On April 27, 1941, the Wehrmacht marched into Athens. They found a city emptied of life — streets and squares abandoned, homes tightly shuttered. It was, unmistakably, one of the first great collective acts of spontaneous resistance by the people against the invader.
It begins with the unforgettable voice of radio broadcaster Kostas Stavropoulos, whose final words captured the spirit of an Unsubdued Athens. In their wake came the brave refusal of Archbishop Chrysanthos of Athens and All Greece to offer a thanksgiving service for the German occupiers or to swear in the collaborationist “government” of Tsolakoglou. It continues with the poignant sacrifice of seventeen-year-old Matthaios Potagas outside Vytina, the people’s great uprising during the Battle of Crete, and the legendary act of Manolis Glezos and Lakis Santas, who tore down the swastika from the Acropolis.1941
ERT journalist Thomas Sideris unfolds the story of the Nazi invasion of Athens and speaks with Dr. Aristomenis Syngelakis, representing the National Council for the Reclamation of Germany’s Debts to Greece, reflecting on the bitter spring of 1941.
Research, documentation, and presentation: Thomas Sideris