9/5/1945 The Soviet victory day

The famous image with the Soviet flag on the German Reichstag.

In May the 9th 1945 in front of Georgy Zhukov the famous Soviet general of the red army, Nazi Germany surrendered with no terms. The WW2 was reaching an end marking the victory of Human over Nazism. The Soviets paid the biggest blood tax than any other country in this war in order to achieve this victory.

In a war front of 3.000 to 6.200 kilometers the Soviets fought against the mighty Axis forces for 1418 days.
During the war for every minute that was passing the Soviets were loosing an average of  9 men, for every hour 507 and for every day 1.400.To understand better the height of the numbers the other main allies USA and Britain lost from 400.000 soldiers each while the Soviets lost nearly 20 million people and 10 million were wounded or disabled.

The war cost for the Soviets was higher than both USA England and France together.This was due to the fact that the German forces unlike USA England and France(which didn't offer much resistance) achieved to penetrate much into the Soviet territories causing much damage to infrastructure. Additionally the Soviets who were engaged in a scorched earth policy they were also destroying their own infrastructure.In total 1.700 cities 70.000 villages and over than 30.000 industries were destroyed in the Soviet union during the war.

Regardless from what happened later(Cold war) and from what Stalin has commited during his reign we need to acknowledge the significant contribution of the Soviets in the war against Nazism, cause neither the Soviets nor USA and England would have been able to win this alone.

Jerzy Iwanow Szajnowicz(Γεώργιος Ιβάνοφ)

Jerzy Iwanow

Jerzy Iwanow was born in the 14th of  December of 1911 in Warsow.His father Vladimir was an officer at the Czar's army and his mother a Polish.

In 1925 Iwanow settled with his mother in Thessalonica as she married for second time a Greek man called Ioannis Labrianidis(his father had died somewhere in Caucasus). In 1928 he  registered as an athlete in the athletic club Iraklis. Initially he was part of the football team of the club but later he joined the swimming team. In 1934 he won the first position at the panhellenic 100m free swimming race .

In 1935 he took a Polish identity and in 1938  he acquired his degree in agriculture from the university of Louvain in Belgium.He was able to speak perfectly many languages including English Greek and Polish.

When he heard about the German invasion in Poland he attempted to come into contact with the exiled Polish army in France in order to assist the Polish as a soldier. However he only achieved to become an intermediary for the transportation of Polish refugees in Palestine. Ironically he would take the same route two years later when the Germans invaded Greece.

In Palestine he was hired by the Polish intelligence which was based in Jerusalem. Seeing his potential abilities the Polish trained him for Sabotage and spying missions. Paradoxically Jerzy ended up working under the commands of the British intelligence in Egypt.

In Greece

Iwanow arrived in Marathon from Egypt with the submarine thunderbolt at the begining of 1941. He disembarked along with some other spies and a radio transmitter that they would have to hide somewhere nearby. He had orders to get in touch with some Greeks who were part of the resistance and would help him in his missions.

In Athens he created a fake identity under the name Nikolaos Tsenoglou. His code name was Athos. He achieved to bring  the radio trasmitter in the house where he was hosted without notice. He started gathering important information related to the presence of the German army in Athens.

In November of 1941 he met an old childhood friend called Giannis Pantos. The same night Gestapo entered his house and confiscated his radio transmitter. Iwanow suspected his friend as a traitor and arranged a new meeting with him in order to confirm it. However this meeting turned out to be a trap.

In 18th December Gestapo arrested Iwanow and put him into a prison in Athens. One day his jail-mate was about to be transferred but he was asleep and Iwanow took the chance and assumed his jail-mate's identity.

While he was transported by car Iwanow managed to exterminate his guard an jumped out running into the small streets of Athens in order to get lost.

After these incidents Iwanow stopped having a permanent residence.With the help of a Greek girl who was a chemistry student they decoded German messages sent to the Middle East. By this way they aided the allies to sink many German supply ships weakening Rommel's army in N. Africa. However after sometime the Germans spotted their trasmitter and they abandoned it.

After that Iwanov turned on more active methods of resistance. His first sabotage success was the destruction of a Greek factory that was repairing German air plane engines. He achieved this with the help of a greek resistance organisation called Panhellenic union of fighting youth.

Sabotage of the U133

A U-class German submarine

In January of 1942 after many victories of the allied navy against the Italians , the Germans sent a fleet to start patrolling in the Mediterranean  in order to protect the supply ships. Iwanow acquired a fake Greek sailor's identity in order to have access in the shipyard. His aim was to damage a German U133 which had achieved many victories against the British including sinking a British frigate. 

In order to familiarize with the area Iwanow worked as a shipyard worker. He had let his beard grow in order  to make his face unrecognisable. In this mission Iwanow used his swimming skills. One night under the cover of darkness he swam a big distance with a clock bomb attached in his back. He put the bomb on the side of the submarine some minutes before it was going to sail. After two hours in the middle of the sea the bomb exploded and the submarine along with 145 members of the crew went to the bottom of the Aegean.

Other activities and second arrest

Iwanow's great success with the u133 made him follow the same tactic on sabotaging vehicles. He was responsible for sinking the steamboat San Isidoro in the port of Piraeus. Later he continued sinking ships in the port of Patras with the assistance of the aforementioned chemistry student.

In Athens he achieved to destroy many German airfighters by putting explosives in the main airport of Athens. This is considered one of the greatest achievements of the Greek resistance.

Eventually Iwanow was arrested by Italian carabinieri in Athens. It is said that his position was revealed by a greek officer after the Italians promised him a large sum of money in exchange.

Iwanow's trial was a parody(like almost all trials conducted by the german court. He was condemned to death by execution.As he was escorted at the place of execution he made his last move and he exterminated two of his guards but his task to escape was really hard and a bullet injured him in the back and he fell down .

Almost dead he was put on the line along with other members of the resistance. Before the last signal of the german officer he shouted Long live Greece Long live Poland.

The German intelligence achieved to find many of Iwanow's collaborators and executed them.However noone knows what happened to the chemistry student and close partner of Iwanow. During the German occupation Iwanow had only a few chances to see his mother because of the fear of getting caught.After the WW2 ended the British queen Elisabeth order the donnation of 1000 pounds to Iwanow's mother. There is a basketball arena in Thessaloniki named after Iwanow(Ivanofeion)

ANZACS in Greece during WW2

Australian soldiers on the steps of Akropolis
(click for the image source)

In March 1941, Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia, with the concurrence of his Cabinet, agreed to
 the sending of Australian troops to Greece. Both Menzies and the Australian commander in the Middle East, 
Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Blamey, felt that the operation was risky and might end in disaster. But 
Menzies, like the British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, felt that Greece should be supported against
German aggression and that the defence of Greece was a 'great risk in a good cause'.


In Greece, the Australians joined with a New Zealand and British force to defend the country against a threatened German 
invasion. Hitler was concerned that if Greece became a British ally then oilfields in Romania, on which  Germany relied for her fuel, might be open to air attack from Greece. As the Germans were planning an  invasion of Russia for June 1941, they could not allow such a threat to their essential oil supplies.


On 5 April 1941 German troops invaded Greece and Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was overrun in a matter of days while the Greek campaign lasted just over three weeks. A British guarantee to support Greece if it was attacked had already been invoked when the Italians invaded in October 1940. Assistance on this occasion was minimal, but the Italians were defeated when the Greeks repelled their attempt to invade through Albania.

In 1941 the defence of Greece was placed largely in the hands of troops from Australia and New Zealand. During the course of the campaign this dominion force, although it included a British brigade, became known as the ANZAC Corps. Even before the German invasion, senior British military and political figures doubted the wisdom of attempting to fight the Germans in Greece and some were already discussing evacuation plans. Lacking aircraft and armour, the Allies were poorly prepared to withstand the German onslaught which came in the form of ten infantry, armoured and specialist mountain warfare divisions. Outnumbered on the ground and in the air the British Commonwealth force was unable to deploy sufficient troops in any one area to halt the German advance. Instead they found themselves conducting a series of withdrawals, slowing the Germans down and offering brave and sometimes successful local resistance.

The campaign was dogged by poor liaison between the ANZACs and their Greek allies - problems which were exacerbated by language difficulties and a lack of equipment. While the ANZAC force never lost its cohesion they were never in a position to reverse German successes. By 20 April, when it was clear that they could do no more than disrupt and slow the German advance, the Greek Government agreed that the force should be evacuated.

The final withdrawal to the evacuation beaches on the Peloponnese was skilfully conducted and the evacuation began on 24 April. Over the next five nights more than 50,000 troops left Greece. They left behind 320 dead Australians - a further 2,065 became prisoners of war. More than 290 New Zealanders were killed and over 1,600 captured. Hundreds of others were cut off during the fighting, many of these men made their way back to Allied lines in Crete or North Africa via Turkey or the Greek islands.




source:http://www.awm.gov.au/units/event_287.asp http://www.ww2australia.gov.au/greatrisk/

Aris Velouchiotis- The leader of the ELAS ressistance force against the Nazis

Thanasis Claras(his real name) was born in 1905 in Lamia. He was later destined to be the leader of the biggest military ressistance force in the Nazi occupied Europe. Descended from a wealthy family of lawyers he followed his own route. In 1929 he got his degree in agriculture and later he joined the Greek Communist party.

Ironically in his youth he was a pacifist that's why he joined the Greek CP which was the only one having antimilitaristic ideas.It's worth to note that during this period the Greek government is lead by a military regime with Metaxas as prime minister.Because of the economic crisis most of the countries of Europe were lead by right wing  parties or the military. The regime of Greece was deeply anti-communist and considered the communist party members outlaws. Velouchiotis life changed when he joined the communist party of Greece.
As a member of the cp he spent his military service at the working battalions. Later he was sent to prison in the island of Aigina.(the communists who were not renouncing the greek CP were sent to exile in the islands of the Aegean).

He achieved to escape but he was arrested again in 1939. Eventually he signed the CP renouncement to get free after a command by the general secretary of the CP.Velochiotis fought as an artillery corporal at the mountains of Pindus against  the Italians during the WW2. Eventually the Musolini with the help of the Hitler's tanks and the Bulgarian army established a triple occupation in Greece.

While everything was in disorder Velouchiotis had already began his ressistance. While the Germans were entering the country the Greek king and the government had already fled from the country. A pro German government that was formed signed truce with the Germans and  commanded the Greek forces to disarm themselves and give up their weapons. However Velouchiotis didn't do that. He return with his battlalion in full arms in southern Greece and he destroyed some greek airplanes that were to be delivered to the Germans.

He returned back to Athens to find old comrades  and contact with the Communist party for the organisation of  a ressistance force.The situation was difficult. Many comrades who would be able to fight had died in war or were in jails or in exile and many citizens under the fear of the Nazis became their collaborators.

After many efforts the National liberation front was created in 1941 and its military branch ELAS(Greek peoples' liberation army became active in the mountains of central Greece. In the Eurytania perfecture was the first village that Velouchiotis liberated with his army. There was the time he got his alternative name. He presented himself to the local population  as Aris(from the god of war) Velouchiotis(from a local mountain called Velouchi) for obvious reasons.

Later he was engaged in battles mainly against the Italian occupation forces and he achieved to take much of their weaponry plus capturing Italian soldiers for trading them for political prisoners. However the Italians to avoid recognition of the ressistance force refused to trade prisoners and instead executed them. Velouchiotis as a response executed his Italian prisoners.Many historians accuse him for this action.
Generally his activity lead to the  creation of a free zone in the mountains of Greece with administration by Eam members.

Velouchiotis' success  and popularity was envied by certain communist party mebers and they seeked a way to remove him from the military operations of the ressistance.He was invited in a panhellenic convention of the CP in Athens. It would be dangerous for Velouchiotis to go to Athens as he was the most wanted man by the occupation government. Velouchiotis achieved to come to Athens initially disguised as a priest and later as a civilian(he shaved his beard). At the convention he persuaded everyone about his qualities and eventually he wasn't replaced .

The British waching the Communist(Soviet influenced) EAM prevailing supported an another ressistance group called EDES and they were supplying it with weaponry. However EDES wasn't as strong as ELAS and at the most famous historical event of the Greek ressistance the destruction of the bridge of Gorgopotamos the British had to collaborate with ELAS and Velouchiotis. Nevertheless the British from the next day propagated that EDES was the only responsible for blowing the bridge.

In 1943 ELAS had reached the peak of its power. The Greek cp was worried cause the ressistance force had grown so strong that they wouldn't be able to control it anymore for their aims.Thus they ordered the officers of  ELAS to turn from an irregular force to a professional army. Velouchiotis strongly dissagreed with this development.

When the Nazis started evacuating Greece a big struggle for dominance began among the Communist party and the British backed government in exile. The British landed in Athens and Velouchiotis once again knew that they came to occupy and like he had done after Greece surrendered to the Nazis he also did in 1945.
After many fights at the streets and the neighbours of Athens between EAM and ELAS members against Britsh forces the CP agreed to give up its weapons(Varkiza agreement) and seek dominance through politics.

Velouchiotis knew that this was a mistake  he refused to give up his weapons  and fled back to the mountains. He attempted to create anew ressistance force against the British but he didn't find enthusiastic response.
Moreover the situation became worse. The general secretary of the greek CP denounced him and declered him wanted. After this Velouchiotis continuously chased by enemies and dissapointed by the turn of events commited suicide in 16th June 1945.

The Greek-American battalion of WW2.

The 122nd marching with an American and a Greek flag

122nd INFANTRY BATTALION

This photo, taken in Camp Carson, Colorado in early 1943, pictures the first and only time a foreign flag was allowed to fly next to the American flag leading a United States Armed Forces group on American soil.!!! Passing in review for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and General George C. Marshall, the soldiers were Greek-American and Greek Immigrants, many of whom were not yet American citizens.

The Battalion Commander was Major Peter D.  Clainos, the first Greek born American to graduate from the West Point Academy and a co-founder of the Sons of Pericles.  A demanding task master, Major Clainos vowed that he would not allow his men to embarrass themselves or the Greek People and made certain they were well trained and in outstanding physical condition.

When the "Greek Battalion" was disbanded, most of its members were transferred to infantry units that fought in both the European and Pacific Theaters.  One hundred-sixty members of the Battalion volunteered for a small elite commando group that fought with the Greek Resistance in Greece as members of the Greek/US Operational Group, Office of Strategic Services.