Σπύρος Αλεξίου: Η αλήθεια πίσω από την Έξοδο του Μεσολογγίου – INFO-WAR

Στις 24 Ιούλη του 1825 και ενώ στο Μεσολόγγι οι πολιορκημένοι νικούν σε αλλεπάλληλες μάχες τον Κιουταχή, η ελληνική κυβέρνηση με αρχιγραμματέα τον Αλ. Μαυροκορδάτο αποφασίζει την περιβόητη «Πράξη υποτέλειας» προς την Αγγλία: «Άρθρον 1ον: Το Ελληνικόν έθνος δυνάμει της παρούσης πράξεως θέτει εκουσίως την ιεράν παρακαταθήκην της αυτού ελευθερίας, εθνικής ανεξαρτησίας και της πολιτικής αυτού υπάρξεως, υπό την μοναδικήν υπεράσπισιν της Μ. Βρετανίας». Το έγγραφο αυτό έτρεξαν να το πάνε στο Λονδίνο, στον υπουργό Εξωτερικών Κάνιγγ. Σύμπτωση, μαζί με τους απεσταλμένους της κυβέρνησης, στο Λονδίνο, στις 29 Σεπτεμβρίου 1825 βρίσκονταν εκεί ο Ι. Ορλάνδος και ο Α. Λουριώτης, ως αντιπρόσωποι της Ελλάδας για να συζητήσουν με την αγγλική κυβέρνηση περί του δεύτερου δανείου. Με αυτά τα δεδομένα, οι Άγγλοι τραπεζίτες θα εγκρίνουν δάνειο 2.000.000 χρυσών λιρών με τοκογλυφικούς όρους. Συνέφερε λοιπόν την Αγγλία να νικήσουν οι Έλληνες στο Μεσολόγγι και, πιθανότατα, να αποκτήσουν μόνοι τους την ελευθερία τους;

Σπύρος Αλεξίου: Η αλήθεια πίσω από την Έξοδο του Μεσολογγίου – INFO-WAR

Distant Cousins: SOE and OSS at Odds over Greece | SpringerLink

Any detailed comparative analysis of the activities in Greece of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and of its American counterpart, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), during the Second World War would be a formidable undertaking.4 For the manifold activities of both organizations engendered massive archives. In the case of OSS this has for some years progressively been made open to researchers in the National Archives and Records Service in Washington, while the records of SOE are in the process of being released to the Public Record Office in London.5 The OSS archive is indeed a treasure trove, albeit one that it is not easy to find one’s way around, for the organization’s appetite for information was, fortunately, insatiable. It was voracious enough, indeed, to embrace the acquisition of restaurant menus from Thessaloniki in early 1944, which demonstrate that food was available in abundance to anyone in a position to pay the astronomical prices, and of copies of Aetopoula, the magazine for children published by EAM, the National Liberation Front. Although very rich in terms of content, the OSS papers are not well ordered. The records of SOE, by contrast, are better organized and indexed, although not as catholic in terms of content. The very bulk (by the early 1990s some 4000 cubic feet of OSS records had been opened to researchers) of the OSS material presents problems to the would-be researcher. One scholar, Robert Brewer, has written with feeling that ‘the mass and weight of the OSS documentation can overwhelm anyone contemplating a frontal assault on its secrets’

Distant Cousins: SOE and OSS at Odds over Greece | SpringerLink

OSS in Action The Mediterranean and European Theaters (U.S. National Park Service)

OSS was, from the beginning, willing to work with the both factions of the Resistance, whichever one had control in their particular area. After a few Secret Intelligence operations, the first major OSS mission into Greece was the “Chicago” or “Evros” Mission under Special Operations officer Captain James G.L. (“Jim”) Kellis, an extraordinary man in an organization of unique individuals. Kellis had long had a vision of a role in that area of the world. A Greek American from Yorkville, Ohio, he had left his hometown after graduating from high school, traveled widely in the eastern Mediterranean and studied at the renowned St. Athanasse International College in Egypt. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Kellis joined the Army Air Corps and was commissioned a second lieutenant. He was working on routine assignments at an air base in Florida, when the United States entered the war in December 1941. Kellis, then 26, became obsessed with the idea of Americans helping to liberate occupied Greece. Soon, he completed a detailed plan for American special operations there and submitted it to Army Intelligence in the War Department. In the fall, he was recruited by the Special Operations Branch of OSS.

OSS in Action The Mediterranean and European Theaters (U.S. National Park Service)

John Vassos – Wikipedia

In 1924, Vassos created his first industrial design product, a lotion bottle popular as a hip flask during Prohibition. In 1933 he designed the widely popular Perey turnstile still used in many subway stations.[14] Other notable designs included a streamlined paring knife, Hohner accordions and harmonicas, computers, an electron microscope for the RCA company, corporate logos, and Remington shotguns. These highly functional and visually striking designs include major forms of media in the 20th century. His strengths in designing media tools for consumers and professionals alike set him apart from other industrial designers. Vassos designed numerous radios, phonograph players, the Constellation jukebox for the Mills Company, and total environments for movie theaters, international expositions, and restaurants. John Vassos’s contributions to public projects, like the famous RCA Building for the 1939/1940 New York World’s Fair, have been overlooked for decades. John Vassos considered RCA, NBC, United Artists, Waterman Pens, Coca-Cola, Wallace Silver, Nedick’s, Mills Industries, and the United States Government among its scores of national clients.[15] Vassos designed the cabinets of the RCA Corporation’s first commercially available television sets.

John Vassos – Wikipedia

Thomas Dunbabin – Wikipedia

homas James Dunbabin DSO (1911–1955), was an Australian classicist scholar and archaeologist of Tasmanian origin. He is best known for his activity as a British soldier on Crete during World War II.

Thomas Dunbabin – Wikipedia

Helias Doundoulakis – Wikipedia

Helias Doundoulakis (July 12, 1923 – February 29, 2016) was a Greek American civil engineer who patented the suspension system for the at-the-time largest radio telescope in the world (the Arecibo telescope). During WWII he served in the United States Army and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) as a spy.

Helias Doundoulakis – Wikipedia

Heroes of the Resistance

Resistance to Nazism and fascism came in many different forms. Some, as has been glamourised in post-war films, came through armed resistance, espionage and sabotage. But there were many other forms of resistance too. There were the underground publications, the industrial action and public protests, and even everyday disobedience and defiance to Nazi and fascist occupation. There were the brave people who risked everything to hide and protect neighbours and strangers alike. And there were even those who resisted just by living and morally defying the Nazis, often in the most extreme circumstances imaginable. Heroes of the Resistance celebrates all these forms of resistance.

Heroes of the Resistance is a project of the HOPE not hate Charitable Trust.  We celebrate in order to remember – to remind ourselves of the very worst that humanity can offer, but also the very best. 

https://heroesoftheresistance.org/

Description of the project • Memories of the Occupation in Greece

The survivors of the German Occupation in Greece narrate their life- histories and they also have the chance to narrate their personal postwar “german- greek” experience. The interviews provide an opportunity to preserve history from oblivion and they are an indispensable element of the Greek culture of remembrance. The fact that the interviews have been conducted 70 years after the war makes the archive an exemplary historical source. Such a comprehensive collection of interviews has not been done before in Greece. The interviews are coordinated by Prof. Dr. Hagen Fleischer from University of Athens. In the second phase, an online portal with the interviews will be created, the interviews will be preserved in their digital format and will be supplemented with other sources and materials such as keywords, headings, tab and qualitative information / summaries etc. An improved search and user functionality will be available. Educational materials based on the interviews will be developed to complement the online selection. Upon registration, the following materials will be available:

Description of the project • Memories of the Occupation in Greece

Greece under the Nazis: The German soldiers’ perspective

The most well-known example of help by Germans to the local Greek population would be Dr. Hans Löber, a German navy surgeon who was stationed on the island of Milos during 1943-1944. Dr. Löber used the area’s girls only school to house a hospital for the people of Milos. There never was a surgeon on the island and it was next to impossible for the locals to travel to Athens for proper medical care. We happen to know of a local who was operated by Dr. Hans Löber at the age of 3, saved from a otherwise inevitable mutilation. Resistance from German Soldiers: The case of the Penal Battalions According to Iassonas Chandrinos, the most dynamic form of support by German soldiers to the Greek people would be from members of Penal Battalions (Strafbataillon).

Greece under the Nazis: The German soldiers’ perspective

Axis exploitation of wartime Greece, 1941-1943 – Emory University Libraries

Title: Axis exploitation of wartime Greece, 1941-1943 Author:Etmektsoglou-Koehn, GabriellaSubjects:European history Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations Publishing
Creation Date: 1995
Contents: The aim of this thesis is to examine the economic aspects of Axis rule over wartime Greece, study the formation and implementation of different exploitation policies, and evaluate their effects on Greek life and the German-Italian relationship itself. By way of historical background, chapter one investigates the importance of economic issues in the prewar relationship of Germany and Italy to Greece, and defines Axis competing claims and objectives in this part of Southeastern Europe. The reasons for their military involvement in Greece are also explained here. Chapter two covers events leading to an armistice agreement between the belligerent armies, the division of Greece into occupied zones, and the formation of a Greek collaboration regime. Chapter three describes the structure of the military and civilian Axis administrations formed after the country’s surrender in April 1941. The role played by the three collaboration governments is assessed in chapter four, which also briefly examines the impact of Greece’s financial crisis on the country’s political and social life. Chapter five discusses the exploitation of Greece’s raw material and mineral wealth, and of its industrial capacity; the employment of free and forced labor; and the confiscation of Jewish property. Chapter six deals with requisitions of agricultural products and with the administration of food distribution. Axis measures taken prior to and after the introduction of an IRC administered relief program following the famine of winter 1941/42, are also analysed. Finally, chapter seven describes the financial chaos caused by the ‘astronomical’ sums Greece had to provide as occupation costs. German-Italian disputes over a reduction of Wehrmacht occupation expenses, and the measures taken to check the complete collapse of the Greek currency are also considered in this chapter. This thesis attempts to show that the entire period of Axis rule was characterized by German efforts to impose their wishes throughout Greece, even in the Italian occupation zone. Specific or general economic policies were again and again formulated, revised, and repealed, with the ultimate goal of serving Germany’s interests, especially military, while cheating its partner. Further, Nazi prewar Neuordnung plans were replaced by short-term strategies aiming at the maximum exploitation of Greece’s resources, without consideration for their catastrophic effects on the country’s economy.

Axis occupation of Greece – Wikipedia

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.[23] 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

Axis occupation of Greece – Wikipedia