Armed collaboration in Greece, 1941–1944

Abstract

In this paper a particular strand of collaboration in occupied Greece is explored: military or armed collaboration. The available evidence is reviewed and several puzzles raised by armed collaboration in Greece are discussed: its geographical distribution, size, timing, relation to prewar politics and cleavages, and the motivations of officers and rank-and-file who served in collaborationist militias. A statistical analysis is then presented using data from a regional study conducted in Greece by the author. The article concludes with some general points about the theoretical framework that best helps the analysis of the phenomenon and three key theoretical concepts are underlined: indirect rule, civil war, and endogenous dynamics.

Keywords:

• collaboration
• occupation
• resistance
• Greek Civil War

Notes

 1. Walter Lucas, “In Greece, ‘Quislings’ are pro-British,” Daily Express, 11 October 1944.

 2. He means Katakolon, in the western Peloponnese (prefecture of Ilia).

 3. The Italians raised small local units of Vlachs in central Greece (Thessaly), Slavomacedonians in northern Greece (Western Macedonia), and Chams in Western Greece (Epirus). The legislation decreeing the mobilisation of the first four battalions was passed by the collaborationist government headed by Ioannis Rallis on 7 April 1943.

 4. More specifically, the Evzone units garrisoned and recruited in the towns of Halkida (December 1943), Patras (January 1944), Agrinio (February 1944), Corinth (April 1944), Pyrgos (May 1944), and Nafpaktos (June 1944). The gendarmerie units were set up in the towns of Tripolis, Sparta, Gytheion, Meligalas, and Gargalianoi, in the spring and summer of 1944.

 5. Hondros, “Too Weighty a Weapon”, 34; Occupation & Resistance, 82.

 6. Hondros, Occupation & Resistance, 83.

 7. Note that the order of battle diverges from the information suggested by other archival sources, which confirms the general confusion about this matter, caused by the fluid and local nature of the collaboration.

 8. Hondros, “Too Weighty a Weapon”, 34.

 9. Gerolymatos, “The Role of the Greek Officer Corps in the Resistance”, 25.

10. PRO HS 5/698, “Details of Collaborators with Missions in the Field.” Appendix “B” to Final Report by 199417 Capt. Gibson.

11. Hondros, Occupation & Resistance, 81; Gerolymatos, “The Security Battalions and the Civil War”.

12. Woodhouse, C.M. “Situation in Greece, Jan to May 1944”, quoted in Baerentzen, British Reports on Greece 1943–44 by J. M. Stevens, C. M. Woodhouse & D. J. Wallace, 1982, 77.

13. PRO, FO 371/43689, “Summary of report on ‘Communism in the Peloponnese’.”

14. PRO, WO 208/713, “Political Intelligence Paper No. 55, Greek Security Battalions”, dated 18 June 1944.

15. PRO, HS 5/699, “Second Report of Colonel J.M. Stevens on Present Conditions in Peloponnese”, dated 24 June 1944.

16. PRO FO 371/43688 R9898/9/19, Col. C.E. Barnes, “Observations in Greece, July 1943 to April 1944”.

17. PRO, HS 5/699, “Second Report of Colonel J.M. Stevens on Present Conditions in Peloponnese”.

18. Hondros, Occupation & Resistance, 83.

19. The discussion of the Argolid draws from Kalyvas (2006).

20. The level of control was coded as follows. Zone 1: Incumbent combatants permanently garrisoned in the village or in a one-hour radius; incumbent combatants and administrators operate freely during all times of day and night; no insurgent activity reported; insurgent clandestine organisations never set up or completely destroyed. Zone 2: Incumbent combatants permanently garrisoned in the village or in a one-hour radius; incumbent combatants and administrators operate freely during all times of day and night; insurgent clandestine organisations operate inside the village; clandestine meetings take place; sporadic visits at night by insurgent combatants. Zone 3: Incumbent combatants permanently garrisoned in the village but do not move freely at night; incumbent administrators usually do not sleep in their homes; insurgent organisers are active; regular nightly visits by insurgent combatants at night. Zone 4: Insurgent combatants permanently garrisoned in the village or near it; insurgent combatants and administrators operate freely during all times of day and night; incumbent clandestine organisations inside the village; clandestine meetings take place; sporadic visits at night by incumbent combatants. Zone 5: Insurgent combatants permanently garrisoned in the village or near it; insurgent combatants and administrators operate freely during all times of day and night; no insurgent activity reported; incumbent clandestine organisations never set up or completely destroyed.

21. All data sources (with the exception of recruitment) are listed in Kalyvas (2006, 415).

22. It is possible that insurgents targeted villages with future collaborationist potential (which, in turn, would indicate that their violence had no effect). However, prior analysis of the determinants of insurgent violence shows that insurgent territorial control rather than political factors or expectations about political behaviour best predict this violence; in turn, territorial control was largely a function of geography (Kalyvas 2006).

23. Again, keep in mind that German control had nothing to do with political or other preferences.

24. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War.

25. Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood ; Vermeulen, “To varos tou parelthontos”; Aschenbrenner, “The Civil War from the Perspective of a Messenian Village”.

26. Kalyvas, “The Ontology of ‘Political Violence’”.