By Neil Patrick
Greece has been in the news now for months as successive ECB bailouts have failed to restore investor confidence in the Greek economy. Today, the Greek people are suffering more than at any time for the past 70 years. The last time Greece suffered like this, Germany co-incidentally was also centre stage to these events although Mussolini’s Italy was also a prime protagonist.
But the common perception of the roles of Germany and Greece in the current crisis have been misunderstood in my view. A Bloomberg editorial concluded that, "Europe's taxpayers have provided as much financial support to Germany as they have to Greece", describing the German role and posture in the Greek crisis thus:
“In the millions of words written about Europe's debt crisis, Germany is typically cast as the responsible adult and Greece as the profligate child. Prudent Germany, the narrative goes, is loath to bail out freeloading Greece, which borrowed more than it could afford and now must suffer the consequences. By December 2009, according to the Bank for International Settlements, German banks had amassed claims of $704 billion on Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, much more than the German banks' aggregate capital. In other words, they lent more than they could afford. . . . irresponsible borrowers can't exist without irresponsible lenders. Germany's banks were Greece's enablers.”
But I want to remind you about much earlier events, for a better insight into the real character of the Greeks. If your memory doesn’t go back for 70 years, here’s a summary of events in Greece in 1940-41.
The so-called Balkans Campaign began with the Italian invasion of Greece on October 28, 1940. Within weeks, the Italians were driven out of Greece as Greek forces pushed on to occupy much of southern Albania. In March 1941, a major Italian counterattack failed, and Germany was forced to come to the aid of its Italian ally.
Operation Marita began on April 6, with German troops invading Greece through Bulgaria in an effort to secure their southern flank. The combined Greek and British Commonwealth forces fought back with great tenacity, but were vastly outnumbered and outgunned, and after intense combat, finally collapsed. The city of Athens fell on April 27.
The Greek campaign ended in a quick and complete German victory with the fall of Kalamata in the Peloponnese; by the end of that month, some 50,000 British and Commonwealth troops had been evacuated, and a further 7,000 were taken into captivity.
The Axis conquest of Greece was completed with the capture of Crete a month later. Crete was strategically important to both the supply of British and Commonwealth forces fighting Rommel from their base in Egypt and to the security of British supplies to and from the Far East via the Suez Canal.
The battle for Crete began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany launched an airborne invasion of Crete under the code-name Operation Mercury. Greek and Allied forces, along with Cretan civilians, defended the island. It was a tough and bloody fight in which the allied forces inflicted heavy casualties on Germany’s elite paratroop and mountain forces. These German casualties were so heavy that Hitler forbade that German paratroops were to be used again in any large-scale airborne operations.
Combined Allied casualties (Greek, British, Australian and New Zealanders) in Crete over the period 20 May – 1 June 1941 were 23,830, comprising 3,990 dead, 2,750 wounded 17,090 captured.
Inspired by the Greek resistance during the Italian and German invasions, Churchill said, "Hence we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks". In response to a letter from King George VI dated 3 December 1940, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated that, "all free peoples are deeply impressed by the courage and steadfastness of the Greek nation", and in a letter to the Greek ambassador dated 29 October 1942, he wrote that "Greece has set the example which every one of us must follow until the despoilers of freedom everywhere have been brought to their just doom."
Perhaps surprisingly, even Hitler praised the courage of his Greek adversaries. In a speech made at the Reichstag in 1941, Hitler expressed his admiration for the Greek resistance saying of the campaign:
"For the sake of historical truth I must verify that only the Greeks, of all the adversaries who confronted us, fought with bold courage and highest disregard of death"
The Führer also ordered the release and repatriation of all Greek prisoners of war, as soon as they had been disarmed, "because of their gallant bearing." According to Hitler's Chief of Staff, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the Führer "wanted to give the Greeks an honorable settlement in recognition of their brave struggle, and of their blamelessness for this war."
So it is my firm belief that the Greek people are made of much stronger stuff than they are currently given credit for. If you are British, Australian or Kiwi, remember that our forebears stood shoulder to shoulder with the Greeks against totalitarian and oppressive invaders to defend the freedom and democracy that the ancient Greeks created. The Greeks have not forgotten this and we should not forget them in their current hour of need.
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