How did Greece influence Greece financially and politically? How did the Greek political parties manage the reign? Historian Menelaos Charalambidis interviewed DW and Maria Rigoutsou.

On May 8, 1945 the officially ended World War II in Europe. One day earlier, the signing of Germany’s unconditional surrender to Reims, France, had preceded the signature. It is estimated that more than 35 million Europeans were killed, and during World War II, Germany had invaded 11 countries. Europe had literally turned into ruins and the destruction of main infrastructure and wealth sources were incalculable.

On the end of World War II, we talked to Menelaos Charalambides, who is a doctorate of modern Greek history at the University of Athens and author of the historian Best-Seller “The Dosiologists”. Our first question was how the war influenced Greece’s subsequent evolution and first of all its economic development.

“It’s a huge question and it’s something that research has not yet responded to a satisfactory degree. We do not have sufficient studies on the post -war evolution of the country, but one that we can say with certainty is that one of the most important consequences of World War II and German House in the country (German, Italian and Bulgarian, the triple housing in Greece) production. This process was intercepted because of the war. The country was completely destroyed. Infrastructure was destroyed, a large significant part of production was destroyed. We had the disasters of entire villages and towns from the German troops. It does not concern 5, 10 or 20 villages. There are hundreds of the villages, which were destroyed, and the economic looting, which the conquerors proceeded, caused irreparable damage to the Greek productive base and in general the operation of the economy. Only if we think of the reason for the exorbitant occupation expenses imposed by the conquerors on the Greek state, we had the rapid rise in inflation. The drachma, that is, the currency, lost all value. Especially in the last year of the Occupation we had an unthinkable hyperinflation, unprecedented. All of this created a lot of problems in the functioning of the economy and, therefore, re -launching after the war was particularly difficult. “

The political consequences for Greece

The political consequences of World War II were also huge for Greece. It was the only country in Europe where a civil war broke out, which lasted from 1946 to 1949. Menelaos Charalambidis points out:

“The roots of this conflict are in the years of the Occupation, in the deep division caused by the cooperation with the conquerors in Greek society. So what we have because of the German military occupation, what we have post -war, is the development of an anti -communist national state, which has ruled out and created a state of administrative, economic, political and social exclusion of the defeated civil war, the communists. This Democratic Republic, as Elias Nikolakopoulos calls it, dominated at least until the fall of the Junta in 1974 in the country, when we had a regime of emergency in Greece, which had greatly influenced all its individual and collective freedoms.

And it was essentially one of the factors that later led to the imposition of the junta. Let us not forget that the people who starred in the junta were people who had worked with the Germans during the Occupation. There is a direct connection. Consequently, the consequences of German military occupation in the country, both at the political and economic level, were completely destructive. “

The responsibilities of the Greek parties

Menelaos Charalambidis wrote one of the most successful historical books of recent years. “The Dossiologists” is a book that people have been waiting for, as it says, because it is our living story yet. The story of our grandmothers and our grandparents and a period for which we know little, since we are little taught about the period of school occupation. “

But why do we learn so little about the subject at school? “There is a phobia from the conservative line, from the right, due to the fact that many people who worked with the conquerors then staffed the right in its various forms. There is an effort by other political forces, such as PASOK, which made the big step and recognized in 1982 by the EAM, the largest resistance organization. Forty years, however, after the end of the war, and that says many things. He did not affect and did not want to see the difficult aspects of this period, namely the collaboration with the conqueror, the extermination of the Greek Jews. All this trauma caused by the action of both the German occupation forces and their Greek associates. Consequently, it was created a narrative that we all resisted together, that some, very few bad – individual cases of bad Greeks were the ones who worked. We never discussed the issue of cooperation, because this institutional silence was chosen, in which the Left of them agreed to some of them. That is, in the post -war period, the Left wanted to be integrated into the political scene and not be waste, so he was trying not to raise such issues. “

For the historical Menelaos Charalambidis there is a lack of historical knowledge and understanding of the past. But only these two tools – we would supplement – will substantially help with the treatment, wound healing and preventing the dangerous rise of the far -right in Europe.