Cham Albanian collaboration with the Axis
Cham Albanian collaboration with the Axis | |
---|---|
Paramythia Executions: 201[6] In Albania: 550 Operation Augustus: 50, Nuri Dino battalion (Wehrmacht), Geheime Feldpolizei[9] | |
Motive | Ethnic Cleansing,[10] Annexation of Thesprotia to Albania[10] |
Verdict | Collaboration with the Axis occupation units,
Plain murder[6] |
During the
According to the Lieutenant Colonel Palmer of the British Military Mission in Albania, 2,000–3,000 collaborated in an organized manner, while a report of Pan-Epirotic EAM-Commission names 3,200 Cham collaborators from the Dino clan.[19] Although not everyone in the community actively collaborated, historiography agrees that the Cham minority completely accepted the Axis occupation and benefited from the presence of occupation troops by providing them with guides, connections, informants and other forms of support.[20] Mainly due to their collaboration in World War II the Chams later became a controversial if not suspect community for the leaders of the Peoples Republic of Albania (1945-1991).[21]
Background
The region inhabited by the Chams, known among Albanians as "
Given the
Despite the claims of Greek and Albanian nationalists alike, surveys of the region of Thesprotia repeatedly noted the lack of "nationalisation" among the population; the Albanian speaking Christians referred to themselves not as Greeks but as "kaurs", while Albanophone Muslims did not call themselves "Albanian" but instead "Muslims" or "Turks"; even as late as the 1940s, the Muslims lacked any sort of Albanian consciousness and continued to describe themselves as "Turks"; Albanian nationalist ideas were espoused by a "minority of the educated and landowning class" but even these were divided between republican and royalist factions.[27] Muslim religious authorities were conservative and of pro-Turkish persuasion, and accordingly they obstructed the growth of Albanian nationalism in the region.[27]
Once
Relations between the various social groups were complicated in the region and were characterized primarily by an intense honor culture featuring clans and blood feuds among all major groups, antagonisms between the pastoralist (Vlach) and sedentary (Greek and Albanian) populations, religious rivalries between landowning Muslims and often land-starved Christian itinerant farmers who worked in "deplorable" conditions, and the exploitation of religious affiliations by both Christians and Muslims to win disputes.[27] At the same time there was a high rate of interreligious clan alliances, friendships, blood-brotherhoods, adoptions (where the adoptee retained their parents' religion despite the parents practicing another) and interreligious marriages.[27] Muslim peasants often gave their children Christian names and attended Christian services, while Christians likewise would consult Muslim clergy.[27]
In the early 20th century, the bonds between the various Christian and Muslim communities began to weaken as clergy on both sides railed against interreligious relationships.[27] Further stress was placed on interreligious relationships by conflicts over land and resources, the allotment of formerly Muslim-controlled resources to refugees from Turkey, anti-Albanian policies by the Metaxas government beginning in 1936 which included suppression of the Albanian language and harassment of Muslim notables, and finally in 1939 the beginning of irredentist pressures emanating from Italy and Italian occupied Albania calling for the annexation of Thesprotia to Albania.[27]
In the late 1930s, especially after
Prior to the outbreak of World War II, 28 villages in the region were inhabited exclusively by Muslim Chams, and an additional 20 villages had mixed (Greek-Muslim Cham) populations.[26]
Italian occupation
Greco-Italian War and Italian occupation of October–November 1940
When the
The Greek army repelled the attack and advanced. Chams support to Italy was paid back by the Greeks, who interned the majority of the male population of the Chams for security reasons.
Italian occupation (1941–1943)
Germany was against the annexation of the region to Albania that time.
The occupation forces installed a local Cham administration in the town of Paramythia, with Xhemil Dino as local administrator of Thesprotia and as a representative of the Albanian government. At the time the town of Paramythia had a mixed Greek-Cham population of 6,000.[1] Apart from the local Cham administration (Këshilla), active from July 1942, its paramilitary militia and gendarmerie of the same name began operating from 1943.[40] According to post-war courts decisions and testimonies, during the Italian occupation these armed units were responsible for large scale criminal activity: murders, rapes, village burnings and looting.[1]
Fictive kinship ties and regional loyalties still served to restrain the violence at this time, with Muslims often warning or sheltering their Christian neighbors, and in some cases threatening violence against other Muslims if their neighbors were harmed.[33] In some cases, Muslim clans that were committing violence against Christian clans were involved in the protection of other Christian clans.[33] Motivations were not national or religious but instead were motivated by clan and personal rivalries; one British officer remarked that "the whole war is viewed by the Greeks and Albanians from a parochial standpoint with the result that their actions are often controlled by the value of the belligerents to the local cause".[33] However as the violence continued and deepened, and with the rise of the Keshilla, acts of cross-religious solidarity became rarer, and the conflict was increasingly sectarianised.[33] By 1942, according to oral histories, the region was in a civil war, with clans and villages pitted against each other, and the Christian population was forced to flee into the highlands. Their properties were redistributed among Muslims, especially the poorest Muslim classes, who benefited the most from their flight.[33]
Operation "Augustus"
From 29 July – 31 August 1943, while the region was typically under Italian occupation, a combined German and Cham force launched an anti-partisan sweep operation codenamed Augustus.[3] During the subsequent operations, 600 Greek villagers were killed and 70 villages in the region were destroyed. 500 Greek citizens were taken hostages and 160 of them were sent to forced labour in Nazi Germany.[5] In 21 settlements in the vicinity of Kanallaki 400 inhabitants were arrested and forced to march to the nearest concentration camp in Thessaloniki (KZ Pavlos Melas). When the march begun the armed groups did not hesitate to execute a diseased priest in front of the rest of the hostages.[3] In exchange of their support, German Lieutenant Colonel Josef Remold offered the Chams weapons and equipment. As a token of appreciation, Nuri Dino, the leader of the Cham security battalions, promised to secure the region of the Acheron river, south of Paramythia, against Allied infiltration.[41]
German occupation
In September 1943, following
By time Operation Augustus ended, a larger number of Muslim Chams was recruited for the armed support of the Axis side forming additional battalions of Cham volunteers. Their support was appreciated by the Germans: Lt Colonel Josef Remold remarked that "with their knowledge of the surrounding area, they have proved their value in the scouting missions". On several occasions these scouting missions engaged EDES units in combat.[42] On September 27, combined German and Cham forces launched large scale operation in burning and destroying villages north of Paramythia: Eleftherochori, Seliani, Semelika, Aghios Nikolaos, killing 50 Greek villagers in the process. In this operation the Cham contingent numbered 150 men, and, according to German Major Stöckert, "performed very well".[43]
Paramythia incident
On the night of 27 September, Cham militias arrested 53 prominent Greek citizens in Paramythia and executed 49 of them two days later. This action was orchestrated by the brothers Nuri and Mazar Dino (an officer of the Cham militia) in order to get rid of the town's Greek representatives and intellectuals. According to German reports, Cham militias were also part of the firing squad.[44]
During 20–29 September , as a result of serial violent activities, at least 75 Greek citizens were killed in Paramythia and 19 municipalities were destroyed.
20,000 Albanians, with Italian and now German support, spread terror to the rest of the population. Only in the region of Fanari 24 villages were destroyed. The entire harvest was taken by them. In my trip I realized that the Albanians kept the Greeks terrified inside their homes. Young Albanians, just finished from school, wandered heavily armed. The Greek population of Igoumenitsa had to find refuge in the mountains. The Albanians had stolen all the cattle and the fields remain uncultivated.
Nazi-Cham activities in southern Albania
After the capitulation of Fascist Italy, in September 1943, the local British mission proposed an alliance to the Chams and to fight together the Germans, but this proposal was rejected.[47]
Although operation Augustus took place mostly in Greek territory, such activities had also spread to southern Albania, with combined German and Cham Albanian units executing c. 50 Albanian in the process.[48] [7][10]
Due to increasing resistance activity at the end of 1943 in southern Albania, German General and local commander Hubert Lanz, decided to initiate armed operations with the code name Horridoh in this region. Albanian nationalist groups participated in these operations, among them a Cham battalion of ca. 1,000 men under the leadership of Nuri Dino. The death toll from these operations, which began on 1 January 1944 in the region of Konispol, was 500 Albanians.[8]
Cham participation in the resistance
As the end of World War II drew near, a small number of Muslim Chams became part of the
Axis retreat and expulsion of Chams
During the summer of 1944, when the German withdrawal was imminent, the right-wing head of the
On 18 June 1944, EDES forces with Allied support launched an attack on Paramythia. After short-term against a combined Cham-German garrison, the town was finally liberated. Soon after, violent reprisals were carried out against the town's Muslim community, which was considered responsible for the massacre of September 1943.[2]
The number of the Cham victims during this operation is unknown, although it is certain that the remaining Chams who had not already fled to Albania were forced to move. British officers described it as "a most disgraceful affair" involving "an orgy of revenge" with the local guerrillas "looting and wantonly destroying everything". The British
Aftermath and war crimes trials
In the post-war years a number of trials concerning the
During 1945, a Special Court on Collaborators in Ioannina condemned 1,930 Cham collaborators in absentia to death (decision no. 344/1945).[56] The next year the same court condemned an additional 179.[57] At the Nuremberg trials, General Hubert Lanz reported that the executions and the reprisal missions were part of "war regulations", however he admitted utter ignorance about the executions in Paramythia.[58] In 1948 the Greek National Bureau on War Crimes ordered juridical research on the crimes committed by Italians, Albanians and Germans during the Axis occupation. Two days later, the immediate arrest of the defendants was ordered. Because all the defendants were abroad it is unknown if the Greek Foreign Ministry initiated the needed diplomatic procedure. In the Hostages Trial in Nuremberg (1948) the American judges called the executions in Paramythia "plain murder".[6]
References
- ^ a b c d Meyer 2008: 464
- ^ a b c Meyer 2008: 620
- ^ a b c Meyer 2008: 204
- ^ a b Kallivretakis, 1995, p. 39
- ^ a b Meyer 2008: 207
- ^ a b c Meyer 2008: 473
- ^ a b Meyer 2008: 537
- ^ a b Meyer 2008: 539
- ISBN 978-1476667843.
- ^ a b c Katsikas, 2021, p. 191
- ^ Meyer 2008: 705 "The Albanian minority of the Chams collaborated in large parts with the Italians and the Germans".
- ^ ISBN 0-691-05842-3, pp. 25–26.
- ISBN 978-0-313-31949-5. "During World War II, the majority of Chams sided with the Axis forces..."
- ^ a b "Examining policy responses to immigration in the light of interstate relations and foreign policy objectives: Greece and Albania". In King, Russell, & Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers (eds). The new Albanian migration. Sussex Academic. p. 16.
- ISBN 9780880339957.
- ^ Baltsiotis. The Muslim Chams of Northwestern Greece. 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-582-06471-3. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
- ^ Frei 2006: 483
- ^ a b c Ethnologia Balkanica. Vol. 6. 2002.
- ^ Manta 2009, p. 8: "it been admitted by all sides that the Albanian population as a whole, even though it did not actively collaborate with the occupiers, they accepted them with hope and expectation for the materialization of the promises which had been cultivated for decades; they benefited from their presence in the region and provided them with indirect support with guides, connections, informants etc. A German officer was to admit later that the Albanians were favorably disposed towards them while the Greeks fought against them."
- ^ Manta 2009, p. 11: The least that can be said is that for Hoxha and generally for the Albanian communists, the Çams comprised a controversial if not suspect community, due to their collaboration with the German and Italian occupiers during World War II.
- ^ a b King 2005: 87
- ^ Isufi, Hajredin (2004). "Aspects of Islamization in Çamëri". Historical Studies (in Albanian). 3 (4). Tirana, Albania: Institute of History: 17–32.
- ^ Roudometof 2002: 157
- ^ Baltsiotis. The Muslim Chams of Northwestern Greece. 2011. "Although there is no sufficient written proof to support the idea, it’s almost certain that families owning very small parcels of land, or just a few small fields and a small number of sheep, were not an exception and were also present in villages"
- ^ a b Meyer 2008: 152
- ^ a b c d e f g Tsoutsoumpis, Spyros. "Violence, resistance and collaboration in a Greek borderland: the case of the Muslim Chams of Epirus." (2015). Pages 121-127
- ^ a b Mazower 2000: 25
- ^ Roudometof 2002: 157.
- ^ Baltsiotis. The Muslim Chams of Northwestern Greece. 2011. "A concrete description of the lives of the Muslims is clearly referred to in a special report drawn by K. Stylianopoulos, the “Inspector” in charge of Minority issues, who was directly appointed by the Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and was accountable to him. The report relates to us in graphic terms that “[…] persecutions and heavier confiscations, even led to the decision of classifying as chiftlik the town of Paramythia […] and in that way small properties and gardens had been expropriated against the Constitution and the Agrarian law; not a single stremma was left to them for cultivation and for sustaining their families, nor were the rents of their properties paid to them regularly (some of them being even lower than a stamp duty). They were not permitted to sell or buy land, and were forced to evaluate their fields at ridiculously low prices (as low as 3 drahmi per stremma), […], only to be imprisoned for taxes not paid for land already confiscated or expropriated..... Report, 15.10.1930, Archive of Eleftherios Venizelos, Minorities, f. 58/173/4573. See the more detailed report on illegal real estate expropriations and confiscations and the financial results upon the Muslim population at the documents contacted by the General Inspector of the Central Department (of the Ministry of Agriculture) to his Ministry, dated 13. 01. 1932 and 07.08.1932 (HAMFA, 1935, f. A/4/9/2),where he underlines that even plots of 2-3 stremmata had been expropriated."
- ^ a b c Fischer 1999: 75-76
- ^ a b Kretsi Georgia Verfolgung und Gedächtnis in Albanien: eine Analyse postsozialistischer Erinnerungsstrategien p. 283
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Tsoutsoumpis, Spyros. "Violence, resistance and collaboration in a Greek borderland: the case of the Muslim Chams of Epirus." (2015). Pages 127–130.
- ^ K. Antoniou, Istoria Horifilakis [A history of the gendarmerie] (1833–1967) Volume.2 N/A Athens, 1964, p. 77. Cited in Tsoutsoumpis
- ^ Kretsi, 2009, p. 7
- ^ Manta, 2009, p. 7: "Greek Thesprotia was not included amongst the territories annexed to Albania and remained under the control of the High Command of Athens because of the German reaction. It seems that, amongst other factors which worked against such an annexation was the fact that, in contrast to Kosovo, the inhabitants of Epirus were by a vast majority Greeks, which could not justify any administrative reorganization in that region."
- ^ Meyer, p. 152: "Aufgrund des Versrpechens dass ein Teil des Epirus eines Tages zu Albanien gehoren werde, kollaborierten nicht wenige Tsamides mit den Italienern", p. 464: "setzten die deutschen Versprechungen... die sogenannte Tsamouria, nach Kriegsende in "ein freies, selbstandiges Albanien" eingegliedert werde."
- ^ Manta, 2009, p. 7: "Up until the middle of May that year their establishment in Paramythia and other Epirote cities and the organization of their services, were completed."
- . Retrieved 10 May 2015.
...τον Ιούνιο του 1941, ξεκίνησαν τη δράση τους οι πρώτες ένοπλες συμμορίες Αλβανών τσάμηδων στην Ήπειρο...
- ^ Georgia Kretsi (2002). "The Secret Past of the Greek-Albanian Borderlands. Cham Muslim Albanians: Perspectives on a Conflict over Historical Accountability and Current Rights". Ethnologia Balkanica.(6): 177. "An Albanian political administration called ‘Këshilla’ was founded in 1942, and after 1943 it was completed with its own armed forces as well as a gendarmerie. The latter must have had a less political character during the Italian occupation, and may have been more of a military gendarmerie, which the fascists used to maintain as a security organ for their military. When the Germans succeeded the Italians in July 1943, however, the Këshilla seemed to gain a role as a political administration. In vain they tried to switch off the Greek occupation authorities. An official hand—over of the administration to the Albanians would automatically mean the annexation to Albania, a move that was not necessarily in the interest of the German headquarters in Athens. Nevertheless the Këshilla appointed itself as the supreme administrative office (with law-making power), subsequently ignoring the Greek administration and introducing illegal taxes in order to finance its men."
- ^ Meyer 2008: 204, 464
- ^ Meyer 2008: 464, 467, 476
- ^ Meyer 2008: 469
- ^ Meyer 2008: 469-471
- ^ a b Meyer 2008: 476
- ^ Meyer 2008: 498
- ISBN 9789602133712. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
After the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, the British mission in Epirus tried to arrive at an understanding with the Chams in the hope of persuading them to turn against the Germans. The Chams refused
- ^ Meyer 2008: 218
- ^ a b The Secret Past of the Greek-Albanian Borderlands. Cham Muslim Albanians: Perspectives on a Conflict over Historical Accountability and Current Rights. Georgia Kretsi.
- ISBN 978-0-8204-6646-0.
- ^ Ethnologia Balkanica. LIT Verlag Münster. pp. 175–. GGKEY:ES2RY3RRUDS.
- ISBN 978-960-03-2491-4.
ε μια έκθεση του ΕΑΜ για τους Τσάμηδες το 1944 , « οι φασίστες τυχοδιώκτες Νουρί και Μαζάρ Ντίνο βρίσκουν εύκολη λεία για τα φασιστικά τους σχέδια μεγάλη μερίδα του τσάμικου λαού που διψούσε διά την εθνική λύτρωσή του.
- ^ King 2005: 218
- ^ Mazower 2000:
- ISBN 9783447055444.
- ^ King 2005: 67
- ^ Ktistakis, Yiorgos. "Τσάμηδες - Τσαμουριά. Η ιστορία και τα εγκλήματα τους" [Chams - Chameria. Their History and Crimes]
- ^ Meyer 2008: 472
Sources
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- Kretsi, Georgia (2002). "The Secret Past of the Greek-Albanian Borderlands. Cham Muslim Albanians: Perspectives on a Conflict over Historical Accountability and Current Rights". Ethnologia Balkanica. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
- Manta, Eleftheria (2009). "The Cams of Albania and the Greek State (1923 - 1945)". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. 4 (29). Retrieved 10 May 2015.
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- Close, David H. (1993). The Greek civil war, 1943-1950: studies of polarization. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-02112-8.
- Fischer, Bernd Jürgen (1999). Albania at War, 1939-1945. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. ISBN 978-1-85065-531-2.
- Frei, Norbert (2006). Transnationale Vergangenheitspolitik: der Umgang mit deutschen Kriegsverbrechern in Europa nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg [Past International Policy: Associations with German War Crimes in Europe after the Second World War (in German). Wallstein Verlag. ISBN 978-3-89244-940-9.
- Kallivretakis, Leonidas (1995). "Η ελληνική κοινότητα της Αλβανίας υπό το πρίσμα της ιστορικής γεωγραφίας και δημογραφίας [The Greek Community of Albania in terms of historical geography and demography." In Nikolakopoulos, Ilias, Kouloubis Theodoros A. & Thanos M. Veremis (eds). Ο Ελληνισμός της Αλβανίας [The Greeks of Albania]. University of Athens.
- Mazower, Mark (2000). After The War Was Over: Reconstructing the Family, Nation and State in Greece, 1943-1960. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-05842-9.
- Roudometof, Victor (2002). Collective memory, national identity, and ethnic conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian question. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-97648-4.
- Russell King; Nicola Mai; Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, eds. (2005). The New Albanian Migration. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-903900-78-9.
- Katsikas, Stefanos (27 August 2021). Islam and Nationalism in Modern Greece, 1821-1940. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-065202-9.
- Ktistakis, Giorgos (2006). Περιουσίες Αλβανών και Τσάμηδων στην Ελλάδα: Aρση του εμπολέμου και διεθνής προστασία των δικαιωμάτων του ανθρώπου' [Properties of Albanians and Chams in Greece: Nullification of the State of War and international protection of human rights] (PDF). Center of Studying of Minority Groups.
- Nachmani, Amikam (1990). International intervention in the Greek Civil War: the United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans, 1947-1952. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-93367-8.
Further reading
- Elsie, Robert; Bejtullah Destani (2013). The Cham Albanians of Greece. A Documentary History. IB Tauris. ISBN 9781780760001. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
See also
- Collaboration in World War II
- Collaborationism
- Schutzmannschaft