These figures are given by Constantine A. Doxiadis, the urban planner and architect who was the minister of housing and reconstruction from 1945 to 1946. Doxiadis resigned his post shortly before the elections of 1946, but he remained as director of the project of reconstruction until 1949. Tsoucalas gives slightly different figures. He says that 8 percent of the population (550,000 people) died and 34 percent of the national wealth was destroyed (rather than Doxiadis's 40 percent): 401,500 houses were destroyed, leaving over a million people homeless; 1,770 villages were burned; harbors, railway tracks, bridges, steam engines, telephone networks, and civil airports were destroyed; 73 percent of the cargo ship tonnage was gone, as well as 94 percent of passenger ships, 65 percent of private cars, 80 percent of public buses, 60 percent of trucks, 60 percent of horses, 60 percent of cattle, and 80 percent of domesticated small animals; 25 percent of the forests had been burned; and the Greek national product was at 40 percent. The aftermath of the war took its impetus from these realities: a population that was broken, starved, unclothed, and barefoot (Doxiadis 1946; Tsoucalas 1969: 90–92).
- Chapter 2. 1936–1944: The Metaxas Dictatorship, the Italian Attack, the German Invasion, German Occupation, Resistance
- » And Then Came the One with the Erased Face
The democratic aims of the PEEA (known as Kyvernisi Vounou, the Mountain Government) won wide support in Greece and even among Greeks in exile. A delegation of resistance leaders met in Cairo in 1943, asking that the question of the monarchy be addressed before the king returned to Greece after the projected defeat of the Axis, on the grounds that the king had collaborated with the Metaxas dictatorship before the war. Winston Churchill backed the king. In April 1944 the Greek armed forces in Egypt revolted against the Allies (primarily the British, who had the greatest authority over them), demanding that a government of national unity be established based on PEEA principles and that the issue of the republic be resolved. The revolt was suppressed by the British, who arrested approximately eight thousand Greek officers and soldiers and sent them to prison camps in Libya, Sudan, and Egypt. Later on, through political screening of the officers, the Cairo government created staunchly anti-Communist armed forces, such as the Third Mountain Brigade (also known as the Rimini Brigade, since it fought in the battle at Rimini, in Italy), and the Hierós Lóchos (Sacred Battalion), headed by Lakis Tsigantes. In May 1944, representatives from all political parties and resistance groups came together at a conference in Lebanon, seeking agreement about a coalition government of national unity. Despite the mutual mistrust between EAM and the rest of the resistance forces, the conference ended in agreement on a government of national unity, to consist of twenty-four ministers (six of whom were EAM members). But the issue of the disarmament of the armed Resistance forces after liberation was not resolved.
On October 12, 1944, the Germans left Athens. A few days later they crossed the borders and dispersed into the chaos of the collapsing Reich. Greece was left with 250,000 dead from famine, 15,700 dead from the Italian war, 8,000 dead from the week-long German invasion, 3,000 dead from the German bombings, 50,000 dead from Allied bombings, 40,000 dead from the Bulgarian forces, 30,000 dead from German and Italian retaliation to acts of resistance, 4,000 military deaths abroad, 1,000 dead in the merchant marine, 60,000 disappeared Jews. In a country of fewer than eight million, there were 415,300 dead between October 28, 1940, and October 12, 1944.