Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland)

Did you expect anything less, southern?

I suggest you read about the Tripartite pact - a pact Nazi Germany made with Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Yugo was put under pressure to join this pact too, and the Yugoslav prince gave in to this pressure on the 25th of March 1941. Two days later his govt was overthrown. This infuriated Hitler as usual and not even two weeks later he invaded the country.

Greece did a marvellous job by beating the Italians back into Albania, however, against the Germans they did not have a chance. They held out for a while but the Greek mainland was pretty quickly conquered - only on Crete it lasted longer.

>^..^<

M-G (Oxi!)

What happened to the Dutch, M-G? ;) ;)

Hitler let alll greek prisoners of war free as a recognition of the braveness of the greek soldiers.We could not defeat them since 80% of our army was in Albania(where Italians attacked again synchronized with Germans) and when Germans crashed the yugoslav front during the first day coming from Bulgaria.Then they headed to Greece from this hole.Of course it was a Blitzkrieg plan.

In Creta it was a sad story as the pusssy cretan guys did horrible stuff mutilating and beheading german soldiers and prisoners of war.

The Dutch army mobilized in September 1939 as they hoped to remain neutral again, but somehow knew they would be invaded sooner or later. This fear was to be confirmed with the "Venlo-incident", in which English secret agents were lured to Venlo, a town on the German border by ppl who posed themselves as either British agents or German agents who had fallen off with Hitler. As soon as the English agents arrived, they were kidnapped by those German agents and dragged into Germany. Venlo lies half in Germany.

As from January 1940 ongoing msgs were received from a German officer Hans Oster (who later participated in the assasination attempt of 20 July 1944) by Dutch Major Sas (the commander in chief) that the invasion was imminent, but those warnings were withdrawn every time at the last moment. I think the first word of an invasion was somewhere half January 1940. When the final warning came on the evening of the 9th of May ("Tomorrow at dawn") the Dutch troops were put on alert, but since they had so many warnings, the attitude was a bit laissez faires. But when the Germans came that morning, they were ready.

The Dutch army was in a sorry state: basically built during WW1 (and at that time it was indeed strong enough to withstand any invading enemy), and way too weak to withstand the superior power of the German army. Nevertheless, they fought where they could and fighting was especially vicious at the Grebbelinie, the Peel-Raamstelling, Zeeland, Rotterdam (more or less) and the entrance to the Afsluitdijk in the North. Germans, expecting the invasion of NL to take no longer than a day or two, grew angry with the Dutch resistance after 3 days and sent word that if the Dutch army would not capitulate, they would bomb Rotterdam and after that Utrecht and Amsterdam. The Dutch army already made contact with the German forces to negociate the truce and capitulation, when the German planes had already taken off to bombard Rotterdam. German efforts from the ground to stop the imminent bombardment (as the Dutch had already surrendered) were ignored as the pilots had instructions to ignore all signs from the ground. Rotterdam got bombarded, the entire old city was in flames and app 8000 ppl died. Rotterdam was one of the most beautiful cities of the Netherlands before it got bombarded. It's also one of the few big cities that the Germans bombarded severely outside of a battlefield during the war. The others are London, Warsaw, Belgrade.


A couple of months after the Dutch surrender the Dutch soldiers were allowed to go back home - except the Jewish soldiers of course. He did this with all the pow's of the small countries he conquered. Actually, it's unknown why he did this. To create goodwill? Or perhaps because he was afraid he wouldn't have enough space and resources to maintain these huge numbers of pow's? It's unknown.

Edit: a few months before the invasion Hitler had said in a speech on the radio "The Dutch are my friends! We would never want to hurt or attack them! If they want to remain neutral, I will respect their wish and I will personally see to it that nobody ever harms the Dutch."

>^..^<

M-G (Neen!)

Netherlands cannot put severe resistance since it is completely flat.The only way to cause problems to a superior force is to put down the barriers to the sea and let the country overflow with water.Of course this means total disaster for the economy.Even Germans did not do this in WW2.

The natural terrain for resistance resides in the balkan mountains that is why the resistance was so fierce.(Partizans under Tito had over 500000 soldiers and fought against Wehrmacht in open combat.The same did Michailovic with another half a million guerilla army).Here in Greece we had guerilla army of 150000 guerillas which controlled 30% of the land during german-italian occupation and inflicted 10000 casualties to Germans.

The problem of Greece is that it is especially vulnerable from the sea from naval forces and this was the main reason for the civil war since Soviets did not want to include Greece to eastern block for its sea vulnerability.

It makes no sense, you keep your brave and dangerous enemies locked up, enemies you don't afraid you let go, saving costs&bother of in-keeping.

In a speech made at the Reichstag in 1941, Hitler expressed his admiration for the Greek resistance,h[›] saying of the campaign: "Historical justice obliges me to state that of the enemies who took up positions against us, the Greek soldier particularly fought with the highest courage. He capitulated only when further resistance had become impossible and useless." The Führer also ordered the release and repatriation of all Greek prisoners of war, as soon as they had been disarmed, "because of their gallant bearing."[132]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Greece

(Hitler later regreted his decision as the Wehrmacht occupation force met fierce resistance and constant battles not always galant from both sides).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Resistance

So, his decisions were not rational but emotionally motivated.

Yes,nazis actually believed that ancient Greeks were forefathers of Germans connected to them through bloodline.They sent scientists to search graves in order to find proof that Germans were the descendants of ancient Greeks.It was another one of Himmler's crazy theories based on descriptions of ancient Greeks as blonde,blue eyed etc.

They also searched in Tibet...;)

But yes, the modern Greeks have not much in common with their famous forefathers (the same with modern Italians/Romans or French/Gauls..)

It's quite sad actually! :(

Except their faces and language (for the most part, that is). :)

Nah...they are much darker now... ;)

Merged: 1 September

Tomorrow, 1.9, is a very important date in history. Can you tell me why? And if you're really good, can you tell me me where and when?

Everywhere and whenever. The school year starts in Poland on 1 September.

Not where most people think it did.

Traditional date of destruction of Jerusalem 69 AD?

Wladislaw Gomulka, Polish partisan/party leader, dies at 76 in 1982?

Libyan revolution, Col Moammar Gadhafi deposes King Idris in 1969? ( a welsh king...wtf???)

The 72nd anniversary of the start of hostilities for some (31/08, really).