When people talk about the turning points of the second world war, they usually start with Stalingrad or D-Day. Greece is often an afterthought. That is a massive mistake. Honestly, if you look at the timeline, the way Greece handled the Axis powers didn't just frustrate Mussolini—it arguably cost Hitler the entire war.
It started with a "No."
October 28, 1940. The Italian Ambassador, Emanuele Grazzi, showed up at the home of Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas at 3:00 AM. He handed over an ultimatum: let Italian troops occupy strategic Greek sites or face war. Metaxas looked him in the eye and supposedly said "Alors, c'est la guerre" (Then it is war), though the Greek public shortened it to a simple, defiant Oxi—No.
Most experts at the time thought Greece would fold in days. Italy was a global superpower with a massive air force. Greece was... not. But then something wild happened. The Greek army didn't just hold the line in the Pindus Mountains; they actually pushed the Italians back into Albania. It was the first real land victory for the Allies against the Axis. It embarrassed Mussolini so badly that Hitler had to step in.
The Balkan Delay That Ruined Operation Barbarossa
This is where things get controversial among historians, but the evidence is pretty heavy. Because the Greeks were beating the Italians, Hitler was forced to launch Operation Marita to secure his southern flank. He sent his Panzers through Yugoslavia and into Greece in April 1941.
He won, obviously. The sheer weight of the Luftwaffe and the German divisions was too much. But it took time.
Specifically, it took several weeks of high-intensity combat that Hitler hadn't planned for. Why does this matter? Because it pushed back the start date of Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of the Soviet Union. By the time the German tanks were rolling toward Moscow, the brutal Russian winter had set in. If the Greeks hadn't held out, Hitler might have reached Moscow in the dry heat of autumn. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel later admitted during the Nuremberg trials that the "unnecessarily high" resistance in Greece was a disaster for the German schedule.
Life Under the Boot: The Great Famine
Once the occupation settled in, things got dark fast. Greece was split into three zones: German, Italian, and Bulgarian. The Bulgarians were particularly brutal in the north, attempting a "Bulgarianization" of the region that led to horrific massacres in places like Drama.
But the real killer was the hunger.
The Great Famine (Megalos Limos) of 1941-1942 was a man-made catastrophe. The Nazis basically treated Greece like a giant pantry, looting everything. They seized livestock, grain, and even the fuel needed to transport food. Inflation went through the roof. A loaf of bread that cost 10 drachmas before the war cost millions by 1944. People were dying in the streets of Athens by the hundreds every single day.
Historian Mark Mazower, in his book Inside Hitler’s Greece, details how the Red Cross finally had to intervene to break the British blockade just to keep the population from being entirely wiped out. It’s estimated that at least 300,000 Greeks died from starvation during this period. Think about that number. It’s a staggering loss for a country that small.
The Resistance: Why the Mountains Never Fell
The Nazis could control the cities, but they never really controlled the mountains. Groups like EAM-ELAS (the left-wing partisans) and EDES (the right-wing nationalist units) made life a living hell for the occupiers.
You’ve probably heard of the Gorgopotamos Bridge. In November 1942, British SOE agents teamed up with Greek resistance fighters to blow it up. It was a masterpiece of sabotage. They cut the main supply line to Rommel’s Afrika Korps right when he needed it most. It was one of the few times during the war that the left and right wings of the resistance actually worked together before they started shooting at each other.
The cost of this resistance was "Reprisals."
If a German soldier was killed, the Nazis would burn an entire village to the ground. Distomo. Kalavryta. These names are etched into Greek memory. In Kalavryta, the Germans rounded up every male over the age of 12 and executed them on a hillside while the women and children were locked in a burning schoolhouse. They survived, but the town was decimated. This wasn't "collateral damage." It was a deliberate policy of terror.
The Jewish Community of Thessaloniki
We can't talk about Greece world war two without talking about the "Jerusalem of the Balkans." Thessaloniki had one of the oldest and most vibrant Sephardic Jewish communities in the world.
In 1941, there were about 50,000 Jews in the city. By 1945, nearly 95% of them were gone. The Nazis moved with terrifying efficiency, shipping them to Auschwitz-Birkenau in cattle cars. Unlike in some other occupied countries, the geography of Greece—a series of islands and isolated mountain towns—made it incredibly hard to hide people once they were rounded up in urban centers.
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The Bittersweet Ending
When the Germans finally pulled out in October 1944, there wasn't a long period of celebration. Instead, the country slid almost immediately into a brutal Civil War. The vacuum left by the Axis was filled by a fight between the communist-led resistance and the British-backed government forces.
It’s one of the reasons why the Greek experience of WWII feels so heavy. The trauma didn't stop when the Nazis left. The scars of the 1940s defined Greek politics for the next fifty years. It’s why you’ll still see elderly Greeks today talking about German reparations. To them, the war isn't ancient history; it’s something that happened to their parents, and the debt was never truly settled.
How to Explore This History Today
If you actually want to understand the scale of what happened, don't just stay in the tourist areas of Athens. You've got to go deeper.
- Visit the War Museum in Athens: It’s comprehensive, but pay close attention to the personal diaries and makeshift weapons used by the partisans. It puts the "No" in perspective.
- The Holocaust Museum in Thessaloniki: It is essential for understanding the cultural void left by the destruction of the Jewish community.
- The Memorial in Kalavryta: It is a somber, haunting place. The clock on the church tower is permanently stopped at the time the massacre began.
- Read "Captain Corelli’s Mandolin": Yeah, it’s a novel, and the movie was okay, but Louis de Bernières actually did a lot of homework on the Italian occupation of Cephalonia and the massacre of the Acqui Division.
- Check out the "Oxi Day" Parades: If you’re in Greece on October 28, you’ll see the entire country shut down to celebrate a day they entered a war. It’s unique. Most countries celebrate the end of a war; Greece celebrates the day they refused to give up.
The reality of Greece in World War Two is a story of extreme defiance followed by extreme suffering. It’s a reminder that even a small nation can derail the plans of an empire if they’re willing to pay a high enough price.
To dig deeper into the tactical side of the Mediterranean theater, look into the records of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Cairo, which managed the Greek resistance. Their declassified files offer a raw, unpolished look at the guerrilla warfare that happened in the Cretan mountains and the Peloponnese.