The German Question, Part One Hundred Forty-Three

"Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Two/E
"Greece & Yugoslavia Fall"

In late October 1940, Benito Mussolini launched an ill prepared and untimely (nearly winter) invasion of Greece from Albania, an Italian possession in those days. Greece has many rough and mountainous areas, where winter comes early, and the Greeks were no push overs, they were tough. Not only did they stop the Italian forces, they counterattacked, throwing the Italians back into Albania! Mussolini then sent more troops to help halt the Greek advance. The Greeks were halted by the Italians and winter weather, but once again Hitler prepared to step in to bolster his sagging ally. The British had sent some forces to help the Greeks, but this diminished their forces and supplies in North Africa, where they too had the Italians on the run at that time. With spring in the offing, the Germans had an invasion plan to overrun Greece.

Yugoslavia, another creation of post-World War One, had similar problems to Czechoslovakia; that is, it was a multi-ethnic nation governed by its largest ethnic group, the Serbs.* Other groups were not happy with the arrangement, especially the Croats, or Croatians, who wanted much more autonomy, with some more radical elements wanting an outright independent Croatia. Further, there were increasingly strong fascist-type groups throughout the country, including the much stronger Croatian group the "Ustaše," which maintained close ties to the fascist nations of Germany and Italy.

Yugoslavia was ruled by a regent, Prince Paul, until the king, Peter II, reached maturity. The Serb leaders, once committed more to the western powers of Britain and France, saw these powers as too weak after their behavior over Czechoslovakia, and they turned more and more to Italy and, especially Germany, for economic ties, and for protection against the Soviet Union. Hitler wanted the Yugoslav government to sign the alliance between Germany, Italy, and Japan, as other eastern European countries were doing. Prince Paul reluctantly agreed, but the action was not popular with Serbian military leaders or with much of the non-Croatian population, especially the Serbs. Prince Paul was overthrown and King Peter II, by then 17, took power. In spite of assurances by the king and Serb leaders that the treaty with the Axis would be honored, Hitler had the German military draw up plans for the invasion of Yugoslavia, to be undertaken simultaneously with the invasion of Greece. Mussolini committed an Italian army to the invasion from northeastern Italy, where Italy had a common border with Yugoslavia. Bulgaria also participated on a limited basis, as did Hungary; both were signatories to the Axis alliance.

The invasions started in early April 1941, and the Yugoslav army, fractured by the Serb-Croatian split, was overwhelmed by the invaders. The Germans rolled through Greece also, and while there were periods of intense fighting in both Yugoslavia and Greece, the outcome was not in doubt, and both countries surrendered after a short time. The British forces, along with some Greek forces, evacuated to the Greek island of Crete. The Germans launched an assault on the island, led by a massive paratroop drop, the largest ever undertaken up to that time. German casualties were heavy, but again, the outcome was not long in doubt, and once again, the British evacuated many of their forces from the island. "Evacuation" was becoming a word all too familiar to the British.

The Germans, Italians and their allies now ruled Greece and Yugoslavia, at least on paper or maps. The terrain of both countries was rough and mountainous, ideal for insurgency groups to hide and launch attacks on the occupiers, and this happened with increasing frequency. You can see how Germany and her allies were stretching themselves thin, as they now had to garrison these countries with substantial forces to try to control the insurgency forces of both Greece and Yugoslavia. From a military viewpoint, they gained little for all of these efforts. Croatia was set up as an independent nation, but naturally tied to the Axis.

* There was a substantial German minority in Yugoslavia of about 700,000. Most of the Germans lived in areas that had been a part of Austria-Hungary until the end of World War One, with the largest group being the "Danube Swabians" ("Donauschwaben"), a general term for the German population living in or near the Danube River valley, although not just in Yugoslavia, but also in Hungary and in part of Rumania. Part of these "Danube Swabians" in Yugoslavia was the German population in a region called the "Banat," with the Germans there called "Banater Deutsche." Many of these Danube Swabians came to America after World War Two, with a fairly large number coming here to Cleveland. For many years there was a club called "The Banater Club," in Cleveland (West 140th Street, near Lorain Avenue), and then these Germans built a new, much more extensive club in the mid 1980s here, called "The Donauschwaben German-American Cultural Center," at Lenau Park on the suburban West Side.

WORD HISTORY:
Hit-The origin of "hit" is unknown. Old Germanic had "hitjanan," which meant "to come into contact with, come upon, meet." Apparently the word only endured in Old Norse, as "hitta." It wasn't until about 1100 that English borrowed the word as "hittan," and it still retained the meaning "to meet, to come into contact with." This later became "hitten," and it also extended the notion of "meet, come into contact with" to mean "strike." The native English word for "strike" was "slean," the forerunner of modern "slay," which in those times meant both "strike, hit," but also "kill." Gradually "hit" overtook "slay" in that meaning, leaving "slay" with the meaning "to kill." The original sense of "hit," however, is still around in the expression, "hit upon (something)." A noun version appeared in the late 1400s or early 1500s, derived from the verb. Forms of the word are still present in the North Germanic languages: Norwegian "hitte," which seems to now be archaic, Danish "hitte" and Swedish "hitta," both of which mean "find" (Get it? "Come upon, come into contact with"="find"), and Icelandic "hitta," which means "to meet."