The Minister of National Defence Panos Kammenos and the Alternate Minister of National Defence Kostas Isihos participated to an event organised by the Ministry of National Defence, in cooperation with the Cross-party Parliamentary Committee for the Claim of German Reparations to Greece and the National Council for Claiming German War Reparations to Greece, under the title: “World War II – Greece – Occupation – Resistance: Historical Memory – Claim – Justification”.

The event was also attended by the Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament Zoe Konstantopoulou, members of the ministerial council, MPs, the Chiefs of the General Staffs, more than sixty ambassadors, delegates of embassies and defence attaches, as well as members of the Greek resistance, who were bestowed honorary plaques.

The Minister of National Defence Panos Kammenos made the following statement:

“Reverend delegate of the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece

Madame Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament,

Ministers,

Chiefs of the General Staffs, the HNDGS, the HNGS, the HAGS and the HAFGS,

Combatants of the National Resistance,

Generals, Admirals, Air Force Generals,

Your Excellencies, Ambassadors and delegates of Embassies,

Distinguished speakers,

On behalf of the political leadership of the Ministry of National Defence and me personally, of the Alternate Minister of National Defence and the soul behind today’s event, its organiser Mr. Isihos, of the Deputy Minister Mr. Toskas and the General Secretary Mr. Tafillis, I would like to welcome you.

Today, we have the honour to be present at a very important event; an event of remembrance which, more than simply national, it also has an ecumenical and universal character.

We are here so as to pay homage to the victims of World War II. To honour the combatants of the Greek national resistance who gave their life so as to free our country from the Nazi atrocity and occupation.

We are not here so as to rake up the past. Some people say “let bygones be bygones”; and they say it easily, fluently, as if nothing happened, as if thousands of years passed since.

However, here in Greece, since we have suffered repeatedly, we follow what several philosophers underline, that: “a people writes his history, not in order to narrate his history, but in order to declare what they want to be into the future”. And this country has a rich history, but also a future; a long future, whether some may like that or not. It is signed by God, as General Makriyiannis used to say.

And when does history have a meaning? When it becomes the ground on which we will step on so as to look forward and declare what we want to be.

We have real history, long-lasting and wealthy, not only to us, but to the entire civilised world.  

This wealth compels us to maintain our collective memory and don’t let us leave our people’s struggles and sacrifices unjustified.

In that deadly war, Greece paid a very heavy price, disproportionate to its size. It received the coordinated fire from two super powers and was immersed in destruction, misery, famine and poverty for a long time.

On top of that, we experienced more acts of the Greek drama, in Kalavrita, Distomo, Levidi, Kandanos and in various other regions and villages, with the executions of unarmed people, the setting on fire of houses and complete destruction.

I would like to particularly thank the Mayors and the delegates of the families who honour us with their presence here today.

So, this black period of the Occupation, a time of sacrifice, blood, tears, executions and mass graves, cannot be forgotten.

The victims of the barbarians with the black shirts and the swastikas, who massacred Europe and the humanity, and raped every ideal and human value, cannot be forgotten.  

Besides, it hasn’t been long since then, and the generation of the occupation and the resistance still lives. Among us is Mr. Argyrios Sfountouris from Distomo, as well as members of the national resistance; our country’s living history. They are here and they show us the way of national and personal dignity.

I challenge anyone to face them and tell them that bygones are bygones. I couldn’t do it. I don’t have the right to do it. The Country, the State has to do what is necessary, so as to bring justification; to ensure the sequence of the values and ideals which kept this country standing, and not so as to maintain suspiciousness and hatred between the peoples.

We would like to underline the importance of understanding, as well as of the peaceful settlement of the problems that emerge to the international political scene.  

We should remember that when solidarity, cooperation and dialogue between the peoples are replaced by the arrogance brought by power and excellence, then extremely dangerous phenomena are engendered, with disastrous consequences for societies and people.

We should remember that Nazism managed to cut the bonds of friendship between the Greek and the German people, and I am sorry for the fact that, after two phone calls the Alternate Minister Mr. Isihos personally made to invite the German Ambassador, he denied to attend the event.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The wounds caused by World War II to the humanity and particularly in Europe were massive. We could simply think that, on the altar of additional “Lebensraum”, Europe had to mourn for the loss of 50 million souls.

At the same time, we should not forget that the damage World War II inflicted to the sense of justice and compassion was shocking, since universal and traditional values were lost from one moment to the next.

Europe met once more the darkness of fascism and violence. She experienced it and she hated it.

Our country paid for the Nazi crimes in the worst possible way.

Unfortunately, people reminiscing Hitler, fascism and Nazism exist even nowadays and, what is worse, they trade upon and they pervert – as it actually is a perversion – all concepts of love to the country. Such phenomena appeared during the last years in our country as well and they affect the entire Nation. They are the people who do not set foot on Kandanos. They do not come to Distomo. They insist on believing in Nazism.

Greece, despite the terrible wounds she suffered, emerged victorious from this war. Greece had offered everything; she had sacrificed everything, so that Europe would be today a ground for peace and democracy. Greece had always been the rampart and borderline of Western Civilisation, and no one should forget that.

It was a very difficult and excruciating struggle for the suffering Greek people. However, Greeks have a unique quality which allowed them to regain their freedom; by that I mean their high national spirit, the spirit allowing to “enjoy liberty under a free constitution” which was not relinquished to any occupation, nor will it be relinquished to any blackmail.

We had martyrs, whose sacrifice serves as a point of reference for our own responsibility, being citizens of this country, a benchmark for our actions or omissions to be compared to and evaluated by.

There is an unfulfilled moral, political and financial debt, and that is the reparations to the Greek people; the debt due to our country since the Nazi occupation. There is new evidence for the Greek legal procedure, as well as for international law, which allow us to start the procedure all over again. We will not recede to unalienable claims towards the Greek people and we will bring up this issue, with the terms which respond to common sense. There is nothing in common with Greece’s debt; in this case, we refer to historical memory and justification. At the Ministry of National Defence, we have begun this undertaking, which is regulated by the Alternate Minister Mr. Isihos.

The evidence that have emerged, particularly Wehrmacht’s facts we collected from the United States, are shocking. They refer to each village, to each town, to each parish and church. They refer to persons and families. Such evidence compels all cases to reopen, even the ones that have already been adjudicated. We are ready to assist the task of the Committee for the Claim of German War Reparations to Greece.

Concluding I would like to say, paraphrasing a saying of Heraclitus, that “war is the father of all evils”. War, besides being destructive and barbarous, it is also the expression of man’s worst sentiments.

Greece has never liked war. Greece is a trustworthy and steady ally. Greece never betrayed the allies, no matter what the cost was, from the Realpolitik point of view. We always promote close cooperation with all our neighbours, so as to ensure a European neighbourhood of security and growth. We are all ready, from our Armed Forces to the last citizen, to offer to this end, to common values and solidarity. Just like the Armed Forces come to the assistance of pregnant women, children and all the tortured souls for whom the Mediterranean becomes their watery grave. Today, along with the Chief of the Army, we had the honour to decorate Sergeant Antonis Deligiorgis who jumped into the water and saved twenty souls off Rhodes island.

This is Greece and these are its people. This is the Greece we should never forget; not Greece of misery and the memoranda. The Greeks, the combatants who are here today, but also those who have fallen at the battlefields, do not deserve a country that bends to the commands of its creditors. Greece will remain standing.

Thank you very much”.

The Alternate Minister of National Defence Kostas Isihos, made the following statement:

“This is a special evening. An evening dedicated to historical memory, to all those who are no longer among us, the women and men who have given their blood and their life to freedom. Also, dedicated to the few who are here tonight, with their white hair, their canes but also their pride. We thank them for their presence here tonight: the representatives of the National Resistance, the representatives of the massacred villages, our dear Argyris Sfountouris who came from Switzerland to honour us. I would like to thank the political leadership, the Ministers, the foreign diplomats, the Ambassadors and the representatives of all diplomatic missions – who are more than fifty here tonight – and as I was just informed during your address Mr. Minister, we also have a representative from the German Embassy among us. We thank you for your presence.

We also have among us two distinguished MPs of the German Parliament, the Vice-President of the German Left Party “Die Linke” Wolfgang Gehrcke, who is a renowned member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence of the Bundestag, and MP Ulla Yelpke, his colleague and expert in matters of German Debts in the German Parliament.

Tonight we have the great pleasure of opening a new chapter of friendship and solidarity for the German and the Greek peoples. The historical archives which now belong to the Army History Directorate, as the Minister also mentioned, have been in this Directorate since 2006; our country bought the copies, 193 microfilms that correspond to 400.000 pages, testimonies, reports of the Wehrmacht and the SS Officers which refer to the chronicle of the Occupation in a documented and systematic way. This action could be read as an effort made by this government to open a new chapter of hatred and intolerance. Far from it! These archives we present in the most official way, since their digitalisation has already been completed and we are now at the phase of their translation, will be available for all German Universities, the German Parliament, our German friends with whom we are united by democracy and the anti-fascist struggle. For a different Europe which will never experience again the brutality of war, a Europe that will be armoured through its historical memory. Particularly our youth, both German and Greek, but also other youths, must be morally, culturally, politically and ideologically armoured so as to become the leaders of peaceful struggles for a different Europe.

These valuable archives could be utilized in the effort made by the Greek Parliament, via the Cross-party Parliamentary Committee for the Claim of German Reparations to Greece, as a weapon against Germany. We explicitly repeat that these archives will be evidence for all European peoples; they will be available for all researchers, historians, and research and history institutes, to study and reach the conclusions we need nowadays.

The claim of German reparations is not an effort to make an accounting compensation for the current Greek state debt. Many, with good or bad intentions, would like to explain this effort to utilize the archives as an attempt to make compensation between the war reparations and the debt, due to our difficult financial situation. I will remind the title of Manolis Glezos’ book “Even if it were for one German Mark”. Leaving these wounds open between the two countries and the two governments would be a moral, historical and political deficit, but also a legal deficit nowadays.

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends, colleagues, MPs, Ministers, foreign diplomats, the military leadership, tonight we will have the opportunity to hear the voice behind those two eyes of little Argyris on the photo we see on the screen; we will hear him seventy years later, explaining why he is a symbol for our people. His eyes still narrate stories. His soul still fights and struggles. Recently his book “I mourn for Germany” was published and he offered it to us as a present”.