The chapter on post-war Greco-German relations as they developed after the traumatic experience of the occupation, aspects of dosiligosmia, talk of reparations and occupation credit, is usually the privileged domain of writers of the left. However, a book by journalist Giorgos Harvalias called “Yavol! Blood, oblivion and submission – an unknown Greco-German story”, which is expected to be released in the coming days by Pedio with a foreword by former Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis, does not fall into this category. It raises sharp aspects of Greco-German relations, dispels popular myths about both countries, resorting to historical evidence.

Giorgos Harvalias’ research approximates the relationship between the two countries through a description of pending Greek claims and their respective rejection over time. The following excerpts are taken from Chapter 25 of the book entitled “When Victims Fund Their Killers.”

pre-publication

For several months, the financial needs of the Axis units in Greece were covered by “Reich Loan Fund Bonds” (RCKS), better known as “occupation stamps”, as well as the corresponding “Mediterranean drachmas”, which were taken care of by the Italians. give out sooner, confident in the successful outcome of their military adventure.

The method of stealing occupation coins was not introduced in Greece since the RKKS was first used in 1939 in Poland. However, the patent is pre-war and belongs to – who else are you talking about – the demonic Nazi banker Hjalmar Schacht, who first used it in occupied Belgium. From the position of Governor of the Reichsbank and then Hitler’s finance minister, he was the one who orchestrated the whole scheme of plundering private and public property in the defeated European states with the help of so-called “occupation coins”. But in Nuremberg, as we said, he was acquitted as … a resistance fighter. […]

As in most other countries of occupied Europe, these peculiar banknotes were distributed to the soldiers of the occupying forces for the almost free purchase of all kinds of goods. Soldiers and officers bought everything they could to send home as gifts to friends and relatives. Entire shop windows were cleaned by the Germans and Italians, who pretended to “buy” the goods they liked. Similarly, they also “buyed” hospitality or catering services, although they avoided paying for the latter even under the pretext.

An excellent description of the looting is given in his diary by the astute Lord Archer, the American head of the Middle East Foundation, whom we met earlier:

“Emptying is done in a polite way of “purchasing goods” in exchange for the owner’s freshly printed stamps, which have no value outside of Greece. Early in the morning they gave a hundred of these stamps to every freed soldier in Athens. They correspond to a purchase price of five thousand drachmas, about thirty dollars. They were then sent to shops to buy everything from women’s socks to electrical goods. They then took their “purchases” to the parcel service or express service of the railways and sent them home to the Reich. This organized looting will serve a triple purpose: it will satisfy the Nazi troops, create in Germany the feeling that they, too, have something to gain from the endless war, and help them further weaken Greece.”

Obviously, an increase in money circulation by at least 40% within a few weeks could not lead to anything other than a sharp rise in inflation. Especially when you consider that all the money circulating on the Greek market was completely unsecured. With the exception of a small consignment of gold pounds and other coins left in Crete, the Greek government managed in a new way to transfer all Greek state gold to the place of exile.

The Greeks realized from the first days that occupation coins were first-class material for … wallpapers. The well-known Athenian lawyer of the day, Christos Christides, describes a delightful scene in a barbershop in the center of Athens, where a German asks the owner how much he owes. “Fifteen drachmas,” the barber replies, and the German takes out and hands over the stamp. The hairdresser refuses to take the money. The German insists on paying but, faced with constant rejection, takes his chip and leaves. As soon as he walks through the door, Greek shoppers riot: “What? Will you accept them for free?” But the barber, who was smarter, answers them disarmingly: “Go your own way? Didn’t you see what he did to me? Not only did I cut his hair, he wanted to charge me 35 drachmas in change for his rag!”

The conditions for the complete depreciation of the occupying currency with the simultaneous destabilization of the drachma, galloping inflation and the explosion of mauragorism worried not only the dosilogical government of Tsolakoglu, but also the occupation authorities themselves. The Germans were unwilling to shoulder the burden of a managerial failure “forever” and quickly decided to create official records of occupation expenditures to comply with – ostensibly – the provisions of the Land War Regulations as defined by The Hague. Convention of 1907. The remaining provisions on the protection of the human dignity of the vanquished were demonstratively ignored. The only thing the conquerors were interested in was the legalization of the bleeding of the Greek state treasury.

The Germans did not want to take on the burden of administrative failure “forever” and quickly decided to create official accounts for the costs of the occupation, just to be legal.

Their audacity was such that they wanted to make the Greek state an accomplice. That is why they requested in writing the opinion of the Greek Ministry of Finance on a “reasonable estimate” of the costs of the occupation, which would allow them to present the robbery as the product of a “joint decision”. Unfortunately for them, the director general of the ministry, Athanasios Sbarunis, was called in to draft and sign the letter.

Prof. Sbarunis, a well-known personality, together with the academician Angelos Angelopoulos, were the first doctors of the interwar period announced by the School of Economics and Commercial Sciences of the University of Athens. He was a French-trained cultured technocrat who had nothing to do with the blockheads of Tsolakoglou’s pre-silogical government. Due to a last-minute misunderstanding, he found himself stranded in Athens, not following the government-in-exile to Cairo, along with the central bank governor and other echelons of senior civil servants. He knew very well, therefore, that by writing he was risking the life of the crown – letters, since the report was addressed to the powerful German plenipotentiary Altenburg. […]

His report states that the “reasonable” cost of the occupation over the past seven months was three, at the most four billion drachmas, since a country completely disarmed, based on the size and population of Greece, needed only a few tens of drachmas. thousand foreign soldiers for the needs of the garrison. But the Germans had already grabbed at least seven times the fund, and the surplus had to be somehow justified.

In the immediate danger of being taken to the Gestapo headquarters for “friendly interrogation,” Sbarunis found the courage to record the real numbers, showing outrageous overpricing and putting the occupation administration in a very difficult position. “We certainly recognize that the Mediterranean is a theater of war, and that therefore the Axis Powers may find it expedient to maintain in Greece an army with a force in excess of that required for mere occupation. But the expenses of these forces, exaggerating the needs of the occupation, should not be borne by Greece, because they are not occupation expenses, ”he wrote.

This rational division of the costs of the occupation greatly confused the Germans, who could not resist it and now struggled to find a way to legitimize the additional costs that made up the lion’s share. Somewhere here, the idea of ​​the “forced loan” was first born, which today legitimizes the Greek claims. With his report, Sbarunis, who was immediately transferred to the position of a “refrigerator”, pushed them to the need to open a kind of “notebook” for all extras stolen from the state treasury. Everything that the Germans now received was due to the Greek state.

In the tragic winter of 1941, the economic crisis was resolved by the continuous issuance of uncovered inflationary drachmas. However, the constant application of this measure, along with the difficulties of supplying the country with food, led to a complete loss of control over prices. Germany faithfully followed Goering’s “live and let die” doctrine, but when the humanitarian aspect of the Greek drama took on an international dimension, it was exposed.

At first he went to pounce on the British with a naval blockade, but later he found an easier victim: the villains, the Italians, who were administratively responsible for most of the Greek territory, were to blame.

The funny thing is that, unlike the Germans, the Italians, not having the same means, were much more scrupulous in fulfilling their obligations to supply the Greek people with food. That is why Italian Foreign Minister Galeano Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law, wrote in his diary: “The Germans even took the shoelaces from the Greeks and are now trying to shift the responsibility for the economic situation onto our shoulders. ” […]

On March 14, 1942, a secret Italo-German protocol was drawn up at the Rome Conference, with Greece not participating in the consultations. The contents were announced verbally to the Greek authorities nine days later. According to the Italo-German agreement, the costs of the occupation were now divided into two categories: those amounting to 1.5 billion drachmas, which Greece had to pay monthly as expenses for the maintenance of foreign troops (these allegedly arose from the Hague Convention), and in the “rest”. The latter concerned the additional needs of the occupying military administration, which were advanced by the Bank of Greece in the form of an interest-free loan in drachmas. This obligatory loan was owed to the governments of Germany and Italy with repayment “sometime in the future”. […]

Sparuni’s logic triumphed. It is on this agreement and its amendments, which, unfortunately for the Germans, have taken the form of legally binding formal treaties, that today’s Greeks demand the reimbursement of the so-called “occupation costs”, raised in the form of expropriations and forced borrowings, is based.

The occupation loan actually completed the capture of the wealth of the Greeks. In practice, the enslaved country had to pay Germany half of its annual monetary circulation every month, in order to finance not the occupying troops that it received, but the Axis military operations in North Africa! The Roman Convention was nothing more than a pretentious framework for the legitimation of a process that, to console the Greeks, presented robbery as … a loan.