegean Sea outlet in Western Thrace and Eastern Macedonia. The Bulgarians occupied territory between the Strymon River and a line of demarcation running through Alexandroupoli and Svilengrad west of the Evros River. The Greek capital Athens fell on 27 April, and by 1 June, after the capture of Crete, all of Greece was under Axis occupation. After the invasion, King George II fled, first to Crete and then to Cairo. A Greek right-wing government ruled from Athens as a puppet of the occupying forces.
Establishment of the occupation regime
Although the German army was instrumental in the conquest of Greece, this was an accident born of Italy's ill-fated invasion and the subsequent presence of British troops on Greek soil. Greece had not figured in Adolf Hitler's pre-war plans as a target for German annexation: the country was poor, not adjacent to Germany, and did not host any German minorities. The Greeks themselves were seen by Nazi racial theory as neither valuable enough to be Germanized and assimilated, nor as sub-humans to be exterminated. Indeed, Hitler opposed the diversion of efforts towards western and southern Europe, and focused on the conquest and assimilation of Eastern Europe as the future German "Lebensraum". Coupled with admiration for the Greek resistance to the Italian invasion, the result was that Hitler favoured postponing a final territorial settlement of Italy's claims on Greece to after the war. In the meantime, a local puppet government headed by Lt. General Georgios Tsolakoglou would be installed as the most efficient way to run the country.