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Cham Albanian collaboration with the Axis

Cham Albanian collaboration with the Axis
Memorial of the massive executions in Paramythia
LocationThesprotia, Greece
Konispol, Albania
Date1941-1944
TargetPopulation hostile to the Axis occupation
Attack type
Mass murder by firing squads, rapes,[1] burning of villages, massacres,[2] destruction of settlements and cultural heritage sites, transport of civilians to Nazi concentration camps,[3] wide scale looting and banditry[4]
DeathsIn Greece: 1,065[4]
Operation Augustus: 600[5]
Paramythia Executions: 201[6]
In Albania: 550
Operation Augustus: 50[7]
Operation Horridoh: 500[8]
VictimsCivilian population of Thesprotia, Greece, Konispol Albania
PerpetratorsCham Albanian paramilitary,
Këshilla
1st Mountain Division (Wehrmacht), Nuri Dino battalion (Wehrmacht), Geheime Feldpolizei[9]
MotiveEthnic Cleansing,[10] Annexation of Thesprotia to Albania[10]
VerdictCollaboration with the Axis occupation units,
Plain murder[6]

During the Axis occupation of Greece between 1941 and 1944 parts of the Cham Albanian minority (Albanian: Çamë, Greek: Τσάμηδες, Tsamides) in the Thesprotia prefecture, northwestern Greece, collaborated with the occupation forces.[11][12][13] Fascist Italian as well as Nazi German propaganda promised that the region would be awarded to Albania (then in personal union with Italy) after the end of the war. As a result of this pro-Albanian approach, many Muslim Chams actively supported the Axis operations and committed a number of crimes against the local population both in Greece and Albania. Apart from the formation of a local administration and armed security battalions, a paramilitary organization named Këshilla and a resistance paramilitary group called Balli Kombetar Cam were operating in the region, manned by local Muslim Chams. The results were devastating: many Greek and Albanian citizens lost their lives and a great number of villages were burned and destroyed. It appears that the Mufti and many beys did not approve of the Cham helping the Wehrmacht to burn Greek villages.[12] With the retreat of the Axis forces from Greece in 1944, most of the Cham population fled to Albania[14][15] and revenge attacks against the remaining Chams were carried out by Greek guerrillas and villagers.[16][17] When the war ended, special courts on collaboration sentenced 2,106 Chams to death in absentia.[14] However, the war crimes remained unpunished since the criminals had already fled abroad. According to German historian Norbert Frei, the Muslim Cham minority is regarded as the "fourth occupation force" in Greece due to the collaborationist and criminal activities that large parts of the minority committed.[18][citation needed]

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]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Meyer 2008: 464 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Meyer 2008: 620 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Meyer 2008: 204 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Kallivretakis, 1995, p. 39
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Meyer207 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Meyer473 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Meyer537 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Meyer539 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Muñoz, Antonio (2018). The German Secret Field Police in Greece, 1941-1944. McFarland. pp. 79=80. ISBN 978-1476667843.
  10. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Katsikas191 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Meyer 2008: 705 "The Albanian minority of the Chams collaborated in large parts with the Italians and the Germans".
  12. ^ a b Mazower, Mark. After The War Was Over: Reconstructing the Family, Nation and State in Greece, 1943–1960. Princeton University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-691-05842-3, pp. 25–26.
  13. ^ Victor Roudometof; Roland Robertson (2001). Nationalism, Globalization, and Orthodoxy: The Social Origins of Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 190–. ISBN 978-0-313-31949-5. "During World War II, the majority of Chams sided with the Axis forces..."
  14. ^ 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.
  15. ^ Steven Béla Várdy, ed. (2003). Ethnic cleansing in twentieth-century Europe. Boulder, Colo.: Social Science Monographs. p. 228. ISBN 9780880339957.
  16. ^ Baltsiotis. The Muslim Chams of Northwestern Greece. 2011.
  17. ^ Close, David H. (1995). The Origins of the Greek Civil War. Longman. p. 248. ISBN 978-0-582-06471-3. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
  18. ^ Frei 2006: 483
  19. ^ Ethnologia Balkanica. Vol. 6. 2002.
  20. ^ 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."
  21. ^ 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.

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