title: Thailand in World War II

text: Meanwhile, all cinemas were instructed to display Phibun's picture at the end of every performance as if it were the king's portrait, and the audience were expected to rise and bow. Phibun also called himself "Than phu nam" () ("the leader"), in a bid to create a personality cult.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: At the start of World War II, Plaek Phibunsongkhram shared many of his countrymen's admiration of fascism and the rapid pace of national development it seemed to afford. Consequently, Phibun cultivated and intensified militarism and nationalism while simultaneously building a cult of personality using modern propaganda techniques.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: The regime also revived irredentist claims, stirring up anti-French sentiment and supporting restoration of former Thai territories in Cambodia and Laos. Seeking support against France, Phibun cultivated closer relations with Japan. Faced with American opposition and British hesitancy, Thailand looked to Japan for help in the confrontation with French Indochina. Although the Thais were united in their demand for the return of the lost provinces, Phibun's enthusiasm for the Japanese was markedly greater than that of Pridi Banomyong, and many old conservatives as well viewed the course of the prime minister's foreign policy with misgivings.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: In October 1940, the Franco-Thai War broke out. The war was a sporadic battle between Thai and French forces along Thailand's eastern frontier and culminated in an invasion of Laos and Cambodia in January 1941. The Royal Thai Armed Forces were successful in occupying the disputed territories in French Indochina, with the French scoring their only notable victory at sea at the Battle of Ko Chang.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Japan used its influence with Vichy France to obtain concessions for Thailand. As a result, France agreed in March 1941 to cede 54,000 square kilometres of Laotian territory west of the Mekong and most of the Cambodian province of Battambang to Thailand, which reinstated the original name of Phra Tabong Province. The recovery of this lost territory and the regime's apparent victory over a European colonial power greatly enhanced Phibun's reputation.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Because Japan wanted to maintain both her working relationship with Vichy and the status quo, the real beneficiaries of the conflict were the Japanese. They were able to expand their influence in both Thailand and Indochina. The Japanese intention was to use Thailand and Indochina as their military base to invade Burma and Malaya in the future.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: The Thais were forced to accept only a quarter of the territory that they had lost to the French, in addition to having to pay six million piastres as a concession to the French. Relations between Japan and Thailand subsequently stressed as a disappointed Phibun switched to courting the British and Americans in the hopes of warding off what he saw as an imminent Japanese invasion.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: After the Franco-Thai War, Phibun compromised with Pridi, and the Thai government adopted a policy of neutrality. Pridi himself sponsored production of a Thai historical drama film, "The King of the White Elephant". The film carried a propaganda message from anti-war interests in Thailand: Thailand should remain neutral, only going to war to defend its sovereignty against foreign invaders.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Phibun and the Thai government were still hesitant to join the Allies or the Japanese. At 23:00 on 7 December, the Japanese presented the Thai government with an ultimatum to allow the Japanese military to enter Thailand. The Thais were given two hours to respond, but the Thai government didn't have any response.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: On 8 December 1941, less than four hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor Japan invaded Thailand. After several hours of fighting between Thai and Japanese troops, Thailand acceded to Japanese demands for passage through the country for Japanese forces invading Burma and Malaya. After the expiration of the ultimatum, the Japanese military made landings south of Bangkok and along the Kra Isthmus. After several hours of fighting, the Thai Government arranged a cease fire. Phibun assured the country that the Japanese action was pre-arranged with a sympathetic Thai government.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: The Japanese military used Thailand, as well as north-eastern coast of Malaya as a stepping stone to invade the Malaya Peninsula. The Royal Thai Police resisted British Commonwealth forces invading Southern Thailand in December 1941 at The Battle for The Ledge, following the Japanese invasion of Malaya. Thailand was rewarded for Phibun's close co-operation with Japan during the early years of war with the return of further territory that had once been under Bangkok's control, namely the four northernmost Malay states after the Malayan Campaign.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: On 21 December 1941, a mutual offensive-defensive alliance pact between the two countries was signed. The agreement, revised on 30 December, gave the Japanese full access to Thai weaponry and to Thai railways, roads, airfields, naval bases, warehouses, communications systems, and barracks. To promote greater military and economic co-operation, Pridi was removed from the cabinet and offered a seat on the politically impotent Regency Council of the absent king, which he subsequently accepted. Japan meanwhile stationed 150,000 troops on Thai soil and built the famous Burma Railway through Thailand using Asian labourers and Allied prisoners of war, with many dying in process.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Since the Empire of Japan was using the country as a staging area for its invasions of Allied colonies in Southeast Asia, Allied planes began bombing raids on the Thai capital city of Bangkok. With this added pressure, the Phibun Government decided to declare war on the Allies.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: The Thai government declared war on Britain and the United States on 25 January 1942. With Phibun inspired by the Japanese military operation in Malaya and China, Phibun and Luang Wichit Wathakan believe that if Japanese won the war Thailand could gain some territories, finally Phibun re-adopted the previous "Great Thai Kingdom policy", but the Japanese had the idea of Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Thais, who loathed the idea of being treated on the same level as the two Japanese puppet regimes, (Manchukuo and Wang Jingwei regime) initially resisted, but ultimately the Japanese had their way. Thai resentment on this issue lasted throughout the war, however, and resulted in Phibun refusing to attend the following year's Greater East Asia Conference.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Although the Thai ambassador in London delivered Phibun's declaration of war to the British government, the Thai ambassador in Washington DC, Seni Pramoj, refused to do so. Accordingly, the United States did not declare war on Thailand. With American assistance, Seni, a conservative aristocrat with well established anti-Japanese credentials, organised the Free Thai Movement in the United States, recruiting Thai students to work with the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Seni was able to achieve this because the State Department decided to act as if Seni continued to represent Thailand, enabling him to draw on Thai assets frozen by the United States.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: In addition to the Japanese conquest of Burma, the Thai Phayap Army was permitted to invade the part of the Shan States and Karenni States of Burma that was annexed as "Saharat Thai Doem".


title: Thailand in World War II

text: In September 1942, there was a long rainy season in Northern, Northeastern and Central regions of Thailand, causing great floods in many provinces, including Bangkok. In Bangkok, the major flooding was recorded as having effects on the city's infrastructure lasting three months.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: With the floods, many agricultural areas were flooded, especially the rice fields, which caused a serious shortage of rice. The Thai government decided to encourage people to eat noodles instead. ""Pad Thai,"" the famous dish, was also introduced at that time.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Although the majority of Thais were initially "intoxicated" with Japan's string of brilliant victories in early 1942, by the end of the year there was widespread resentment as a result of arrogant Japanese behaviour and war-induced privation. Even during the early stages of the war there was friction over issues such as the confiscation of Allied property and economic and monetary matters, as well as the treatment of Thailand's ethnic Chinese community.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: A vicious contest for saw mills and teak forests owned by British companies erupted early on, followed by similar disputes over the control of enemy energy and shipping facilities within the country. Other problems were more severe. For a time Germany continued actively purchasing Thai products, but once shipping difficulties became intractable, Japan became Thailand's sole significant trading partner. Similarly, Thailand had to rely on the Japanese for consumer goods previously imported from Europe and the United States, which Japan was increasingly unable to provide as the war wore on. A shortage of commodities quickly developed, with inflation soaring and standards of living dropping. Worse still, the Japanese had aggressively claimed the right to import goods duty-free, significantly reducing Thai government revenues.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: After the Japanese Army seized Rangoon, British and Chinese troops were forced to withdraw from Burma. On 9 May 1942, the Thai Phayap army crossed the Thai-Burmese border and engaged the Chinese Expeditionary Force. Thais captured many Chinese soldiers, and in 1943 the Phayap Army invasion headed to Xishuangbanna in China, but were driven back by the Chinese nationalist force.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: The Thai government feared that Phibun might lose popularity. Consequently, the government spokesman decided to lie to its people. Luang Wichit announced the Phayap Army had captured Xishuangbanna. Thailand also oversaw a military occupation over significant sections in a Burma-China border, west of Yunnan. But despite the official territorial achievements, so-called the "Great Thai Kingdom" was a paper tiger. It was faltering as its economy failed to adapt to the conditions of war, natural disaster (floods) and the Thai capital being bombed by the Allies.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: The Royal Thai Navy contracted the Japanese Kawasaki Shipbuilding Corporation of Kobe and Mitsubishi to construct coastal defence ships and submarines.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: The following territories of Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Malaya were annexed by Thailand during World War II. The Thai army would remain in these territories until the end of the war.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Following the fall of the Phibun government in August 1944, the new government of Khuang Aphaiwong communicated to the British government that it renounced all claims to the Shan states and northern Malaya, and that it would immediately cede the territories to Britain. The Churchill government did not accept the Thai overture, and was prepared to retaliate. The Thai army evacuated the two Shan states only in August 1945.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Thailand was still allied with Japan when the war ended, but the United States proposed a solution. In 1946 Thailand agreed to cede the territories regained during Japanese presence in the country as the price for admission to the United Nations, consequently all wartime claims against Thailand were dropped and the country received a substantial package of US aid. Following this event all the Thai-occupied territories returned to their pre-war status and became again part of the states from which they had been annexed.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: In December 1942 an armed confrontation between Japanese troops and Thai villagers and police escalated into a shoot-out in Ratchaburi. Although the Ban Pong incident was promptly and peacefully resolved, it served as "a warning signal that alerted Tokyo to the seriousness of the problems in Thailand". This led to General Aketo Nakamura being sent to command the newly formed Thailand Garrison Army. Nakamura's ability to understand the Thai perspective, combined with his affable personality, significantly helped to improve Thai-Japanese relations. The other Japanese intention was to help defend Thailand, Nakamura expected that it could defend against a possible invasion by the Allies from Burma.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: This more conciliatory stance occurred at a moment when the tide began to turn against Japan, something which many within the Thai government recognised. Realising that the Allies had seized the initiative in the war, Phibun, well aware of his predicament, distanced himself from the Japanese. In January 1943 he had two of the Phayap Army's divisional commanders arrange the return of a group of Chinese prisoners-of-war as a gesture of friendship designed to open secret negotiations with Chongqing.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: But the prime minister's star was waning at a much faster rate than he had thought. With the Allies intensifying their bombing raids on Bangkok, public confidence in Phibun, already tested by his idiosyncratic domestic policies, was waning fast. His frequent absence from Bangkok led morale to plummet, while a sudden proclamation that the capital and its inhabitants immediately be moved north to malaria-infested Phetchabun was greeted with near-universal bemusement and discontent. The kingdom's ruling elite was becoming increasingly weary of Phibun, whose intimidation and demotion of dissenters within the government served to further unite his opponents, who were rallying to Pridi.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Even the Japanese were becoming disaffected with Phibun. The possibility that a military scheme lay behind Phibun's attempt to relocate the seat of government was not lost on the Japanese.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Remote, with the nearest rail connection at Phitsanulok, a half-day's drive away, Phetchabun's main asset was its suitability as a mountainous fortress. Moreover, the site was in an area where the majority of the Thai army was based.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Coinciding with Phibun's efforts to distance himself from the Japanese, the Allied Invasion of Italy and the downfall of Benito Mussolini sent shock waves through the Thai government, and an emergency cabinet meeting was convened to discuss the European situation. Analogies with Italy were soon being made. "Badoglio" became an increasingly popular Thai political epithet, and the Japanese envoy in Berlin was advised by Reichsmarschall Göring, who was old friend with Tojo and many Thai generals at Prussian Military Academy, to keep a close watch on Thailand, lest it turn into an "Oriental Italy."


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Despite the increasing domestic discontent and Japanese distrust, Phibun's political demise would not come until the following year.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Pridi, the regent, from his office at Thammasat University, ran a clandestine movement that, by the end of the war, had, with Allied aid, armed more than 50,000 Thais to resist the Phibun government and the Japanese. In 1944 he managed to engineer the unseating of Phibun, who was replaced by Khuang Aphaiwong, the civilian son of a minor nobleman and linked politically with conservatives like Seni. Khuang's main task was to continue the charade of collaboration whilst shielding the growing underground movement. He succeeded in this to a great extent, convincing not only Nakamura, but also the notorious Masanobu Tsuji.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: By the beginning of 1945, preparations were actively being pursued for a rising against the Japanese. Plans for an uprising relied on the success of a quick, surprise strike by a special police unit against the Japanese command structure. The residences of leading officers and the Japanese communications facilities were kept under surveillance. The police assault was to be coordinated with a general attack by the partly mechanised Thai 1st Army against Japanese troops in Bangkok. Fortifications, in the guise of air raid shelters, had been dug at key crossroads, and additional troops had been brought into the city in small groups in civilian clothing. The task of Free Thai forces elsewhere would be to thwart Japanese efforts to reinforce their Bangkok garrison by cutting communications lines and seizing airfields.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Pridi had to take into consideration that the Japanese were building up their forces in Thailand, which was likely to become a battlefront in the near future. Previously most Japanese soldiers stationed in Thailand had been support troops, but in December 1944 the local command had been upgraded from garrison status to a field army. The Japanese were gathering supplies and constructing fortifications for a last-ditch defensive effort at Nakhon Nayok, about 100 kilometres northeast of Bangkok.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: The atomic bombings and subsequent Japanese surrender precluded the uprising, however. Pridi immediately issued a declaration stating that Phibun's 1942 declaration of war was unconstitutional and legally void, thereby dispensing any need for Thailand to surrender. The Thai armed forces initially attempted to disarm the Japanese garrison, but Nakamura refused, arguing that the matter was for the Allies to decide. Khuang in the meanwhile resigned, citing his previous association with the Japanese as a possible obstacle to Thailand's rapprochement with the Allies. A caretaker premier was found in the person of Thawi Bunyaket, a Pridi loyalist.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: In early September the leading elements of Major-General Geoffrey Charles Evans's Indian 7th Infantry Division landed, accompanied by Edwina Mountbatten. Later that month Seni returned from Washington to succeed Tawee as prime minister. It was the first time in over a decade that the government was controlled by civilians. But the ensuing factional scramble for power in late 1945 created political divisions in the ranks of the civilian leaders that destroyed their potential for making a common stand against the resurgent political force of the military in the post-war years.


title: Thailand in World War II

text: Moreover, the post-war accommodations with the Allies weakened the civilian government. As a result of the contributions made to the Allied war efforts by the Free Thai Movement, the United States refrained from dealing with Thailand as an enemy country in post-war peace negotiations. Before signing a peace treaty, however, Britain demanded war reparations in the form of rice shipments to Malaya. An Anglo-Thai Peace Treaty was signed on 1 January 1946, and an Australian–Thai Peace Treaty on 3 April. France refused to permit admission of Thailand to the United Nations until Indochinese territories annexed during the war were returned. The Soviet Union insisted on the repeal of anti-communist legislation.


title: Runaway June

text: Runaway June is an American country music group consisting of Stevie Woodward (lead vocals, guitar, piano, harmonica, autoharp), Jennifer Wayne (guitar, vocals), and Natalie Stovall (guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, vocals). Wayne co-founded the group in 2015 with Hannah Mulholland (mandolin, vocals) and Naomi Cooke (lead vocals). Wayne was a former member of Stealing Angels and had co-written singles for other singers prior to the group's foundation. Signed to BBR Music Group's Wheelhouse imprint in 2015, the group charted two singles on the "Billboard" Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts prior to their breakthrough hit "Buy My Own Drinks" in 2018. This was the first of three singles from their 2019 studio album "Blue Roses". Mulholland quit the group in 2020 and was replaced by Natalie Stovall, former lead singer of Natalie Stovall and the Drive; Cooke quit in 2022 and was replaced by Stevie Woodward.


title: Runaway June

text: Jennifer Wayne, a granddaughter of John Wayne, grew up in southern California, and Hannah Mulholland grew up in Los Angeles, California, while Naomi Cooke is from Cedar Key, Florida. Cooke co-wrote Tyler Farr's top 40 hit "Better in Boots". Wayne was originally one-third of the group Stealing Angels, and co-wrote Eric Paslay's top 20 hit "She Don't Love You" and Keith Urban's 2021 hit "Wild Hearts". Under this lineup, Cooke was the lead vocalist, Mulholland was the low harmony vocalist and mandolin player, and Wayne the high harmony vocalist and guitar player.


title: Runaway June

text: The three met in Nashville and wrote their debut single "Lipstick" with assistance from Rebecca Lynn Howard, Caroline Hobby (also a former member of Stealing Angels), and Elisha Hoffman. The song was released in 2016 via Broken Bow Records' Wheelhouse Records imprint. An uncredited review from "Taste of Country" praised the "original premise" and vocal harmonies. They released their self-titled debut EP in September 2018, which featured the singles "Wild West" and "Buy My Own Drinks."


title: Runaway June

text: The group was a supporting act for Carrie Underwood on her Cry Pretty Tour 360, which ran from May 1, 2019, to October 31, 2019, alongside Maddie & Tae. On May 23, 2019, the group announced their debut album "Blue Roses", which was released on June 28, 2019. "Buy My Own Drinks" which served as the lead-off single, is included on the album alongside three other songs from their previous EP release. The album debuted at No. 36 on the Top Country Albums chart, and No. 2 on the Heatseekers Albums chart. After "Buy My Own Drinks", the band also charted two more singles from the album: "Head over Heels" and "We Were Rich".


title: Runaway June

text: On May 14, 2020, Mulholland announced that she was leaving the group. The next day, the other two members confirmed that she was replaced by Natalie Stovall, former lead singer of Natalie Stovall and the Drive, who also plays the fiddle for the group. This was followed in February 2022 by Naomi Cooke's departure from the band; she was replaced by Stevie Woodward two months later.


title: Runaway June

text: On January 9, 2021, Wayne married Austin Moody in a private ceremony. She first confirmed in November 2021 that she was pregnant with her first child.


title: Otto Dix

text: Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz and Max Beckmann, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the "Neue Sachlichkeit".


title: Otto Dix

text: Otto Dix was born in Untermhaus, Germany, now a part of the city of Gera, Thuringia. The eldest son of Franz Dix, an iron foundry worker, and Louise, a seamstress who had written poetry in her youth, he was exposed to art from an early age. The hours he spent in the studio of his cousin, Fritz Amann, who was a painter, were decisive in forming young Otto's ambition to be an artist; he received additional encouragement from his primary school teacher. Between 1906 and 1910, he served an apprenticeship with painter Carl Senff, and began painting his first landscapes. In 1910, he entered the Kunstgewerbeschule in Dresden, now the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, where Richard Guhr was among his teachers. At that time the school was not a school for the fine arts but rather an academy that concentrated on applied arts and crafts.


title: Otto Dix

text: The majority of Dix's early works concentrated on landscapes and portraits which were done in a stylized realism that later shifted to expressionism.


title: Otto Dix

text: When the First World War erupted, Dix volunteered for the German Army. He was assigned to a field artillery regiment in Dresden. In the autumn of 1915 he was assigned as a non-commissioned officer of a machine-gun unit on the Western front and took part in the Battle of the Somme. In November 1917, his unit was transferred to the Eastern front until the end of hostilities with Russia, and in February 1918 he was stationed in Flanders. Back on the western front, he fought in the German spring offensive. He earned the Iron Cross, 2nd class, and reached the rank of "vizefeldwebel". In August of that year he was wounded in the neck, and shortly after he took pilot training lessons.


title: Otto Dix

text: He took part in an anti-aircraft course in Tongern, was promoted to Vizefeldwebel and after passing the medical tests transferred to Aviation Replacement Unit Schneidemühl in Posen. He was discharged from service on 22 December 1918 and was home for Christmas.


title: Otto Dix

text: Dix was profoundly affected by the sights of the war, and later described a recurring nightmare in which he crawled through destroyed houses. He represented his traumatic experiences in many subsequent works, including a portfolio of fifty etchings called "Der Krieg", published in 1924. Subsequently, he referred again to the war in The War Triptych, painted from 1929 to 1932.


title: Otto Dix

text: At the end of 1918 Dix returned to Gera, but the next year he moved to Dresden, where he studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste. He became a founder of the Dresden Secession group in 1919, during a period when his work was passing through an expressionist phase. In 1920, he met George Grosz and, influenced by Dada, began incorporating collage elements into his works, some of which he exhibited in the first Dada Fair in Berlin. He also participated in the German Expressionists exhibition in Darmstadt that year.


title: Otto Dix

text: He met metalsmith Martha Koch in 1921, and they married in 1923. They had three children together. She was a frequent subject of his portraits.


title: Otto Dix

text: In 1924, he joined the Berlin Secession; by this time he was developing an increasingly realistic style of painting that used thin glazes of oil paint over a tempera underpainting, in the manner of the old masters. His 1923 painting "The Trench", which depicted dismembered and decomposed bodies of soldiers after a battle, caused such a furor that the Wallraf-Richartz Museum hid the painting behind a curtain. In 1925 the then-mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, canceled the purchase of the painting and forced the director of the museum to resign.


title: Otto Dix

text: Dix was a contributor to the "Neue Sachlichkeit" exhibition in Mannheim in 1925, which featured works by George Grosz, Max Beckmann, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Karl Hubbuch, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz and many others. Dix's work, like that of Grosz—his friend and fellow veteran—was extremely critical of contemporary German society and often dwelled on the act of Lustmord, or sexualized murder. He drew attention to the bleaker side of life, unsparingly depicting prostitution, violence, old age, and death.


title: Otto Dix

text: In one of his few statements, published in 1927, Dix declared, "The object is primary and the form is shaped by the object."


title: Otto Dix

text: Among his most famous paintings are "Sailor and Girl" (1925), used as the cover of Philip Roth's 1995 novel "Sabbath's Theater", the triptych "Metropolis" (1928), a scornful portrayal of depraved actions of Germany's Weimar Republic, where nonstop revelry was a way to deal with the wartime defeat and financial catastrophe, and the startling "Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden" (1926). His depictions of legless and disfigured veterans—a common sight on Berlin's streets in the 1920s—unveil the ugly side of war and illustrate their forgotten status within contemporary German society, a concept also developed in Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front."


title: Otto Dix

text: Although frequently recognized as a painter, Dix drew self-portraits and portraits of others using the medium of silverpoint on prepared paper. "Old Woman," drawn in 1932, was exhibited with old-master drawings.


title: Otto Dix

text: When the Nazis came to power in Germany, they regarded Dix as a degenerate artist and had him sacked from his post as an art teacher at the Dresden Academy. He later moved to Lake Constance in the southwest of Germany. Dix's paintings "The Trench" and "War Cripples" were exhibited in the state-sponsored Munich 1937 exhibition of degenerate art, "Entartete Kunst". "War Cripples" was later burned. "The Trench" was long thought to have been destroyed too, but there are indications the work survived until at least 1940. Its later whereabouts are unknown; it may have been looted during the confusion at the end of the war. It has been called 'perhaps the most famous picture in post-war Europe ... a masterpiece of unspeakable horror.


title: Otto Dix

text: Dix, like all other practising artists, was forced to join the Nazi government's Reich Chamber of Fine Arts (Reichskammer der bildenden Kuenste), a subdivision of Goebbels' Cultural Ministry ("Reichskulturkammer"). Membership was mandatory for all artists in the Reich. Dix had to promise to paint only inoffensive landscapes. He still painted an occasional allegorical painting that criticized Nazi ideals. His paintings that were considered "degenerate" were discovered among the 1500+ paintings hidden away by the son of Hitler's looted art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt in 2012.


title: Otto Dix

text: In 1939 he was arrested on the trumped-up charge of being involved in a plot against Hitler (see Georg Elser), but was later released.


title: Otto Dix

text: During World War II, Dix was conscripted into the "Volkssturm". He was captured by French troops at the end of the war and released in February 1946.


title: Otto Dix

text: Dix eventually returned to Dresden and remained there until 1966. After the war most of his paintings were religious allegories or depictions of post-war suffering, including his 1948 "Ecce homo with self-likeness behind barbed wire". In this period, Dix gained recognition in both parts of the then-divided Germany. In 1959 he was awarded the Grand Merit Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany ("Großes Verdienstkreuz") and in 1950, he was unsuccessfully nominated for the National Prize of the GDR. He received the Lichtwark Prize in Hamburg and the Martin Andersen Nexo Art Prize in Dresden to mark his 75th birthday in 1967. Dix was made an honorary citizen of Gera. Also in 1967 he received the Hans Thoma Prize and in 1968 the Rembrandt Prize of the Goethe Foundation in Salzburg.


title: Otto Dix

text: Dix died on 25 July 1969 after a second stroke in Singen am Hohentwiel. He is buried at Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance.


title: Otto Dix

text: Dix had three children: a daughter Nelly (1923–1955) and two sons, Ursus (1927–2002) and Jan (1928-2019).


title: Otto Dix

text: The Otto-Dix-Haus was opened in 1991, at the 100th anniversary of Dix's birth, in the 18th-century house where he was born and grew up, at Mohrenplatz 4 in the city of Gera, as a museum and art gallery. It is managed by the city administration.


title: Otto Dix

text: As well as providing access to the rooms Dix lived in, it houses a permanent collection of 400 of his works on paper and paintings. Visitors can see examples of his childhood sketch books, watercolours and drawings from the 1920s and 1930s, and lithographs. The collection also includes 48 postcards he sent from the front during World War I. The gallery also regularly hosts temporary exhibitions.


title: Otto Dix

text: The building was affected by a flood in June 2013. In order to repair the underlying damage, the museum was closed in January 2016, and re-opened in December 2016 following restoration.


title: Otto Dix

text: The Museum Haus Dix was inaugurated in 2013 in the house where the artist lived with his family and where he worked from 1936 to 1969, in Hemmenhofen, south Germany.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The occupation of Greece by the Axis Powers () began in April 1941 after Nazi Germany invaded the Kingdom of Greece to assist its ally, Fascist Italy, which had been at war with Allied Greece since October 1940. Following the conquest of Crete, all of Greece was occupied by June 1941. The occupation of the mainland lasted until Germany and its ally Bulgaria were forced to withdraw under Allied pressure in early October 1944. However, German garrisons remained in control of Crete and some other Aegean islands until after the end of World War II in Europe, surrendering these islands in May and June 1945.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Fascist Italy had initially declared war and invaded Greece in October 1940, but the Hellenic Army managed to push back the invading forces into neighboring Albania, then an Italian protectorate. Nazi Germany intervened on its ally's behalf in southern Europe. While most of the Hellenic Army was dislocated on the Albanian front to fend off the relentless Italian counter-attacks, a rapid German "Blitzkrieg" campaign commenced in April 1941, and by June (with the conquest of Crete) Greece was defeated and occupied. The Greek government went into exile, and an Axis collaborationist puppet government was established in the country. Greece's territory was divided into occupation zones run by the Axis powers, with the Germans administering the most important regions of the country themselves, including Athens, Thessaloniki and the strategic Aegean Islands. Other regions of the country were given to Germany's partners, Italy and Bulgaria.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The occupation ruined the Greek economy and brought terrible hardships to the Greek civilian population. Much of Greece was subjected to destruction of its industry (80% of which was destroyed), infrastructure (28% destroyed), ports, roads, railways and bridges (90%), forests and other natural resources (25%) and loss of civilian life (7–11% of its citizens). Over 40,000 civilians died in Athens alone from starvation, and tens of thousands more died from reprisals by Nazis and collaborators.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The Jewish population of Greece was nearly eradicated. Of its pre-war population of 75–77,000, only around 11–12,000 survived, either by joining the resistance or being hidden. Most of those who died were deported to Auschwitz, while those in Thrace, under Bulgarian occupation, were sent to Treblinka. The Italians did not deport Jews living in territory they controlled, but when the Germans took over, Jews living there were also deported.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: At the same time the Greek Resistance was formed. These resistance groups launched guerrilla attacks against the occupying powers, fought against the collaborationist Security Battalions, and set up espionage networks. By late 1943 the resistance groups began to fight amongst themselves. When liberation of the mainland came in October 1944, Greece was in a state of political polarization, which soon led to the outbreak of the Greek Civil War. The subsequent civil war gave the opportunity to many prominent Nazi collaborators not only to escape punishment (because of their anti-communism), but to eventually become the ruling class of postwar Greece, after the communist defeat.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: 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), for the death of 20,650 Greek partisans and an unknown number captured.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: In the early morning hours of 28 October 1940, Italian Ambassador Emmanuel 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.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The Hellenic Army proved to be a formidable opponent, and successfully exploited the mountainous terrain of Epirus. The Hellenic 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. The initial Greek defeat of the Italian invasion is considered the first Allied land victory of the Second World War, although due to German intervention, it eventually resulted in a victory for the Axis. Fifteen of the 21 Greek divisions were deployed against the Italians, so only six divisions were facing the attack from German troops in the "Metaxas Line" (near the border between Greece and Yugoslavia/Bulgaria) during the first days of April. Greece received help from British Commonwealth troops, moved from Libya on the orders of Winston Churchill.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: On 6 April 1941, Germany came to the aid of Italy and invaded Greece through Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Greek and British Commonwealth troops fought back but were overwhelmed. On 20 April, after Greek resistance in the north had ceased, the Bulgarian Army entered Greek Thrace, without having fired 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 nominally Greek right-wing government ruled from Athens, but it was a puppet of the occupiers.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The occupation of Greece was divided among Germany, Italy and Bulgaria. German forces occupied the most strategically important areas, namely Athens, Thessaloniki with Central Macedonia and several Aegean Islands, including most of Crete. Initially, the German zone was ruled by the ambassador Günther Altenburg of the German Foreign Office and Field Marshal Wilhelm List. From 1942 onwards, the German occupation zone was ruled by the duumvirate of the plenipotentiary for South-Eastern Europe, Hermann Neubacher, and Field Marshal Alexander Löhr. In September–October 1943, Jürgen Stroop, the newly appointed Higher SS Police Leader, tried to challenge the Neubacher-Löhr duumvirate and was swiftly fired after less than a month on the job. Walter Schimana replaced Stroop as the Higher SS Police Leader in Greece and was able to establish a better working relationship with the Neubacher-Löhr duumvirate.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: East Macedonia and Thrace came under Bulgarian occupation and were annexed to Bulgaria, which had long claimed these territories. The remaining two-thirds of Greece were occupied by Italy, with the Ionian Islands directly administered as Italian territories. Count Pellegrino Ghigi represented Italian interests with the Greek government while General Carlo Geloso commanded the 11th Army occupying Greece. Relations between the Germans and Italians were not good and frequently there were clashes between German and Italian soldiers. It was German policy to strongly discourage relationships between German servicemen and Greek women as the German leaders feared miscegenation between Germans and the (in the Nazi view) racially "inferior" Greeks. By contrast, the Italians had no such inhibitions, which created problems among Wehrmacht and SS officers. German officers often complained that the Italians were more interested in making love than in making war, and that the Italians lacked the "hardness" to wage a campaign against the Greek guerrillas because many Italian soldiers had Greek girlfriends. After the Italian capitulation in September 1943, the Italian zone was taken over by the Germans, who often attacked the Italian garrisons. There was a failed attempt by the British to take advantage of the Italian surrender to reenter the Aegean, resulting in the Dodecanese Campaign.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Greece suffered greatly during the occupation. The country's economy had already been devastated from the 6-month long war, and to it was added the relentless economic exploitation by the Nazis. Raw materials and food were requisitioned, and the collaborationist government was forced to pay the cost of the occupation, giving rise to inflation. Because the outflows of raw materials and products from Greece towards Germany weren't offset by German payments, substantial imbalances accrued in the settlement accounts at the Greek National Bank. In October 1942 the trading company DEGRIGES was founded; two months later, the Greek collaboration government was forced to agree to treat the balance as a loan without interest that was to be repaid once the war was over. At the end of the war, this forced loan amounted to 476 million Reichsmark (equivalent to billion euros).


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Hitler's policy toward the economy of occupied Greece was termed "Vergeltungsmassnahme", or, roughly, "retaliation measures", the "retaliation" being for Greece having chosen the wrong side; it was additionally motivated by a desire to "pluck out the best fruit" to plunder before the Italians could get it. Groups of economic advisers, businessmen, engineers and factory managers came from Germany with the task of seizing anything they deemed of economic value, with both the Economic Ministry and the Foreign Office involved in the operation; these men were not only in competition with the Italians to plunder the country, but also with each other. The primary occupation, however, was finding as much food as possible to sustain the German army. The occupying powers' requisitions and outright plunder, the drop in agricultural production from wartime disruption, the breakdown of the country's distribution networks due to a combination damage to infrastructure, the collapse of the central government and the fragmentation of the country at the hands of the Axis, coupled with hoarding by farmers, led to a severe shortage of food in the major urban centres in the winter of 1941–42. Given that even in peacetime, Greece was dependent on imports of wheat to cover about a third of its annual needs, the Allied blockade of German-dominated Europe further exacerbated the situation, creating the conditions for the "Great Famine" (Μεγάλος Λιμός): in the greater Athens–Piraeus area alone, some 40,000 people died of starvation, and by the end of the Occupation "it was estimated that the total population of Greece [...] was 300,000 less than it should have been because of famine or malnutrition" (P. Voglis).


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Aid came at first from neutral countries like Sweden and Turkey (see SS "Kurtuluş"), but the overwhelming majority of food ended up in the hands of the government officials and black market traders who used their connection to the Axis authorities to "buy" the aid from them and then sell it on to the desperate population at enormously inflated prices. The great suffering and the pressure of the exiled Greek government eventually forced the British to partially lift the blockade, and from the summer of 1942 Canadian wheat began to be distributed under the auspices of the International Red Cross. Of the country's 7.3 million inhabitants in 1941, it is estimated that fully 2.5 million were recipients of this aid, of whom half lived in Athens, i.e. practically the total number of the capital's population. Although this aid alleviated the threat of starvation in the cities, little of it reached the countryside, which experienced its own period of famine in 1943–44. The rise of the armed Resistance resulted in major anti-partisan campaigns across the countryside by the Axis, which led to the wholesale burning of villages, destruction of fields, or mass executions as reprisals for guerrilla attacks. As P. Voglis writes, the German sweeps "[turned] producing areas into burned fields and pillaged villages, and the wealthy provincial towns into refugee settlements".


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The Italians occupied the bulk of the Greek mainland and most of the islands. Although several proposals for territorial annexation had been put forward in Rome, none were actually carried out during the war. This was due to pressure from the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, and from the Germans, who were concerned of further alienating the Greek population, which was already strongly opposing the Bulgarian annexations. Moreover, much of this proposed "new Roman empire" in Greece consisted of poor rural areas. Such goals made little strategic or political sense. Nevertheless, in the Ionian Islands, long a target of Italian expansionism, and in the Cyclades, the Greek civil authorities were replaced by Italians in preparation for a post-war annexation. However, no formal announcement of annexation was ever made, and these islands remained in communication with Athens.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Italian policy promised that the region of Chameria (Thesprotia) in northwestern Greece, would be awarded to Albania after the end of the war. As such a local administration (Këshilla) was installed and armed groups were formed among members of the local Cham Albanian community. In the beginning, at least, collaboration was not a one-shot choice; Muslim communities followed different politics as per circumstances, alternating between collaboration, neutrality and, less frequently, resistance. Albanian and Greek communities changed sides by allying with the stronger available patron and shifting their allegiances when a more suitable one appeared. Instead, the events were part of a cycle of blood revenge between local communities over issues related to land ownership, state policies, sectarian hostilities, personal vendettas and the need to take a side in a chaotic situation, which only became nationalized during the war. Some numbers of the Cham Albanians, though the majority of their elites collaborated with the Axis, became part of a mixed EAM battalion at the end of the war, without having opportunity to give any significant contribution against the Germans. (For local developments at 1944–1945: see Expulsion of Cham Albanians article). After the war, a Special Court on Collaborators in Ioannina condemned, in absentia, 2,109 Cham collaborators of the Axis to death. However, the war crimes remained unpunished since the criminals had already fled abroad.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: A part of the Vlach (Aromanian) population in the Pindus mountains and Western Macedonia also collaborated for a variety of reasons. Italian occupation forces were welcomed in some Aromanian villages as liberators, and Aromanians offered their services as guides or interpreters in exchange for favors. Under Alcibiades Diamandi, the pro-Italian Principality of the Pindus was declared, and 2000 locals joined Diamantis' "Roman Legion", while Nicolaos Matussis had his own band of Aromanian followers which carried out raids at the service of Italian service departments. Most local Aromanians were not converted to Diamantis' vision of a Aromanian state in the Pindus and most remained loyal to the Greek nation, but some collaborated nevertheless because of latent pro-Romanian feelings, or anger toward the Greek government or its military authorities. The Legion collapsed in 1942 with the departure of the Italians, and most of its leaders fled into Romania or Greek cities. Most active members were convicted as war criminals in absentia, but in the course of the Greek Civil War in many cases their actions were forgotten, and many actively fought for the government against the communist guerrillas.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Compared to the other two zones, the Italian occupation regime was relatively mild, which can be seen from the relatively low number of executions and atrocities committed in the Italian zone of occupation when compared with the atrocities and executions committed in the German and Bulgarian zones. Furthermore, unlike the Germans, and aside from some local commanders, the Italian military protected the Jews in their zone. The Germans were purportedly perturbed as the Italians not only protected Jews on their territory, but in parts of occupied France, Greece, the Balkans, and elsewhere, where they protected local Jewish populations also. On 13 December 1942, Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, wrote in his diary, "The Italians are extremely lax in the treatment of the Jews. They protect the Italian Jews both in Tunis and in occupied France and will not permit their being drafted for work or compelled to wear the Star of David. This shows once again that Fascism does not really dare to get down to fundamentals but is very superficial regarding problems of vital importance."


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Significant mass reprisals did sometimes occur, such as the Domenikon massacre in which 150 Greek civilians were killed. As they controlled most of the countryside, the Italians were the first to face the rising resistance movement in 1942–43. By mid-1943, the Resistance had managed to expel a few Italian garrisons from some mountainous areas, including several towns, creating liberated zones ("Free Greece"). After the Italian armistice in September 1943, the Italian zone was taken over by the Germans. As a result, German anti-partisan and anti-Semitic policies were extended to it.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The Bulgarian Army entered Greece on 20 April 1941 on the heels of the Wehrmacht without having fired a shot. The Bulgarian occupation zone included the northeastern corner of the Greek mainland and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace i.e. the present-day region of East Macedonia and Thrace, except for the Evros prefecture, (at the Greek-Turkish border) which, because of its strategic value, was retained by the Germans, despite Bulgarian protests. Unlike Germany and Italy, Bulgaria officially annexed the occupied territories, which had long been a target of Bulgarian nationalism. East Macedonia and Thrace was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1913, when it became part of Bulgaria, following the Balkan Wars. Six years later, in 1919, after the end of World War I, it was annexed by Greece, following the signing of the Treaty of Neuilly (Greece was on the winning side of World War I, while Bulgaria was on the losing side).


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Throughout the Bulgarian occupation zone, Bulgarian policy was that of extermination, expulsion and ethnic cleansing, aiming to forcibly Bulgarize, expel or even kill the rest of the Greeks. A massive Bulgarization campaign was launched, which saw all Greek officials (mayors, landowners, industrialists, school-teachers, judges, lawyers, priests, Hellenic Gendarmerie officers) deported. A ban was placed on the use of the Greek language, the names of towns and places changed to the forms traditional in Bulgarian. Even gravestones bearing Greek inscriptions were defaced.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The Bulgarian government tried to alter the ethnic composition of the region, by aggressively expropriating land and houses from Greeks in favor of settlers brought from Bulgaria, and introduced forced labor and economic restrictions on the activities of Greek businessmen, in an effort to force them to migrate to the German and Italian-occupied parts of Greece. Thus people were deprived of the right to work by a licensing system that banned the practice of a trade or profession without permission. Forced labour was introduced, and the authorities confiscated the estates of Greek landowners and gave their land to Bulgarian peasants (many of them brought from Bulgaria as settlers).


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: These policies led to an attempt to expel the Bulgarians with a spontaneous and badly organized uprising around Drama in late September 1941 (primarily guided by the Communist Party of Greece) which, however, was suppressed by the Bulgarian Army, and massive reprisals against Greek civilians followed. By late 1941, more than 100,000 Greeks were expelled from the Bulgarian occupation zone by late 1942. Bulgarian colonists were encouraged to settle in East Macedonia and Thrace by government credits and incentives, including houses and land confiscated from the natives.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The Bulgarian government's attempts to win the loyalty of the local Slavic-speaking population and recruit collaborators among them did see some success, with the Bulgarians being greeted as liberators, but the ethnic composition of the region meant that the vast majority of its inhabitants actively resisted the occupiers. East Macedonia and Thrace had an ethnically mixed population until the early 20th century, including Greeks, Turks, Slavic-speakers (some of them self-identifying as Greeks, others as Bulgarians) Jews, and Pomaks (a Muslim Slavic group). However, during the interwar years, the ethnic composition of the region's population had been dramatically changed, as Greek refugees from Anatolia settled in Macedonia and Thrace following the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. This meant that only a small minority of Slavic-speakers could be lured to collaborate with the occupiers.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Because of the harsh occupation policies, armed resistance in the Bulgarian zone was fierce and enjoyed almost universal support from the civilians; Greek guerrilla leaders such as Antonis Fosteridis engaged the Bulgarian military in many battles, and even penetrated into Bulgaria proper, raiding villages and capturing booty. However, in 1943, armed clashes began between Greek communist and right-wing groups, with the aim of securing control of the region following the anticipated Bulgarian withdrawal.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: There were very few instances of collaboration by the Muslim minority in Western Thrace, that mainly resided in the Komotini and Xanthi prefectures.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The Bulgarian government also attempted to extend its influence to central and west Macedonia. The German High Command approved the foundation of a Bulgarian military club in Thessaloniki, and Bulgarian officers organized supplying of food and provisions for the Slavic-speaking population in these regions, aiming to recruit collaborators and gather intelligence on what was happening in the German- and Italian-occupied zones. In 1942, the Bulgarian club asked assistance from the High Command in organizing armed units among those populations, but the Germans were initially very suspicious. Taking advantages of Italian incompetence and the German need for releasing troops on other fronts, since 1943 Sofia had been seeking to extend its control over the rest of Macedonia. After the Italian collapse in 1943, the Germans allowed the Bulgarians to intervene in Greek Central Macedonia, over the area between the Strymon and Axios rivers. The situation also forced the Germans to take control of Western Macedonia with the occasional interventions of Bulgarian troops. At that time the Greek guerrilla forces, especially the left-wing Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) were gaining more and more strength in the area. As a result, armed collaborationist militias composed of pro-Bulgarian Slavic-speakers, known as Ohrana, were formed in 1943 in the districts of Pella, Florina and Kastoria. The ELAS units joined EAM in 1944 before the end of the occupation.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The Soviet Union declared war on the Kingdom of Bulgaria in early September 1944. Bulgaria withdrew from the central parts of Greek Macedonia after the pro-Soviet coup in the country on 9 September 1944. At that time it declared war on Germany, but the Bulgarian army remained in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, where there were several limited attacks from withdrawing German troops in the middle of September. Bulgaria hoped to keep these territories after the war. The Soviet Union initially also believed it was possible to include at least Western Thrace in the post-war borders of Bulgaria and thereby to secure a strategic outlet to the Aegean Sea. But the United Kingdom, whose troops advanced towards Greece at the same time, stated that the withdrawal of Bulgarian troops from all occupied territories was a precondition for a ceasefire agreement with Bulgaria. As result on 10 October, the Bulgarian army and administration began evacuating and after two weeks withdrew from the area. Meanwhile, around 90,000 Bulgarians left the area, nearly half of them settlers and the rest locals. The administrative power was handed over by the already ruling Bulgarian communist partisans to local subdivisions of ELAS.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: In 1945 the former Bulgarian authorities, including those in Greece, were put on trial before "People's Courts" in post-war Bulgaria for their actions during the war. In general thousands of people were sentenced to prison, while ca. 2,000 received death sentences.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Many Slavophones of Macedonia, in particular of Kastoria and Florina provinces, collaborated with Axis forces and came out openly for Bulgaria. These Slavophones considered themselves Bulgarian. In the first two years of occupation, a group of this community believed that the Axis would win the war, spelling the demise of Greek rule in the region and its annexation by Bulgaria. The first non-communist resistance organization that emerged in the area had as main opponents members of the Aromanian- and Slav-speaking minorities, as well as the communists, rather than the Germans themselves. Because of the strong presence of German troops and the general distrust of Slavophones by the Greeks, the communist organisations EAM and ELAS had difficulties in Florina and Kastoria. The majority of the Slav-speakers in Macedonia after mid-1943 joined EAM and were allowed to retain their organization. In October 1944 they deserted and departed to Yugoslavia. In November 1945, after the end of the war, some of then tried to capture Florina but were repulsed by the ELAS.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Increasing attacks by partisans in the latter years of the occupation resulted in a number of executions and wholesale slaughter of civilians in reprisal. In total, the Germans executed some 21,000 Greeks, the Bulgarians executed some 40,000 and the Italians executed some 9,000. By June 1944, between them the Axis powers had "raided 1,339 towns, boroughs and villages, of which 879, or two-thirds, were completely wiped out, leaving more than a million people homeless" (P. Voglis) in the course of their anti-partisan sweeps, mostly in the areas of Central Greece, Western Macedonia and the Bulgarian occupation zone.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The most infamous examples in the German zone are those of the village of Kommeno on 16 August 1943, where 317 inhabitants were executed by the 1. "Gebirgs-Division" and the village torched; the "Holocaust of Viannos" on 14–16 September 1943, in which over 500 civilians from several villages in the region of Viannos and Ierapetra in Crete were executed by the 22. "Luftlande Infanterie-Division"; the "Massacre of Kalavryta" on 13 December 1943, in which Wehrmacht troops of the 117th Jäger Division carried out the extermination of the entire male population and the subsequent total destruction of the town; the "Distomo massacre" on 10 June 1944, where units of the Waffen-SS "Polizei" Division looted and burned the village of Distomo in Boeotia resulting in the deaths of 218 civilians; the 3 October 1943 "Lingiades massacre" where the German army murdered in reprisal nearly 100 people in the village of Lingiades, 13 kilometres outside Ioannina; and the "Holocaust of Kedros" on 22 August 1944 in Crete, where 164 civilians were executed and nine villages were dynamited after being looted. At the same time, in the course of the concerted anti-guerrilla campaign, hundreds of villages were systematically torched and almost 1,000,000 Greeks left homeless.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Two other notable acts of brutality were the massacres of Italian troops at the islands of Cephalonia and Kos in September 1943, during the German takeover of the Italian occupation areas. In Cephalonia, the 12,000-strong Italian 33rd Infantry Division "Acqui" was attacked on 13 September by elements of the 1. "Gebirgs-Division" with support from Stukas, and forced to surrender on 21 September after suffering some 1,300 casualties. The next day, the Germans began executing their prisoners and did not stop until more than 4,500 Italians had been shot. The 4,000 or so survivors were put aboard ships for the mainland, but some of them sank after hitting mines in the Ionian Sea, where another 3,000 were lost. The Cephalonia massacre serves as the background for the novel "Captain Corelli's Mandolin".


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The Third Reich had no long-term plans for Greece and Hitler had already decided that a domestic puppet regime would be the least expensive drain on German efforts and resources as the invasion of the Soviet Union was imminent. According to a report by Foreign Office delegate of the 12th Army, Felix Benzler, the formation of a puppet government wasn't an easy task "because it is very difficult to persuade qualified civilians to participate in any form". The most influential Greek personalities hardly wished to make their re-entry into public life at such a moment, while archbishop Chrysanthos of Athens refused to swear such an Axis puppet. Suspicious of the Greeks' capacity for causing problems, the Axis decided to withhold international recognition from the new regime, which remained without a Foreign Minister for its entire lifetime.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: General Georgios Tsolakoglou – who had signed the armistice treaty with the "Wehrmacht" – was appointed as prime minister of the Nazi puppet regime in Athens. Neither Tsolakoglou nor his cabinet of equally inexperienced generals had any previous political experience. The civilian ministers were also an unimpressive group without political background. The government itself was wracked by internal disputes and held in low esteem by the Greek public, especially after the Italians replaced the Germans throughout much of the country in June 1941. The puppet government was kept under strict Axis control. Two Axis plenipotentiaries, Gunther Altenburg and Pellegrino Ghigi, had the power to recommend the appointment and dismissal of Greek officials and were the key civilian figures in shaping Axis policy towards Greece. In addition, there was no clear distinction between the civil and military administration, while even the military administration was divided among various sectors (Italian 11th army, German 12th army, "fortress Crete" etc.) . In December 1942, Tsolakologlou was succeeded by Konstantinos Logothetopoulos, a professor of medicine whose main qualification for Prime Minister seemed to be his marriage to the niece of German Field Marshal Wilhelm List. Ioannis Rallis became head of the regime as of April 1943 and was responsible for the creation of the Greek collaborationist Security Battalions.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: As in other European countries, there were Greeks willing to collaborate with the occupying force. However, few of the members of the Security battalions shared a pro-German ideology. The majority convinced themselves that the British approved anti-communist activity; others enlisted because of opportunistic advancement, while most of them came from a pro-royalist background.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Occupation authorities were reluctant to arm potential groups willing to fight the left-wing EAM resistance due to the absence of a fascist movement in Greece and the general dislike of the Germans by the Greek population. Fascist organizations supported by the Germans were the National Union of Greece ("Ethniki Enosis Ellados", EEE), the EKK ("Ethnikon Kyriarchon Kratos"), the Greek National Socialist Party ("Elliniko Ethnikososialistiko Komma", EEK) led by George S. Mercouris, and other minor pro-Nazi, fascist or anti-Semitic organizations such as the Hellenic Socialist Patriotic Organization (ESPO) or the "Iron Peace" ("Sidira Eirini"). Cooperation of civil servants with the resistance, in particular the EAM, occurred even before a widescale resistance movement unfolded.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: For the purposes of civil administration before the invasion, Greece was divided into 37 prefectures. Following the occupation, the prefectures of Drama, Kavalla, Rhodope and Serres were annexed by Bulgaria and no longer under the control of the Greek government. The remaining 33 prefectures had a concurrent military administration by Italian or German troops. In 1943, Attica and Boeotia was split into separate prefectures.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Few Greeks actively cooperated with the Nazis: most chose either the path of passive acceptance or active resistance. Active Greek resistance started immediately as many Greeks fled to the hills, where a partisan movement was born. One of the most touching episodes of the early resistance is said to have taken place just after the Wehrmacht reached the Acropolis on 27 April. The Germans ordered the flag guard, Evzone Konstandinos Koukidis, to retire the Greek flag. The Greek soldier obeyed, but when he was done, he wrapped himself in the flag and threw himself off the plateau where he died. Some days later, when the Reichskriegsflagge was waving on the Acropolis' uppermost spot, two Athenian youngsters, Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas, climbed by night on the Acropolis and tore down the flag.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The first signs of armed resistance activity manifested themselves in northern Greece, where resentment at the Bulgarian annexations ran high, in early autumn 1941. The Germans responded swiftly, torching several villages and executing 488 civilians. The brutality of these reprisals led to a collapse of the early guerrilla movement. It was revived in 1942 at a much greater scale. The first event that signaled the beginning of organized, armed opposition to the occupation forces occurred in September 1942 when the Greek Fascist Party (EEE) Club in downtown Athens was blown up by the Panhellenic Union of Fighting Youths (PEAN), a right-wing Greek resistance organization. Attacks on Axis personnel became more frequent from that month.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: In 25 November, the resistance together with the British mission destroyed the Gorgopotamos viaduct in Central Greece, disrupting the flow of Axis supplies to the North African front. By March–April, the andartes were launching direct attacks on Italian guard posts and barracks, while on 16 April, an Italian report noted that "control through out the north-east, centre and south-west of Greece remains very precarious, not to say nonexistent".


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: On 27 September 1941, the National Liberation Front (EAM) was established. It was nominally a "popular front" organization composed of a coalition of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and five other left-wing parties. EAM was virtually controlled by the KKE, although initially, the secretive and generally unpopular Communist party was successful in concealing this fact. By September 1943, the reorganization of ELAS bands along conventional lines had been completed, and ELAS strength was about 15,000 fighters with additionally 20,000 reserves. The military wing of EAM was the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS). Its first guerrilla band had been formed in Central Greece, under the leadership of Aris Velouchiotis, a declared Communist. EAM increased in size and its central committee sought a more experienced military figure to take command. Napoleon Zervas, the leader of a rival guerrilla group, was approached but could not be enticed to join ELAS. The post was filled by Stefanos Sarafis, a former Greek army officer and non-communist. Immediately upon assuming command of ELAS, Sarafis set about reforming its haphazardly organized and commanded bands. Eventually, the EAM incorporated 90% of the Greek resistance movement, boasted a total membership of over 1,500,000, including 50,000 armed guerrillas, and controlled much of rural mainland Greece and attracted large numbers of non-Communists. The first contact between Soviet officers and members of the Communist Party and the EAM-ELAS forces occurred at 28 July 1943.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The National Republican Greek League (EDES) was led by Napoleon Zervas, a former army officer and republican. EDES was formed on 9 September 1941 and was at the beginning thoroughly republican and anti-monarchist, but also attracted a few monarchists and other right-wing supporters. The British were instrumental in the development of EDES, hoping it would become a counterweight to ELAS. Throughout the occupation period, Zervas did not attempt to change his doctrine and EDES remained clearly a guerrilla force. Its main theatre of operation was Epirus. Because it was a particularly poor district, most of the logistical support was provided by the British. When EDES was finally disbanded at the fall of 1944, it had about 12,000 fighters, in addition to 5,000 reserves. Another armed resistance group was the National and Social Liberation (EKKA), led by Colonel Dimitrios Psarros. In general, most of the major guerrilla groups were at least moderately republican in orientation, whereas the Greek government-in-exile had been connected with monarchism, the Metaxas dictatorship, defeatism, and abandonment of the homeland to the invader.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: From its very beginnings, ELAS had sought to absorb or eliminate the rest of the Greek resistance groups and achieved some success in that effort. It firmly established and maintained a clear advantage over its rivals in terms of overall numbers, organization and the amount of territory controlled. ELAS's execution of rival EKKAS's leader, Dimitrios Psarros, later in spring of 1944 was a typical example of its ruthless determination to monopolise the armed resistance. Generally, ELAS clashed with the other resistance groups nearly as often as it fired upon the occupation forces. Velouchiotis, though a charismatic leader, was regarded with suspicion by a large part of EAM/ELAS and the Communist party. His early pre-eminence in the resistance had been achieved through exemplary executions and the torture of traitors, informers, and others. ELAS's critics also accused Velouchiotis, claiming the organization was not above open collusion with the Axis. Meanwhile, on 9 March 1943, Zervas repudiated EDES's earlier republicanism of loyalty to the exiled King George. He thus managed to achieve closer ties with the British mission. With the surrender of Italy in September 1943, Italian forces in Greece either surrendered to the Joint Resistance headquarters (composed of ELAS, EDES, EKKA and the British) or to the Germans.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: EAM accused its rival organizations, and particularly EDES, of collaboration with the occupation forces. However, this accusation was as yet unfounded, at least in regards to EDES's guerilla branch. Right-wing resistance groups, including EDES, lacked a nationwide organizational apparatus and did not follow a consistent strategy, while their relative weakness compared to EAM resulted in complete dependence on the British and to surreptitious collaboration with the Axis. Over time, the EDES Central Committee and political apparatus in Athens, directed by Stylianos Gonatas, became increasingly ineffective, estranged from the EDES guerrillas in the mountains (headed by Zervas) and winning the particular enmity of the organization because of Gonatas's support for the collaborationist Security Battalions. EDES called for a future democratic constitution and the punishment of wartime collaborators.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: On 12 October 1943, elements of ELAS struck EDES units in the mountains of Thessaly, beginning what came to be called the "First Round" of the Greek civil war. As a result, EDES was confined to Epirus, Zervas's birthplace, and only managed to survive due to British support. British officials stated that the Germans would soon leave the country and that "at all costs Greece must not become communist".


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: During this period, the British intelligence suspected the EAM/ELAS resistance for collaboration with the Axis. As such EAM/ELAS refused to provide support to the British units and on some occasions even betrayed them to the Germans. There is documentary evidence that Zervas had certain understandings with the Axis commanders and with British support, he turned against ELAS during a ceasefire with the Germans. Zervas, undoubtedly aimed to get rid of the Axis, but lacked the qualities and the organizational background to form a strong resistance movement and saw EDES as a tool to fight the occupation troops and advance his own fortunes. For Zervas the first priority was EAM/ELAS. Reports sent on 10 August 1943 by the German Chief of Staff in Giannina suggested that he believed Zervas was 'loyal' to their operations. According to German post-war testimonies, resistance was temporarily limited in Epirus and the local population was terrorized partly due to the reprisals and executions in Paramythia in September 1943. During October 1943-October 1944 Zervas consistently rejected active collaboration though he favoured a temporary coexistence. According to German records, a conspiracy of German-Ralli's collaborationist government-British can't be sustained. This policy of coexistence enabled the Germans to concentrate their operations against ELAS. Zervas' pro-royalist tendencies and close collaboration both with the Germans and the British Office destroyed EDES' initial republican and democratic ideology. In 1944, EDES membership no longer represented the anti-monarchists but had come to reflect a broad spectrum of right-wing forces which opposed both the Germans and ELAS. A short-lived German attempt to coopt EDES and use them against ELAS partisans failed and by July 1944 EDES attacks against the Germans resumed. A German report of 17 July 1944, stated that "the destruction of the EDES pocket" is of vital importance.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: On 29 February 1944, an agreement was signed in Plaka Bridge in Pindus among the armed groups of the Greek resistance: EAM, EDES and the EKKA. According to this, they agreed to refrain from infringing on each other's territory and that all future efforts would be directed against the Germans rather than each other. This marked the end of the "First Round" of the Greek civil war. A conference in Lebanon on 17–20 May 1944, where representatives from all resistance organizations and the Greek government-in-exile participated, the unification of all resistance groups under a "Government of National Unity", headed by Georgios Papandreou was agreed. EAM-ELAS was granted one-fourth of the cabinet posts in the new government.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: ELAS, and to a lesser extent EDES and the other surviving resistance groups, assumed control of the countryside, but all groups refrained from trying to seize control of the Athens-Piraeus area, in accordance with their previous agreements. In the resulting "Caserta Agreement", signed on 26 September 1944, EDES, ELAS, and the Greek government-in-exile, agreed to place their forces under the command of British Lt. General Ronald Scobie, designated to represent the Allied High Command in Greece, for the purpose of driving the Axis out of Greece. ELAS and EDES also agreed to allow the landing of British forces in Greece, to refrain from any attempt to seize power on their own, and to support the return of the Greek Government of National Unity under Georgios Papandreou.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Prior to World War II, there existed two main groups of Jews in Greece: the scattered Romaniote communities which had existed in Greece since antiquity; and the approximately 56,000-strong Sephardi Jewish community of Thessaloniki, originally Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition who were guaranteed safe shelter by Ottoman Sultan Bayazid II, who ordered all regional governors to welcome Jewish refugees onto their shores, with later Ottoman governments continuing the policies of granting citizenship and shelter to Jews fleeing persecution by Christian rulers.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The Jews of Greece were originally mostly Romaniote Jews who spoke a Greek dialect but with the mass arrival of Sephardim from Spain, many of these became assimilated into the newly dominant Sephardic culture and Ladino language among the Jewish community. Jews had been the majority in Thessaloniki for centuries, and remained so at the end of Ottoman rule on the eve of the Balkan Wars, although this majority was lost as the Jewish community declined from 90,000 down to 56,000 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, including anti-Jewish (and anti-Ladino) discrimination, land confiscations, the Great Fire of Thessaloniki and the reconstruction afterwards which displaced the Jewish community. The Jewish communities of Athens, the islands and Epirus were integrated into Greek public life, while the picture was more complicated in the traditionally Ladino-speaking Thessaloniki community. Although the Greek Jewish community was used to Jewish-Christian tensions that often had origins in the economic rivalries, they were completely unprepared for the forms of anti-Semitism which had matured in Germany.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Despite some assistance from the surrounding Greek population, what was left of the Jewish community in Thessaloniki would be almost entirely annihilated by the Holocaust; only 1950 individuals survived. Only one Jewish family from Thessaloniki, once called the "mother of Israel", survived intact.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: In total, at least 81% (around 60,000) of Greece's total pre-war Jewish population perished, with the percentage ranging from 91% in Thessaloniki to 50% in Athens, and less in other provincial areas such as Volos (36%). The low rate in Volos was because of coordination by Rabbi Pesach with the regions's bishop, who was tipped off by the German consul in Volos, and the actions of the local Greek community that provided them with resources during their time in hiding. In the Bulgarian zone, death rates surpassed 90%. In Zakynthos, all 275 Jews survived, hidden in the island's interior.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: When the occupation zones were drawn up, Thessaloniki came under German control, while Thrace came under Bulgarian control. The Greek army evacuated Thessaloniki in early 1941, and the population was urged to stock up on supplies in preparation for the hard times ahead; before the arrival of Germans, local anti-Semites began posting warnings on Jewish businesses saying "Jews Not Welcome Here". The German occupation of the city began on 8 April 1941. On 15 April the Jewish leadership within the city was arrested, and in June, the Rosenburg Commando began confiscating Jewish cultural property including manuscripts and art, and sending it back to Germany. Significant hardship occurred in the winter of 1941–1942, as refugees streamed in from the hinterlands of Greek Makedonia and Thrace, straining food supplies beyond their limit and causing starvation and typhus outbreaks, combined with summary executions of the Jewish population during the situation by the Germans; during some parts of the winter, 60 Jews died each day. The Germans made an effort to spread anti-Semitic sentiments among the local population, and revived local anti-Semitic publications that had been banned under the Metaxas regime.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: For the first year of the German occupation, neither the Nuremberg Laws nor any specific anti-Semitic measures were applied, although there were some unorganized incidents by local anti-Semites. However, since 1937 but especially during this year, the Germans undertook a systematic investigation of the Jewish community and its assets, which included having Hans Reegler, a half-Greek half-German agent who pretended to be a British Jew named William Lions, assemble a comprehensive network of informants that compiled all the necessary information on individuals and assets of value.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: In July 1942, forced labor was imposed on the Jewish population by Doctor Max Merten, the German chief civilian administrator of Thessaloniki. Merten ordered all Jews between the ages of 18 and 45 to report to Eleftherios Square at 8 in the morning. In a "ritual humiliation" in extreme heat, fully clothed, the 9,000 men were forced to take part in a "gymnastics drill" lasting six and a half hours, under the threat of being beaten, whipped, shot or set upon by dogs if they did not do as they were told. They were forced to gaze straight at the sun the whole time, and if their eyes moved, they would be whipped or otherwise punished. The "drill" also included running long distances, moving about on all fours, rolling in dust and performing somersaults. In the following days, several of the men died from brain haemorrhages or meningitis.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: In October 1942, Merten implemented measures to extract any and all objects of value (jewelry, etc.) from the Jewish community. Merten, 28 years old at the time, was "above all an extortionist". He allowed exemptions from his forced labor programme for large amounts of money, paid in cash stuffed in sacks brought to his office by wheelbarrow. Salonica's Chief Rabbi, Zevi Koretz was a "naïve partner" of Merten; he acquiesced to all of Merten's demands, thinking that by doing so he was saving his people from extermination; however despite his good faith, he made it easier for the Germans to implement their plans.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: In December 1942, Jewish cemeteries were looted. The Germans demolished the old Jewish cemetery in Thessaloniki, which dated back to the 15th century Spanish expulsions of Sephardim so the ancient tombstones could be used as building material for sidewalks and walls. They were also used to build a public baths and a swimming pool in the city. The site of the old cemetery is today occupied by the campus of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: In 1943, Jews in the German zones were forced to wear the Star of David, and their residences were similarly marked, so they could be easily identified and further isolated from the rest of Greek society. Jewish families were kicked out of their homes and arrested while the Nazi-controlled press turned public opinion by spreading anti-Semitism against them. As spring approached, Jews were shoved into ghettos, the largest of which was called Baron Hirsch, after a Jewish railroad builder in the Habsburg Empire. In this camp, by early March, 2500 Jews were squeezed into 593 small rooms. Signs written in Greek, German and Ladino warned Jews not to exit, and the non-Jewish population to not enter, on pain of death. Throughout the night, German officers forced the Jewish inmates to perform traditional dances for their "entertainment". At the end of their stay, the railroad to Salonica that had been built by the historical Baron Hirsch, originally intended to help Jews escape from Russian pogroms, was used to send Salonica's Jews north to Auschwitz.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Despite warnings of impending deportations, most Jews were reluctant to leave their homes, although several hundred were able to flee the city. The Germans and Bulgarians began mass deportations in March 1943, sending the Jews of Thessaloniki and Thrace in packed boxcars to the distant Auschwitz and Treblinka death camps. By the summer of 1943, the Jews of the German and Bulgarian zones were gone and only those in the Italian zone remained. Jewish property in Thessaloniki was distributed to Greek 'caretakers' who were chosen by special committee, the "Service for the Disposal of Jewish Property" (YDIP). Instead of giving apartments and businesses to the many refugees, they were most often given to friends and relatives of committee members or collaborators.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: In September 1943, after the Italian collapse, the Germans turned their attention to the Jews of Athens and the rest of formerly Italian-occupied Greece. There their propaganda was not as effective, as the ancient Romaniote Jewish communities were well-integrated into the Orthodox Greek society and could not easily be singled out from the Christians, who in turn were more ready to resist the German authorities' demands. The Archbishop of Athens Damaskinos ordered his priests to ask their congregations to help the Jews and sent a strong-worded letter of protest to the collaborationist authorities and the Germans. Many Orthodox Christians risked their lives hiding Jews in their apartments and homes, despite the threat of imprisonment. Even the Greek police ignored instructions to turn over Jews to the Germans. When Jewish community leaders appealed to Prime Minister Ioannis Rallis, he tried to alleviate their fears by saying that the Jews of Thessaloniki had been guilty of subversive activities and that this was the reason they were deported.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: At the same time, Elias Barzilai, the Grand Rabbi of Athens, was summoned to the Department of Jewish Affairs and told to submit a list of names and addresses of members of the Jewish community. Instead, he destroyed the community records, thus saving the lives of thousands of Athenian Jews. He advised the Jews of Athens to flee or go into hiding. A few days later, the Rabbi himself was spirited out of the city by EAM-ELAS fighters and joined the resistance. EAM-ELAS helped hundreds of Jews escape and survive (especially officer Stefanos Sarafis), many of whom stayed with the resistance as fighters and/or interpreters.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: In March 1943 the vast majority of the Jewish population, 4,058 of the 4,273 was rounded up and sent to local warehouses by the Bulgarian occupation authorities. They were initially sent by train to concentration camps in Bulgaria. Kept under inhumane conditions, they were informed by the Bulgarians that they would be sent to Palestine. However, the deportees could not be convinced. Except for five who died in the Bulgarian camps they were sent to Treblinka extermination camp where they died in the following days. By the end of March 97% of the local Jewish community was exterminated.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: On 20 August 1944, the Red Army invaded Romania. The Romanian Army collapsed, the German 6th Army was encircled and destroyed while the German 8th Army retreated into the Carpathians. Accelerating the collapse was the coup in Bucharest on 23 August 1944 as King Michael dismissed Marshal Ion Antonescu as Prime Minister and declared war on Germany. Within a matter of days, most of Romania was occupied by the Soviet Union including most importantly, the Ploesti oil fields, which were Germany's most important source of oil. Germany had occupied Greece in 1941 out of the fear that British bombers based in Greece would bomb the Romanian oil fields and deprive the "Reich" of the oil that powered its war machine. On 23 August 1944, at a meeting at his headquarters, Adolf Hitler told Field Marshal Maximilian von Weichs, the commander of the German forces in the Balkans, that with the Romanian oil fields lost, there was now no more point in occupying Greece and he should begin preparations for a withdrawal from Greece at once.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The German troops evacuated Athens on 12 October 1944, and by the end of the month, they had withdrawn from mainland Greece. The first British troops under General Scobie arrived in Athens on 14 October 1944. Four days later, the Greek government-in-exile returned to the Greek capital. Conflict between the monarchist Right and the republican and communist Left soon erupted, despite the initiatives of Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou. On 1 December, the government decreed that all guerrilla groups were to be disarmed. On 2 December, the six EAM ministers in the Government of National Unity resigned in protest, and on 4 December Papandreou himself resigned too. A new government was formed by Themistoklis Sofoulis. The immediate cause of the fighting was an unsanctioned EAM demonstration in Athens' Syntagma Square on Sunday, 3 December 1944, which turned violent when gunfire erupted. Meanwhile, General Scobie promptly ordered all ELAS units to leave Athens within seventy-two hours, and on the following day he declared martial law. The clashes ended on the night of 5 January, and ELAS began a general withdrawal from the Greek capital.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Negotiations between the newly established Greek government and EAM concluded at 12 February 1945, with the Treaty of Varkiza. This provided a temporary respite from open warfare but Greece was in ruins. The country remained politically divided and unstable. Several anti-left elements, friendly to the former Security Battalions, had been appointed to key posts in the Ministry of War, while thoughts of allowing former andartes to enter the new National Guard were abandoned. This policy made an impartial solution to Greece's security problems virtually impossible, and undermined the moral basis for the British doctrine of non-interference in internal Greek affairs. British Foreign Office was also fearful of Soviet influence in Greece. Such developments infuriated a part of the EAM members. One of them was Velouchiotis who was also denounced by the Communist Party and decided to continue his guerrilla activity. After a few months, he was hunted down by government units and executed. Official policy towards Axis collaborators was milder and more hesitant than perhaps anywhere else in Europe. Alexandros Lambou, a Pangalos follower and head of the special security police during the war period, was sentenced to death, but most of his co-defendants received short prison terms. During 1945, more than 80,000 people were prosecuted. The judges, many of whom had served during the occupation period, sentenced leftists harshly, and wartime collaborators lightly. US and UK intelligence opposed the appointment of Zervas as a minister citing their suspicions of his collaboration with Nazi Germany.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: Greece's recovery from the devastation of the World War II and Axis occupation lagged far behind that of the rest of Europe. About 8% of the Greek population of c.7 million had died during the conflicts and the occupation. Sanitation conditions were deplorable, and the health of those who had survived was imperilled by a resurgence of malaria and tuberculosis, the lack of medicines and medical materials, inadequate diet, and the breakdown of preventive measures. One-fourth of the villages had been burned, and over 100,000 buildings destroyed or heavily damaged. Nearly 700,000 of the total Greek population were refugees and lacked the basic necessities of life. Famine was narrowly averted in 1945 only by massive aid provided by the Allies and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). In the second half of 1945 UNRRA delivered to Greece some $171 million in goods. In the first year after the liberation, over 1.7 million tons of food were provided by UNRRA and the Allies. Nevertheless, a minimum daily ration of 2,000 calories proved impossible.


title: Axis occupation of Greece

text: The Axis occupation of Greece, specifically the Greek islands, has a significant presence in English-language books and films. Real special forces raids, e.g., "Ill Met by Moonlight" or fictional special forces raids "The Guns of Navarone", "Escape to Athena" and "They Who Dare" (1954), and the fictional occupation narrative "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" are examples. Notable Greek movies referring to the period, the war and the occupation are "The Germans Strike Again", "What did you do in the war, Thanasi?" and "Ipolochagos Natassa". The Italian film "Mediterraneo", which won the 1991 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, tells the story of an idyllic Greek island where the residents absorb the 8 Italian occupiers into their daily lives.


title: Planetary habitability

text: Planetary habitability is the measure of a planet's or a natural satellite's potential to develop and maintain environments hospitable to life. Life may be generated directly on a planet or satellite endogenously or be transferred to it from another body, through a hypothetical process known as panspermia. Environments do not need to contain life to be considered habitable nor are accepted habitable zones (HZ) the only areas in which life might arise.


title: Planetary habitability

text: As the existence of life beyond Earth is unknown, planetary habitability is largely an extrapolation of conditions on Earth and the characteristics of the Sun and Solar System which appear favorable to life's flourishing. Of particular interest are those factors that have sustained complex, multicellular organisms on Earth and not just simpler, unicellular creatures. Research and theory in this regard is a component of a number of natural sciences, such as astronomy, planetary science and the emerging discipline of astrobiology.


title: Planetary habitability

text: An absolute requirement for life is an energy source, and the notion of planetary habitability implies that many other geophysical, geochemical, and astrophysical criteria must be met before an astronomical body can support life. In its astrobiology roadmap, NASA has defined the principal habitability criteria as "extended regions of liquid water, conditions favorable for the assembly of complex organic molecules, and energy sources to sustain metabolism". In August 2018, researchers reported that water worlds could support life.


title: Planetary habitability

text: Habitability indicators and biosignatures must be interpreted within a planetary and environmental context. In determining the habitability potential of a body, studies focus on its bulk composition, orbital properties, atmosphere, and potential chemical interactions. Stellar characteristics of importance include mass and luminosity, stable variability, and high metallicity. Rocky, wet terrestrial-type planets and moons with the potential for Earth-like chemistry are a primary focus of astrobiological research, although more speculative habitability theories occasionally examine alternative biochemistries and other types of astronomical bodies.


title: Planetary habitability

text: The idea that planets beyond Earth might host life is an ancient one, though historically it was framed by philosophy as much as physical science. The late 20th century saw two breakthroughs in the field. The observation and robotic spacecraft exploration of other planets and moons within the Solar System has provided critical information on defining habitability criteria and allowed for substantial geophysical comparisons between the Earth and other bodies. The discovery of exoplanets, beginning in the early 1990s and accelerating thereafter, has provided further information for the study of possible extraterrestrial life. These findings confirm that the Sun is not unique among stars in hosting planets and expands the habitability research horizon beyond the Solar System.


title: Planetary habitability

text: The chemistry of life may have begun shortly after the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago, during a habitable epoch when the Universe was only 10–17 million years old. According to the panspermia hypothesis, microscopic life—distributed by meteoroids, asteroids and other small Solar System bodies—may exist throughout the Universe. Nonetheless, Earth is the only place in the Universe known to harbor life. Estimates of habitable zones around other stars, along with the discovery of thousands of exoplanets and new insights into the extreme habitats on Earth where organisms known as extremophiles live, suggest that there may be many more habitable places in the Universe than considered possible until very recently. On 4 November 2013, astronomers reported, based on "Kepler" space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarfs within the Milky Way. 11 billion of these estimated planets may be orbiting Sun-like stars. The nearest such planet may be 12 light-years away, according to the scientists. As of June 2021, a total of 59 potentially habitable exoplanets have been found.


title: Planetary habitability

text: In August 2021, a new class of habitable planets, named ocean planets, which involves "hot, ocean-covered planets with hydrogen-rich atmospheres", has been reported. Hycean planets may soon be studied for biosignatures by terrestrial telescopes as well as space telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which was launched on 25 December 2021.


title: Planetary habitability

text: An understanding of planetary habitability begins with the host star. The classical habitable zone (HZ) is defined for surface conditions only; but a metabolism that does not depend on the stellar light can still exist outside the HZ, thriving in the interior of the planet where liquid water is available.