Thanasis Hatzis (Gr: Θανάσης Χατζῆς, 1905-1982) was a Greek communist activist and Resistance fighter during the Axis occupation of Greece, serving during that period as EAM's Secretary General, and then a Democratic Army combatant in the Greek Civil War.
Early years, education, and involvement in politics Ηatzis was born in 1905 in Amyntaion, Florina, of Ottoman-ruled Macedonia, into an agrarian family, involved at the time in the armed battles of local Greeks against Bulgarian nationalists. Their participation in the armed conflict led to the family's exile by the Ottoman authorities to Salonica. While in high school, Hatzis participated in students' demonstrations in support of the railroad workers' major strike of 1925In March 1925, railway workers in Greece, demanding better pay and decrease in overtime hours, went on strike, significantly disrupting transportation. See Panourgiá (2009) and is arrested for breach of the peace. His brother-in-law, a deputy commander of the Hellenic Military Academy, confined Hatzis, as a disciplinary measure, in the academy's grounds, from where Hatzis escaped. He was subsequently drafted into the disciplinary unit of Kalpaki military camp and completed his service there. He moved to Athens and enrolled in the university, wherefrom he obtained his degree in dentistry.
At the university, Hatzis joined the youth wing of the Communist Party of Greece and agitated in numerous students' demonstrations, occupations of buildings, and strikes during the period from1929 until 1933. He was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison and internal exile. After an early release, he continued to participate and instigate political activities in the city and was arrested again by the dictatorial regime and imprisoned in Akronafplia. On account of his "strong" political activity, even while serving his prison sentence, Hatzis rose in the party hierarchy.
Axis invasion of Greece, 1940-41 On 29 October 1940, Mussolini's Italy declared war on Greece and attacked through Greece's northern borders from Albania, then under Italian occupation. Hatzis was conscripted and dispatched to serve as a military doctor lieutenant at the Korytsa front, where he immediately took part in the battles on mount Ivan. On 6 January 1941, he was seriously wounded from mortar fire, while taking part in an attack. After convalescing, he was sent back to the Albanian front, where he took part in the defense against the invading German units; soon after, the Greek government capitulated. After failing to convince officers and enlisted men to form guerilla bands in the northern mountains, Hatzis returned to Athens.
The National Liberation Front Birth of EAM In July 1941, the Communist Party proclaimed the "urgent need" for armed resistance and the "national and social liberation of Greece."Following the 1939 signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and until the German attack against the Soviet Union, the Comintern line was that the war was an "internal conflict between imperialist countries" and the communist parties were not to condemn German aggression. See See
Some six months later, in January 1942, the Central Committee's directives were even more pressing, demanding from the cadres "every effort" to organize a resistance movement "everywhere," starting from the countryside. Nonetheless, there were little results of practical significance, the reason for which some historians have assigned to the party's reluctance to endorse movements and organizations not entirely under its control. The situation in German and Italian-occupied Greece, therefore, remained mostly peaceful, to the point that the commander of the Italian occupation forces in Greece could report in May 1943 that the past twelve months had been without "any events that could be characterized as threatening the security of the troops or the population."Report, dated 3 August 1942, by General Carlo Geloso, Relazione sull'opera svolta dal Commando Superiore FF.AA. Grecia nel campo politico-economino durante il primo anno di occupazione (Maggio 1941 - Maggio 1942), from the U.S. National ArchivesOn the contrary, in Bulgarian-occupied North Greece, the September 1941 Drama uprising, which the Bulgarian forces put down after a "bloodbath," would register the very violent character of the struggle in that region, for the remainder of the war and beyond.
Οn 27 September 1941, representatives of the Communist party, the Socialist Party, the People's Democracy Union, and the Agrarian Party held a clandestine meeting in Athens to discuss and agree on the creation of a resistance alliance, to be called Ethnikó Apeleftherotikó Métopo (National Liberation Front).There have been numerous attempts to organize a resistance organization before EAM, yet almost all of them were either not successful or achieved very little. The pre-EAM resistance group with the most impact in North Greece was Eleftheria (Freedom) in Salonica, an alliance between the Communists, the Socialists, the Agrarians, the Democratic Union, and colonel Dimitris Psarros, later of 5/42 Evzones Regiment fame. The alliance began distributing a news pamphlet widely around the city but eventually did not make much progress. See Marantzidis (2023) p.202. In Crete, the nationalist organization Supreme Committee of Cretan Struggle was created in June 1941, almost immediately after the island's conquest by the Germans; it would eventually become EOK with substantial armed strength. Preparatory contacts undertaken with other parties and politicians, prominent among whom was Themistoklis Sofoulis, inviting them to participate in EAM, had failed. Pre-war non-leftists parliamentarians were instructed by the Greek government-in-exile, led by Liberal party's Emmanouil Tsouderos, to stay clear of resistance activity and, in particular, to refrain from joining any resistance groupings; they were to await developments and instructions from the exiled government.
Lefteris Apostolou, a prominent communist activist and KKE member, who represented the party at the inaugural meeting, was elected EAM's General Secretary.Lefteris was the older brother of Ilektra Apostolou, also a member of EAM, who was arrested, tortured and executed by the Gestapo in 1944. Ιn September 1942, philosopher and politician Dimitris Glinos, a long-time KKE member, wrote and EAM distributed widely the front's political and social manifesto, titled What EAM is and wants. Within two months, Apostolou was arrested by the authorities for "insurrectionist activities" and imprisoned,Apostolou would remain imprisoned until September 1943, when he escaped and joined the antartes of ELAS. See ASKI (2007) and, in November 1941, Thanasis Hatzis was elected General Secretary, replacing him. Hatzis was a firm supporter of armed reaction to the occupation and consistently proclaimed that a people's resistance would be the germ of a "new authority" that would demand consummation, the germ of a revolution for "people's power".
In 1942, Hatzis married Heró Hadjimarkou, and they had a son.
The famine The first official communiqué by EAM called on all officers of the Greek armed forces, whether serving or retired, to join the resistance and assist with their "knowledge, experience, and proven daring" in the organization of "national-liberation forces."Relatively few officers heeded the call, since most were conservative politically if not outright anti-communist; some chose to leave the country and join the Greek forces that had been reformed and stationed in Egypt, under the command of the British army, while others stayed in Greece without getting involved in the resistance and awaiting the war's denouement. More immediate was the task of confronting the catastrophe of mass starvation that hit most major cities, and particularly Athens, starting from the winter of 1941/42.For a description of the famine, see "Chapter 3. The Famine" in Mazower (2001). For an analysis of the famine's operational, social, and war-related causes see "Chapter 2. The experience of the Occupation famine and the struggle for survival" in Charalambidis (2012). The corruption and systemic inadequacy of the state authorities significantly deteriorated an already dire situation, born out from both the lack of preparations for such an event and the Occupation authorities seizing extraordinary quantities of foodstuff. Even the German community of Athens suffered from malnutrition. This led the population in the affected cities, and mainly in Athens, to start initiatives of food collection and exchange; oftentimes, local EAM representatives would take over the state's food giveaways, since they were accepted as honest, as opposed to the state's corrupt officialdom. EAM cells initiated, organized, and expanded the feeding activities, an achievement that, although it lessened and not eliminated the famine's impact,It has been estimated that some 40-45,000 Athenians died from the famine during the winter of 1941-42. See p.82 in Charalambidis (2012), citing studies. it significantly expanded EAM's popularity among the general population. EAM's endeavors under the direction of Hatzis included, importantly, contacts with members of the Occupation forces as well as the state's apparatus who would be prepared to sell or exchange items for food. These contacts were also meant to progress and, more often than not, eventually progressed to buying from such personnel pistols and ammunition but also other materiel.
Τhe famine in combination with the state's inability to address the catastrophe and the voluntary mobilization of local communities towards providing food had a widespread radicalizing effect on large swaths of the population - and, in particular, young people, including apolitical or conservative persons. The effect was felt practically everywhere in the country. The ranks of EAM began to swell in a manner that did not conform to the conspiratorial rules of the Communist Party, a success, tellingly, that many cadres did not appreciate enough. Hatzis, being a long time cadre, understood the issue of mass conscription into EAM as significant and understandably worrying for the veteran communists of KKE and addressed it quite strongly, eventually convincing the leadership of the necessity, by definition, to follow different, less severe rules for entry into EAM.
Mass expansion
Significant and numerous during 1943 were public expressions of civilian dissent, most often spontaneous, such as the mass protests against the government program of conscription of laborers to be sent to Germany,See Ostarbeiter the funeral of "national poet" Kostis Palamas, in which the patriotic eulogy of poet Angelos Sikelianos incited a demonstration with cries against the Occupiers, or the Greek-flag carrying demonstration following the 25th March independence day, which was fired upon by Italian carabinieri;Τhe Italian armed forces in Athens were already on edge. Their celebration of the anniversary of Mussolini's March to Rome on the 23rd of March, was met with protests by Athenian citizens which infuriated the Italian authorities. See Mazower (2001). the protests rendered the authority of the collaborationist government virtually non-existent, and EAM's Secretary brought forward measures to extent the organization's influence. The "enthusiasm" of protesting and agitating young people, in particular, enabled the unification of the most significant youth organizations into one single front, the Eniaia Panelladiki Organosi Neon (United Panhellenic Organization of Youth, or EPON from its initials in Greek), which was soon unofficially under the aegis of EAM. Notable for all observers, including the "astonished" state's authorities, was the "mass" participation in these political protests of young women, not only in urban areas, but even around the country, where the social norms had historically been quite strict.