How Churchill Broke the Greek Resistance
How Winston Churchill and the British government attacked the Greek Resistance and sowed the seeds of civil war.
On May 8, 1945, Hitler’s successors signed Germany’s capitulation. By that point, Greece had already been liberated for six months. Across more than three years, the Greek people had waged a mass resistance against the fascist occupiers — the Italians, the Bulgarians, and above all the Germans — in which they had shown heroic courage in the face of a boundless terror.
Yet a new terror now began to strike the country; for while collaborators preserved their posts at the head of the army, the police, and the organs of state power, the partisans were persecuted, deported, and executed anew. For long years, up until 1974, the Greek resistance was presented as a criminal enterprise by successive governments. While the Resistance was finally recognized in 1982, it is still not the object of any official commemoration.
Fear of a Red Greece
You are responsible for maintaining order in Athens and for neutralizing or destroying all EAM-ELAS [National Liberation Front – Greek People’s Liberation Army] bands approaching the city. You may make any regulations you like for the strict control of the streets or for the rounding up of any number of truculent persons. . . . It would be well of course if your command were reinforced by the authority of some Greek Government. . . . Do not, however, hesitate to act as if you were in a conquered city where a local rebellion is in progress. . . . We have to hold and dominate Athens. It would be a great thing for you to succeed in this without bloodshed if possible, but also with bloodshed if necessary.
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