Demonstration against the expansion of the Bulgarian zone of occupation

After the Greek army repelled the aggression of fascist Italy in 1940 and transferred hostilities to the territory of Albania , on April 6, 1941, Nazi Germany came to the aid of its Italian allies. On April 20, 1941, in accordance with the agreement between Germany, Italy and the Bulgarian government, parts of the Bulgarian army crossed the border with Greece without declaring war. As a result of Operation Marita, Greece was divided into three zones of occupation - German, Italian and Bulgarian.

The Bulgarian army (which did not take part in the actual hostilities) occupied the Greek region East Macedonia and Thrace provided by the Germans, except for the strip Nome Evros , which remained under German control of the border with Turkey. The area of ​​the region was 13 thousand square meters. km, its Greek population was 765 thousand people ^[2] .

Following the ideology of " Greater Bulgaria ", the Bulgarian government decided that it was given the opportunity to get revenge for the defeat in the Second Balkan and World War I. With the goal of joining the region to Bulgaria, the Bulgarian government and army pursued a policy of repression against the Greek population at all levels, including the closure of Greek schools and the expulsion of the Greek clergy ^[3] .

The premature and poorly organized uprising organized by the Greek communists in the cities of Drama and Doxato and the surrounding villages in September 1941, led to the bloody terror of the Bulgarian occupation authorities ^{[4] [5]} . This was followed by an unprecedented exodus of the Greek population from the Bulgarian occupation zone to the German one, which the Greek writer Ilias Venezis reflected in his classic book Exodus ( Greek Έξοδοδ ) ^{[6] [7] [8]} .

Until the end of 1941, more than 100 thousand Greeks fled the region and at the same time it was settled by the Bulgarians ^{[9] [10]} .

Throughout the war, the Greek resistance movement fettered 10 German divisions in mainland Greece (140 thousand people) ^[11] plus German forces in Crete and other islands, as well as 250 thousand Italians ( 11th Army (Italy) ) ^[12] .

The need to free military units to be sent to the Eastern and other fronts forced the German command to provide an opportunity for its Bulgarian allies to expand the zone of occupation in the Greek regions of Central Macedonia and Western Macedonia .

At the same time, the German command, realizing the historically developed, unlike friendly Greco-Serbian relations , unfriendly Greco-Bulgarian relations (in the report of the Wehrmacht officer Wende "hated Bulgarians") ^{[13] [14] [15]} , tried to calm his Greek "quisling » Ioannis Rallis . After Rallis announced that he would resign in case of transfer of the Macedonian capital, Thessaloniki , to the Bulgarians, the Reich governor in occupied Greece, Gunter Altenburg, told him: “These measures are by no means taken for political reasons, but purely for military reasons rational the use of German forces, so this deal is not intended to violate Greek rule in Macedonia ” ^[16] .

The Greek Resistance, in addition to the People's Liberation Army (ELAS) and other armed groups, was also represented by the wider Civil Liberation Front (EAM) . After a series of actions conducted by the EAM, which had no precedent in other occupied capitals, the French writer Roger Millieks stated that Athens was the "capital of European Resistance" ^[17] :

• From February 23, 1943, demonstrations were held throughout Greece against the planned civil mobilization and the sending of 90,000 Greek workers to Germany. The culmination was the March 7 demonstration in Athens , when 300,000 Athenians took to the streets and after clashes with Germans and Italians occupied the Ministry of Labor and burned lists ^{[ what? ]} . Several dozen demonstrators were killed and hundreds injured, but civilian mobilization was foiled.
• On March 25, 1943, 250-300 thousand Athenians took to the streets on the anniversary of the National Revolution of 1821 . In clashes with the occupiers, 32 demonstrators were killed and 180 were injured.
• On June 25, 1943, after the next mass execution of 106 prisoners in Kurnovo, 100 thousand demonstrators occupied the center of Athens. In clashes with the occupiers, 40 demonstrators were killed and 250 were injured ^[18] .

On July 7, 1943, with its leaflet, EAM informed the Greek people of the threat looming over Macedonia. “All of Macedonia is granted to Bulgarian atrocities ... The Bulgarian army is deployed east of the Axios river. Hundreds of thousands of Greeks - a third of the Greek population - in this corner of the Greek land, watered with blood, are threatened with extermination. The persecution and massacre spread throughout Macedonia ... Trembling from the growth of partisan forces, the Nazi beast, not having the strength to resist the partisans, sends Bulgarian hordes to Greece, gives all of Macedonia to extermination to animal imperialism ” ^[19] .

The demonstrations began with the capital of Macedonia, Thessaloniki , on July 10. On the same day, a general strike and demonstration swept Kilkis .

Since July 11, a wave of demonstrations and strikes swept the Macedonian cities of Langadas , Edessa , Nausa , Veria , Aridea , Giannitsa , Florina , Ptolemaida , Kozani , as well as the cities of Larisa , Volos , Karditsa and others ^[20] . EAM was preparing for a decisive performance in the capital. The occupation authorities have banned any speech.

The entire underground EAM network was set in motion. On Thursday, July 22, 1943, at 5:30 a.m., the bells rang in all the churches of the Greek capital. The strike was universal. Despite the ban, at 8:30 from 300 to 500 thousand (according to various sources) demonstrators took to the streets and occupied the city center around the rally office and the Bulgarian embassy. Initially, the occupation authorities used Italian cavalry to disperse the demonstration. After the Italians did not master the demonstrators, German tanks went against them. Standing in front of the head tank, 18-year-old Panayota Statopoulou was mowed down by a machine gun burst. 19-year-old Kula Lily , who climbed onto the tank, took off her shoes and beat with a heel on the tanker's head leaning out of the tower, was killed by an automatic burst. In ongoing clashes, 53 demonstrators were killed, more than 200 were injured and more than 500 were arrested and sent to prisons. However, the occupation authorities realized that the events lead to a nationwide explosion and the involvement of the anti-communist strata in the Resistance, who refused to cooperate with EAM-ELAS for this reason.

The expansion of the Bulgarian occupation zone and the release of German forces were foiled ^{[21] [22] [23] [24]} .

The struggle against the Greek partisans in Western and Central Macedonia remained with the German troops. In Central Macedonia, not satisfying Bulgarian ambitions here and retaining its control, the German command, however, used the Bulgarian units in punitive operations in the adjacent areas of Kilkis and the Halkidiki Peninsula.

After Italy’s withdrawal from the war, which followed immediately after these events, a small part of the Italian formations continued the war on the side of Germany. Most Italians surrendered to the Germans and were interned. Some units were exterminated by the Germans (see The slaughter of the Aqui division ) or surrendered to the Greek partisans (see Disarmament of the Pinerolo division ).

As a result, not trying to liberate troops anymore by expanding the Bulgarian zone, the German command was forced to transfer German units to other European countries, in particular from Poland, to Greece ^[25] .

At the same time, the German command also tried to partially solve the problem by transferring parts of German fines to Greece ( Penalty Division 999 ) ^[26] , as well as “foreign” formations such as the Bergmann Special Purpose Battalion , Arab Legion "Free Arabia" and others.