Greeks in the Waffen SS real interesting...

[Prokomenos]

Do you know that were Greeks in the waffen SS? Read below. Note this post is only for educational purposes. I was never taught this in Greek/American school so Im sure most of you would like to know what has been hidden..


Hellenes in the Waffen SS

Konstatin Kussunis, was born on October 28 1914 in Hellas. He joined the Greek SS Volunteer Company of the Waffen SS in Stettin in late 1944. Konstatin and other Hellenic volunteers saw much action around Breslau, Marienberg, Bromberg, and Danzig. Kussunis while in a battle was wounded at Danzig and immediately evacuated by ship Pretoria to Copenhagen, Denmark. After that he was sent by rail road to the military hospital at Elmhorn.

By the end of the war most of the Greek SS volunteers were also sent to Denmark from Danzig. Most of them settled in Denmark a Scandinavian country for fear with good reason if they returned back to Hellas most likely they would of been tried as Nazi sympathizers or also known as collaborators. But after the war most of the German sympathizers were tried and most of them received light punishment such as very short prison sentences. In fact around three were only put to death. The real enemy to Hellas were the Communists who did as they wished, and which they caused much pain and suffering to the Greek people.

Source J.Lee Ready, World War Two, Nation by Nation, Herakles and the Swastika, Antonio J. Munoz

Also note about 1,000 Greeks may seem modest, but by no means it was. For instance, from the by far more populated Spain only 500 volunteers enrolled, from Great Britain only 100, and from Sweden some 750.

Also 10,000 Greek-Russian Pontians who were part of the Russian R.O.A (Russian Liberation Front) under the leadership of Andrie Vlasov. Vlasov's right hand man was a Greek by the name of Kromiathes. The R.O.A was very ant-Stalinist right up to the very end of WW2.

Over 3,000 Pontic Greeks also joined the 14th division of the Paneuropean Schutzstaffel.

[Ellinas]

Apostates always exist in Greek history.

[Voulgaroktonos]

Originally Posted by Ellinas
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Apostates always exist in Greek history.

Well said.

[Prokomenos]

To be honest with you I would rather be under Greek Fascists or National Socialist government then be under Communist control. The Greek Communists were by far much more ruthless towards the Greek people than say the Greek nationalists groups and those that worked under the Nazis. The Communists commited acts of murder, savagery and brutality in large numbers against the Greek citizen. Whats funny is I remember in school being taught that the Adartes were Greek heroes only if I knew then what I know now I would of told the teacher to go to hell.

[Ellinas]

What this has to do with your article?

We don't doubt the brutality the adartes showed during the civil war but it is nothing compared to what the Germans did to us. Almost one million of Greeks died because of their occupation, a genocide without a doubt. And no matter if some people like it or not, the communists fought for Hellas during this occupation.

I view nations, not ideologies. It was a fight between Greece and Germany, not between fascists and communists or whatever. Both patriots and communists of Greece where against the common enemy then. And the Greeks who went with Germany (SS in our case) are definately traitors.

[Prokomenos]

It has a lot to do with the article. This whole article and the book was about the creation of the Greek Security battalions to combat Greek communists which before the end of the war many of those Greeks volunteered to fight for the Germans outside Greece to escape certain death by the filthy Greek communists. Also almost half of Greece were nazi sympathizers including Ioannis Metaxas.


If you going to call them apostates then the same term applies to the communists? Many of the Greek apostates which you call fought the Italians and the Germans at the beggining of the wars. Many of them went to the Germans in the end because they knew Germany was going to lose it was as simple as that. If they would of stayed in Greece the Greek communists would of eventually caught them because and they would of suffered a terrible death. Greek Communists completely outnumbered Greek fascists and Greek nazis.

If anything the Communists were traitors they were the ones who were pillaging, stealing and murdering common Greek folk because it was for their cause! The communists did not fight the Germans for the Greek people they fought the Germans because once the Germans were out they had plans to have complete control of Greece. So dont tell me they fought for the Greek people.

Now whether or not who believes in what ect those Greeks that you call apostates many of them lost their lives fighting communists. Personaly atleast most Greek Fascists dreams is to bring nothing but glory to Greece unlike the communists who later during the civil war stole Greek children and send them to freakin Bulgaria. This is a topic that has caused and will continue to cause a heated debate between Greeks.
I would also like to know were you came up with the numbers 1,000,000 Greeks dying at the hands of the nazis this is definately a first. Can you provide me a source Im very curious...

Personally I dont support any of the two but I like to read two sides to the stories not just what they teach you in school which is always one sided..

A couple of good books that covers this subject are the following :Hitlers Greece by Mark Marowitz, Herakles and the Swastika by Antonio J. Munoz, Pro Axis Security Battalions and SS volunteers by Nikolaos D. Christodoulou..

[Ellinas]

Originally Posted by Prokomenos
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

It has a lot to do with the article. This whole article and the book was about the creation of the Greek Security battalions to combat Greek communists which before the end of the war many of those Greeks volunteered to fight for the Germans outside Greece to escape certain death by the filthy Greek communists.


If you going to call them apostates then the same term applies to the communists? Many of the Greek apostates which you call fought the Italians and the Germans at the beggining of the wars. Many of them went to the Germans in the end because they knew Germany was going to lose it was as simple as that. If they would of stayed in Greece the Greek communists would of eventually caught them because and they would of suffered a terrible death. Greek Communists completely outnumbered Greek fascists and Greek nazis. If anything the Communists were traitors they were the ones who were pillaging, stealing and murdering common Greek folk because it was for their cause! The andartes did not fight the Germans for the Greek people they fought the Germans because once the Germans were out they thought they would of had complete control of Greece. Now whether or not who believes in what ect those Greeks that you call apostates many of them lost their lives fighting communists.

I would also like to know were you came up with the numbers 1,000,000 Greeks dying at the hands of the nazis this is definately a first. Can you provide me a source Im very curious...

Now one thing to clear up I am not a nazi sympathizer I just despise communists and everything about them. ;)

Are you implying that the Germans occupied Greece and had every attitude to cooperate with us and then the communists ruined the whole thing by fighting them? The reality is far from that. Due to the previous events, the Italians and the Germans came to Greece as invaders, with the implied behavior.

I don't know what it would happen if Greece would be with the axis from the beginning, I see what really happened. Our leader Ioannis Metaxas did not accept to offer Hellas to the disposal of the axis (as many of our modern politicians would do in a similar occasion), so the axis became our enemy. The only way they could take the strategic ground of Greece was the invasion. And the invasion was not just an entrance of soldiers.

With how many people who were alive during the German occupation have you talked with? I've talked with many of them (and they were not communists). The brutality of the Germans can't be explained with words:
They exterminated entire villages and towns. They were killing the men in massive executions and they were raping the women. They were stealing all the goods and sending them to Germany. Greece was starving - Have you seen a photo of a Greek child during the German occupation? The "civilized" Germans burned monasteries and other monuments the Turks and the Latins respected. The official number of the dead Greeks was about 600,000 I think, but the number becomes much bigger if you count the ones who died from hunger and hardship during or after the occupation. Any attrocities of the adartes/communists can be compared with the destruction and the development retardation the Germans bringed to Greece. Any sympathy to Hitler's era Germany is a blasphemy for the hundreds of thousands (if not million) Greeks who died and the catastrophe Greece endured.

[Prokomenos]

Kala in the end Greece for Greece plain and simple. Metaxas was indeed a nazi sympathizer but that does not mean he would of let them come in and take Greece without a fight thats ridiculous re! Any war fought has innocent casualties its unfortunate but a term used to describe it is casualties of war. I actually have a couple of relatives including my grandmother who was alive during the occupation not that she had anything good to say about the Germans but most of her frustration was aimed against the Bulgarians and Greek communists.

Also dont forget most villages that were burned down were actually burned down by Greek Security Battalions mostly did that because they suspected that they were communist sympathizers. The Germans created those groups because they could not deal with the rebels, communists and focus to fight the English and the allies at the same time. I definately condemn the burning of Greek villages only because not all of them were guilty but only suspected of being communists sympathizers.

[Ellinas]

[quote=Prokomenos;3605]Kala in the end Greece for Greece plain and simple. Metaxas was indeed a nazi sympathizer but that does not mean he would of let them come in and take Greece without a fight thats ridiculous re!

This is the obvious, but it still need balls to resist when you have a superpower against you (Germany of that age).

Look how our politicians are behaving today: They sacrifice the national interests of Hellas because they want to be likeable to today's superpower (USA).

Originally Posted by Prokomenos
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Any war fought has innocent casualties its unfortunate but a term used to describe it is casualties of war. I actually have a couple of relatives including my grandmother who was alive during the occupation not that she had anything good to say about the Germans but most of her frustration was aimed against the Bulgarians and Greek communists.

It depends on the situation. I am not sure about the situation in Macedonia during the occupation, however I know the terrible impact of the Bulgarians there. I am from Southern Greece and from the narrations of elders in Peloponnesus and Crete I've learned that the German occupation was the most terrible period of Greece's history the last century.

Originally Posted by Prokomenos
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Also dont forget most villages that were burned down were actually burned down by Greek Security Battalions mostly did that because they suspected that they were communist sympathizers. The Germans created those groups because they could not deal with the rebels, communists and focus to fight the English and the allies at the same time. I definately condemn the burning of Greek villages only because not all of them were guilty but only suspected of being communists sympathizers.

Here is what I am trying to say: The Germans were not behaving like they wanted to cooperate with the Greeks and the communists were the only problem, they were hostile to every Greek who resisted. They were executing a village because an inhabitant of this village killed one German soldier, and other situations like that.

The Germans were squashing every resistence from the starving Greeks. Except the elite which was the 5% of the population and was favored by the Germans , Greece was starving, this is a thing you ignore. The ones dying of hunger were more than the ones dying of warfares.

[Prokomenos]

Now with the famine the Germans, Italians were to blame and also for that fact that England had setup a blockade and they refused to remove. Listen Im in no way defending Germany I just want to get that straight. After reading books and information specifically on Greece during world war 2 all three books that I have posted pretty much say the same thing.... This is an interesting article that I had on HellenicLife.net when the site was up regarding the famine in Greece and who were to blame since everyone was pointing the finger at only Germany...

The shortage of food during the Greek famine winter of 1941-42 caused much frustration and anger in the Greek population. This famine, with other even on the part of Italy's control and administration of Greece, aided directly the growth of the Greek guerrilla movement beginning in the spring of 1942.

By the time the Wehrmacht entered Greece, a string of victories across Europe had given the troops a sense of almost superhuman invincibility. Their behavior fascinated one young American in Athens. He wrote that morale and discipline had been replaced by a corporate realization of power which runs through the German army from generals to privates. They all appear to have a sense of undeviating strength which creates a psychology difficult for outsiders to understand. The Germans began to steal and plunder willingly in Greece. They empty houses of whatever meets their eye. In Pistolakis house they took the pillow slips and grabbed the Cretan heirlooms from the valuable collection they have. From the poor houses in the area they seized sheets and blankets. From other neighborhoods they grab oil paintings and even the metal knobs from the doors.
Strong criticism of the Wehrmacht was also coming from internal German sources. On May 25, plenipotentiary Alenburg warned Berlin in alarm of of the catastrophic supply situation in Greece, and advised that the army should be bringing food into the country not taking it out. He was backed up by an Abwehr report which drew an unflattering contrast between the British, who had distributed food stocks to the Greeks before their retreat, the Italians, who were apparently distributing pasta and oil, and the Wehrmacht which was busy confiscating all means of transport as well as food.

However, alongside plundering by individual soldiers, supply officers were requisitioning much larger quantities of goods: 25,000 oranges, 4,500 lemons and 100,000 cigarettes were shipped off Chios within three weeks of occupation. The steamer Pierre Luigi, which left Piraeus in June, carried a typical cargo- hundreds of bales of cotton goods, jute, and sole leather which had been seized from Greek warehouses to be shipped north on behalf of the Wehrmacht High Command. Army officers also seized available stocks of currants, figs, rice and olive oil. James Schafer, an Amerian oil executive working in Greece, summed it up " The Germans are looting for all they are worth, both openly and by forcing the Greeks to sell for worthless paper marks, issued locally.

In July Altenburg did succeed in attracting Hitler's attention to the problem. But barely a month into the invasion of the Soviet Union, his supreme gamble, the Fuhrer did not pay much attention to what he must have regarded as a rather marginal matter. He issued vague orders that help should be provided if possible, at least in the zones still occupied by German troops. In Berlin, however, the Ministry of Food and Agricultural was against giving any assistance to Greece at all. The Foreign Ministry tried arguing that the Italians had originally agreed to take responsiblity for provisioning Greece. But as Italy had no surplus of its own and was in fact increasingly dependent upon German food imports, this stance virtually condemned Greece to starvation.

Neither national or municipal mortality statistics are completely reliable. The figures obtained by district councils were more conscientiously compiled than nation ones, all statistics tend to underestimate the actual rate of mortality, how badly we cannot say, since many deaths were not announced to the authorities. Families dumped the bodies of deceased relatives in the public cemeteries at night so that they could hold on their ration cards. Sometimes they buried them in hastily dug unmarked graves. The municipal services ended up collecting hundreds of anonymous corpses, and these too did not figure in the official data. Two highly disturbing demographic trends emerged from Ministry of Health data. First, 1941 and 1942 were years in which for the first time since records began the mortality rate exceeded the birth rate, leaving the city of Athens with a sharply falling population. In Athens the birthrate fell from 15 per thousand in 1940 to 12.5 in 1941 and 1942. The death rate rose over the same period from 12 per thousand to 25.8 in 1941 and 39.3 in 1942. A similar trend was evident throughout the country as a whole. In addition, mortality among children rose more slowly than among adults. Many mother and fathers had died living the children to fend for themselves. On many occasions this was the result of a deliberate choice by the parents to give their children any food that they found. Adults above forty years old seem to have been most susceptible, particularly males. The famine, in other words, was creating thousands of widows and orphans. Though the effects were complex and took time to work themselves out, it seems likely that the destruction of the family unit as a result of the famine profoundly influenced the response of Greek society over the coming year to the Axis occupation and it was a big one.

Despite such defiance, panic spread swiftly, for few people could feel entirely confident of escaping starvation. One Athenian wrote later: " The first dead person I encountered, swollen from hunger, frightened me because I was hungry too. Will we live?", was the question on their minds. To Roger Milliex, the faces of dead children shaven and distorted by hunger, had lost all semblance of humanity. Food became and obsession, dominating conversations and invading people's dreams. Nothing has any importance today apart from the question of food, or rather hunger, Christides wrote. Cold, snow, hunger, Ioanna Tsatsou noted in her diary on 25 of November. An early resistance proclamation, dating from October 1941, warned that famine and misery have reached their final stage, our whole race is threatened with complete extinction. A swiss woman who left Thessalonika in December 1941 reported that Greeks accuse the Germans of destroying food rather than letting Greeks have it, they are convinced that hunger is the Germans "secret weapon" and that this is being systematically used against them for the purpose of their deliberate extermination. She warned " the spectre of a contrived extermination of a whole population cannot be dismissed as an illusion conjured up by starved stomachs but rather viewed as a logical appraisal of German behavior in Greece since the invasion of Russia.

A German archeologist returned from a visit to Athens in May 1942. Warning that pro-German sentiment, formerly strong, had declined as a result of the famine basically caused by the Italians, he reminded civil servants of the Greeks, unique importance in the coming peace as the only people of non Slavic stock able to fulfill the European mission against the Slavs of the East. Berlin continued to regard occupation as a matter of profit and loss for the occupying power. Goods were still being exported from Greece to help the Reich war effort during the worst months of the famine. The Axis presented the famine as a problem caused by the Italian administriation and by the British sea blockade and suggested that it should be lifted to enable grain to reach Greece from outside Europe. Though that was a another reason for the famine, the British according to them could not lift the blockade because such a move would be painful for the British, who were relying upon the blockade at a time when they had little else to use against their enemies.

The hunger was its peak when the British agreed, for the first time, to permit the blockade to be broken. Public opinion in Britain and the USA, together with worries about the effects inside Greece on popular sentiment towards Britain, pushed Whitehall down this path. On February 16 the British Cabinet agreed to allow shipments of wheat, provided that they were sent under neutral supervision. For several months London, Berlin and Rome wrangled discreetly over the composition of the proposed relief commission. An international Red Cross mission had been established in Athens in October 1941 to supervise the Kurtulus shipments. Eventually this was expanded to include Swedish representatives. The new committee issued new ration cards to the civilian population and controlled the distribution of imported grain shipments inside the country. The food situation for the Greek population improved immediately thanks for the Greeks in Diaspora who constantly brought it to the attention of the powers to be.