Andon Kalchev
Andon Kalchev | |
---|---|
Native name | Андон Калчев |
Born | 1910 Zhuzheltsi, Kastoria, Ottoman Empire |
Died | 27 August 1948 Thessaloniki, Greece | (aged 37–38)
Allegiance | Kingdom of Bulgaria |
Alma mater | Leipzig University |
Andon Kalchev (
Early life
He was born in Zhuzheltsi,
Within Greece, the Macedonian Bulgarians were designated "Slavophone Greeks".[4] After the Balkan Wars and especially after the First World War up to 190,000 Bulgarians from Aegean Macedonia and Western Thrace fled to Bulgaria as refugees.[5] At this time the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) began sending armed combat groups (cheti) into Greek Macedonia and Thrace to assassinate officials and stir up the spirit of the oppressed population. Kalchev came from a well known IMRO Bulgarian local family,[6][7] which emigrated from Greek Macedonia to Balchik, Bulgaria after the Second Balkan War. Kalchev graduated at a gymnasium in Sofia and then at the Leipzig University. Later he went back to Bulgaria, where he graduated from a military officer's school in Sofia.[citation needed]
Participation by the Bulgarian occupation of Greece
This section relies largely or entirely on a single source. (December 2016) |
The
Bulgaria joined World War II siding with the Axis in an attempt to solve its own "national question" and fulfill the aim of "
A massive campaign of "Bulgarisation" was launched, which saw all Greek officials deported. A ban was placed on the use of the Greek language, the names of towns and places changed to the forms traditional in Bulgarian. In addition, the Bulgarian government tried to alter the ethnic composition of the region, by expropriating land and houses from Greeks in favour of Bulgarian settlers (former refugees from Macedonia and others), and by the introduction of forced labour and of economic restrictions for the Greeks in an effort to force them to migrate. A spontaneous and badly organized uprising around Drama, Greece in late September 1941 was violently crushed by the Bulgarian Army. By late 1941, more than 100,000 Greeks had been expelled from the Bulgarian occupation zone.[8]
When the Bulgarians occupied eastern Macedonia in 1941 they began also a campaign to win the loyalty of the Bulgarians of Greek Macedonia and to reinforce their Bulgarian ethnic sentiments.[9] While some of these people did greet the Bulgarians as liberators particularly in eastern and central Macedonia (which was under Bulgarian occupation), this campaign was less successful in German-occupied western Macedonia.[10]
Kalchev served as officer first into Bulgarian annexed territories, but later was sent into the German occupied Thessaloniki to found there a Bulgarian military club, when the German High Command approved it in 1941. The Bulgarians soon organized supplying of food and provisions for the Bulgarian population in Central and Western Macedonia in an attempt to gain support. Many Bulgarian political prisoners were released with the intercession of Bulgarian Club in Thessaloniki, which had made representations to the German occupation authorities.[citation needed]
Founding of Ohrana and collaboration with the Italian and the German occupation forces
This section needs additional citations for verification. (December 2016) |
In 1942, the Bulgarian club asked assistance from the German High command in organizing armed units among the Bulgarian population in northern Greece. For this purpose, the Bulgarian army, under the approval of the German forces in the Balkans sent a handful of officers to the zones occupied by the Italian and German troops to be attached to the occupying forces as "liaison officers". One of them was Kalchev. These officers were given the objective to form armed Bulgarian militias. Bulgaria was interested in acquiring the zones under Italian and German occupation and hoped to sway the allegiance of the 80,000 Bulgarophones who lived there at the time.[citation needed]
In the first half of March 1943, Bulgarian military and police carried out the deportation of the majority of non-Bulgarian Jews, 13,341 in total, from the occupied territories, beyond the borders of Bulgaria before the war, and handed them over into German custody. On the eve of the planned deportations, the Bulgarian government made inquiries regarding the destination of the deportees and asked to be reimbursed for the costs of deportation. German representatives indicated that the deportees would be used as labor in agricultural and military projects.[
The appearance of Greek partisans in those areas persuaded the Italians to allow the formation of these detachments.
The name given to the armed militias was
During 1944, whole called by the Greeks Bulgarophone (now Slavophone) villages were armed by the occupation authorities to counterbalance the emerging power of the resistance and especially of
After the war, Kalchev was accused of having participated in atrocities in the town of Kleisoura known as the Massacre of Kleisoura with Bulgarian men of the German militia.[26]
Dissolution of Ohrana and extraordinary military court death sentence
However the advance of the Red Army into Bulgaria in 1944, the withdrawal of the German armed forces from Greece in October, meant that the Bulgarian Army had to withdraw from Greek Macedonia and Thrace, leaving Greece with the difficult task of post-occupation reconstruction. Kalchev's active collaboration with the Italian and German Army in fighting the resistance forces and the using of local conscripted manpower born a very unpleasant situation for this pro-Bulgarian Slavophone part of the population after the end of the war, leading to a new wave of emigration to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, the last (since World War I) members of the Bulgarian minority of Greece. After the Bulgarians and Germans withdrew, he hid in his village until April 1945.[27]
Kalchev was taken POW by the Yugoslav partisans and imprisoned in
See also
- Collaboration with the Axis Powers
- Macedonian Question
- Slavic-speakers of Greek Macedonia
- Axis occupation of Greece during World War II
- Military history of Greece during World War II
- Military history of Bulgaria during World War II
References
- ISBN 978-0-312-29913-2.
- LCCN 94-75891.
- ^ Ivo Banac, "The Macedoine" in "The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics", pp. 307-28, Cornell University Press (1984); retrieved 8 September 2007.
- ^ Nationality on the Balkans. The case of the Macedonians, by F. A. K. Yasamee. Balkans: A Mirror of the New World Order, Istanbul: EREN, 1995; pp. 121-32.
- ISBN 1526139359.
- ISBN 1-891227-21-1, pg. 17.
- ISBN 954-8187-27-2, pg. 273.
- ISBN 0-275-96544-9
- ISBN 1-85065-492-1, pg. 67.
- ISBN 978-0-691-04357-9. pg. 73.
- ISBN 978-1-85065-238-0, p. 101.
- ISBN 954-528-366-1, publisher Труд (Trud).(in Bulgarian) Memoirs of a Macedonia-born Bulgarian lieutenant participating in the occupation of the Yugoslavian and Greek parts of Macedonia.
- ISBN 9781860646249, page 270.
- ISBN 0-691-04356-6, p. 41.
- ^ "MINA Breaking News - German Archives show Bulgarians rounded up and transported Macedonian Jews". MacedoniaOnline.eu. 4 February 2013. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 29 December 2016.
- )
- ^ Facing Our Past Archived 2016-01-05 at the Wayback Machine Helsinki Group, Bulgaria
- ^ "The Virtual Jewish History Tour Bulgaria". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 2006-11-26. "Encyclopedia Judaica: Cuomotini, Greece". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved October 1, 2015.
- ISBN 0-8047-0870-3.
In Greece the Bulgarians reacquired their former territory, extending along the Aegean coast from the Struma (Strymon) River east of Salonika to Dedeagach (Alexandroupolis) on the Turkish border. Bulgaria looked longingly toward Salonika and western Macedonia, which were under German and Italian control, and established propaganda centres to secure the allegiance of the approximately 80,000 Bulgarophones in these regions
- ^ Егеjски бури — Револуционерното движење во Воденско и НОФ во Егеjска Македоница. (Вангел Аjановски Оче), Скопје, 1975. стр. 122-23 (in Greek)
- ^ Добрин Мичев. Българското национално дело в Югозападна Македония (1941—44 г.)
- ISBN 0646140795, 1993. p. 30.[unreliable source?]
- ^ Георги Даскалов, Участта на българите в Егейска Македония 1936-1946г. Политическа и военна история, София 1999г., стр.830, б. 384 (in Bulgarian)
- ^ "Greekholocausts.gr - Κλεισούρα, 5 Απριλίου 1944". Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 11 September 2011.
Klisoura Kastoria: Brief History of Events: Narrative Volunteer Red Cross by E. Kalfoglou (08/04/1944)(in Greek) - ^ Nikolaos Siokis, Ptolemaida TV (05/04/2011).
- ^ Δορδανάς,Στράτος (2002, Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης (ΑΠΘ)), Αντίποινα των γερμανικών αρχών κατοχής στη Μακεδονία (1941-1944) pages 562-3
- ISBN 0-7453-1589-5, pg. 72.
- ^ Георги Даскалов, Участта на българите в Егейска Македония 1936-1946 г. Политическа и военна история, София 1999г., стр. 683
- ^ Във и извън Македония - спомени на Пандо Младенов, Македонска Трибуна Archived 2012-02-18 at the Wayback Machine, makedonskatribuna.com; accessed 10 December 2016 (in Macedonian Cyrillic).