During the decade of the 1940s Greece experienced harsh German/Italian/Bulgarian occupation, the emergence of a powerful resistance movement and civil war between communist and nationalists. This critical period in the country's modern history is graphically illustrated through contemporary documents, many of them translated from Greek, many of them difficult to access. This annotated documentary collection, which is prefaced by a substantial introduction, affords a penetrating insight into the history of the 1940s from a variety of perspectives.
During the decade of the 1940s Greece experienced harsh German/Italian/Bulgarian occupation, the emergence of a powerful resistance movement and civil war between communist and nationalists. This critical period in the country's modern history is graphically illustrated through contemporary documents, many of them translated from Greek, many of them difficult to access. This annotated documentary collection, which is prefaced by a substantial introduction, affords a penetrating insight into the history of the 1940s from a variety of perspectives.
Blood and Tears is a powerful autobiography set in the turbulent decade of 1940s Greece. Through the eyes of George Papavizas, an impressionable and intelligent young man who came of age in a time of war, foreign occupation, resistance, and civil war, we witness the tragedy and trauma suffered by an entire nation. Leaving his idyllic western Macedonian village as a teenager to begin university studies in Salonika in the fall of 1940, the author experienced the patriotic fervor that brought rare unity to the Greeks and the euphoria that swept the Hellenic nation to resounding victories against Mussolini's invading army. The nation's and Papavizas's university plans both collapsed, however, when Germany came to Italy's aid and the Greek nation was occupied by Germans, Italians, and Bulgarians for almost three years. The occupiers appropriated nearly all available resources, bringing the author and his family face to face with the grim needs of survival. For Papavizas, the first half of the 1940s consisted of the horrors of the triple occupation and the heroic armed resistance of the Greek people. This meant ruined villages and towns, including two deadly burnings of the author's village; British commandos operating from his own house; and the reappearance of the old curses of the Hellenic race -- dissension and distrust -- which eventually subverted the exhilarating harmony that prevailed during the fall of 1940, the nation's finest hour.
In this book, acclaimed history David Brewer investigates explores 1940s Greece -- one of the most tumultuous decades in Greece's modern history. Beginning in 1941, the occupation of Greece by Germany was intensely brutal: children starved on the streets of Athens; the Jewish population was decimated in the Holocaust; heroic acts of resistance were met with vicious reprisals. When Greece was finally freed from Nazi rule in 1944, the fractured and embittered nation became engulfed in civil war, as conflict flared between the British and American-sponsored government and communist-led rebels. In Greece, The Decade of War, Brewer expertly analyses these events and in doing so provides a compelling military and political history.
The Axis occupation of Greece during World War II began in April 1941 after the German and Italian invasion of Greece was carried out together with Bulgarian forces. The occupation lasted until the German withdrawal from the mainland in October 1944. The occupation brought about terrible hardships for the Greek civilian population. Over 300,000 civilians died in Athens alone from starvation, tens of thousands more through reprisals; minorities, particularly Jews, were deported to concentration camps; and, in the Bulgarian and German occupied areas, ethnic cleansing attempted to eradicate generations of Greek residents. The country's economy was ruined and the food situation desperate. When liberation came in October 1944, Greece was in a state of crisis, which soon led to the outbreak of civil war. The Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the pro-Western Greek governmental army and the Communist Democratic Army of Greece. It was the result of a highly polarized struggle between leftists and rightists which started in 1943 and targeted the power vacuum that the German-Italian occupation during World War II had created.
"Why were the Communists unable to overthrow a succession of feeble Athens governments? Woodhouse portrays a Greek Communist party weakened by internal feuding, divided by dissensions over policy, and overcome by the strength of U.S. forces. Basing his account on privileged access to documents, interviews with prominent survivors, and his own unique experience, he analyzes the characters, ideologies, and events behind one of the longest and most bitter civil wars of modern times. This is the definitive history."--BOOK JACKET.
A gripping story of struggle and triumph in Greece in 1940s concentrating on three critical phases of Greek history: The war against the Italians and Germans; the national resistance, and the civil war that followed. Stassinopoulos fought in the heroic resistance against the fascist invaders and vividly recounts the sacrifice, honor, and successes of the Greek armed forces and the Greek guerrillas drew the admiration of the free world and kindled hope for Allied powers victory.
Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 169. Chapters: 1940 in Greece, 1941 in Greece, 1942 in Greece, 1943 in Greece, 1944 in Greece, 1945 in Greece, 1946 in Greece, 1947 in Greece, 1948 in Greece, 1949 in Greece, Greece in World War II, Greek Civil War, Greek Resistance, Military history of Greece during World War II, The Holocaust in Greece, Second Battle of El Alamein, Battle of Crete, Battle of Greece, Greco-Italian War, Refugees of the Greek Civil War, Massacre of the Acqui Division, National Liberation Front, Axis occupation of Greece during World War II, Ohrana, Adriatic Campaign of World War II, Hartwig von Ludwiger, Dodecanese Campaign, Middle East Command, Battle of Leros, Air operations during the Greek Civil War, Battle of Vevi, Greek People's Liberation Army, Haidari concentration camp, Battle of Kos, National Republican Greek League, Alois Brunner, Jurgen Stroop, Balkans Campaign, Kidnap of General Kreipe, Holocaust of Viannos, List of Greek Resistance organizations, Northern Epirus Liberation Front, Operation Harling, Battle of Pindus, Operation Albumen, Democratic Army of Greece, Holocaust of Kedros, Italian Spring Offensive, Chameria Battalion, Battle of Elaia-Kalamas, Massacre of Kondomari, SS Kurtulu, Selahattin Ulkumen, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Capture of Klisura Pass, Paramythia executions, Panhellenic Union of Fighting Youths, Hellenic State, Razing of Kandanos, Montague Woodhouse, 5th Baron Terrington, Georgios Siantos, Battle of Morava-Ivan, Battle of Metaxas Line, Nikos Zachariadis, Damasta sabotage, Distomo massacre, The Guns of Navarone, N. G. L. Hammond, Greek legislative election, 1946, Hellmuth Felmy, Walter Schimana, Security Battalions, 117th Jager Division, Political Committee of National Liberation, Theodor Dannecker, Georgios Stanotas, Massacre of Kalavryta, Battle of Thermopylae, Greek films of the 1940s, Cretan...
The complicated and dramatic course of the Civil War in Greece had, for lack of parties interested in reconstructing the truth of its events, never been narrated prior to the appearance of this volume. It closed a gap in the history of our times, and did so with thoroughness and vivid journalistic immediacy. In addition to the known sources and unpublished documents, the author relied on testimony painstakingly collected from survivors of the tragedy who were scattered throughout the world. It remains the authoritative account of the kapetanios, the guerrilla chiefs who organized the partisans in the Greek mountains.
Woodhouse, Commander of the Allied Military Mission to the Greek Guerrillas in German-occupied Greece in 1943 and 1944, details the events that marked the "three rounds" in the Communist struggle for power during the Greek civil war
