Antonis Klapsis, Associate Professor of Modern History and International Politics at the University of the Peloponnese, spoke on Voice of Greece and the program “Our Global Voice” with Dimitris Kontogiannis about the Battle of Crete (1941) and the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks by the forces of Mustafa Kemal’s Turkey.
Marking the anniversary of the Battle of Crete, Klapsis highlighted the devastating losses suffered by Germany’s elite paratroopers—losses so severe that the Germans never again attempted a large-scale airborne invasion during the remainder of World War II. He also referred to proposals by the Greek government-in-exile under Prime Minister Emmanouil Tsouderos, suggesting to the British that the government relocate not to Cairo with King George II, but to Cyprus—an idea tied to the long-term goal of uniting the island with Greece. The proposal was ultimately rejected.
Turning to the remembrance of the Pontic Greek Genocide, Klapsis placed it within the broader strategy of the Young Turks to expel Christian populations—including Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans—from their ancestral lands. He recounted the intensification of atrocities following Kemal’s landing in Samsun in 1919, which triggered a second, even more violent wave of persecution.
Klapsis also addressed Eleftherios Venizelos’ view that Pontic Greeks might have been better integrated into a proposed Armenian state in the region—creating a geopolitical buffer that would place Turkey between two allied Christian nations: an Armenian state to the east and Greek-controlled Asia Minor to the west.