Football; Germany v Greece – A game of life and death

Today Germany is scheduled to kick Greece out of the Euro. Euro 2012 that is, in a clear case of football imitating life?

The Great Synagogue Danzig - demolished by the Germans in 1939

And this match too takes place in the historic Hanseatic Free City of Danzig (Gdansk) where World War II began when the German forces attacked the Polish Post Office on September 1, 1939.

Danzig (Gdansk) Post Office

The Free City was created on 15 November 1920 and included the city of Danzig and over two hundred nearby towns, villages, and settlements. In 1933, the City's government was taken over by the local Nazi Party and the democratic opposition was suppressed. After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the Free City was abolished and incorporated into the newly formed Reichsgau of Danzig-West Prussia. Widespread anti-Semitic and anti-Polish discrimination and organised murder followed.

The defenders of the Polish Post Office in Danzig being led away
- they were later executed by the Germans

38 of the defenders of the Post Office, mainly Polish postal workers who had military training, who survived the battle were executed by firing squad as "illegal combatants" (sounds familiar?). The two German commanders responsible for this, the first War Crime of WW11 were never punished, were conveniently  "de-Nazified" by the American occupying forces after WW11 and went on to have careers as lawyers in West Germany before dying of natural causes in the 70's.

The Axis occupation of Greece during World War II began in April 1941 after the Nazi German and Fascist Italian invasion of Greece. Germany withdrew from mainland Greece in October 1944. German garrisons remained in control of Crete and other islands until May and June 1945. Increasing attacks by partisans in the latter years of the occupation resulted in a number of executions and wholesale slaughter of civilians in reprisal. In total, the Germans executed some 21,000 Greeks, the Bulgarians 40,000 and the Italians 9,000. After the war Greece and its economy were left destroyed and the country never recovered because of the bitter civil war which followed. Germany has never paid reparations to the Greek people for the suffering and damage it inflicted and for its many war crimes including the genocide of the Greek Jewish population and the massacres of the Italian garrisons on Cephalonia and Kos.

http://daithaic.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/jewish-kos.html

The Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek government army - backed by Britain and the United States - and the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), the military branch of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania. It was the result of a highly polarised struggle between leftists and rightists that started in 1943 and targeted the power vacuum that the German-Italian occupation during World War II had created. One of the first conflicts of the Cold War, according to some analysts it represents the first example of post-war British and American interference in the internal politics of a foreign country.

The photo depicts a defining moment in modern Greek history, the beginning of the "Dekemvriana", at the moment Greek and British troops starting shooting unarmed Athenian demonstrators (c. 300.000); just 3 months after the Germans had retreated from the country, on 3 December 1944. This episode was the major cause of the 3-year Greek Civil War that followed some 1 and half years later.

The civil war left Greece with a vehemently anti-Communist security establishment, which would lead to the establishment of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 and a legacy of political polarisation that lasted until the 1980s. Greece is probably the only country where those who fought so bravely against the Nazis were executed, exiled and criminalised after the war whilst those who collaborated went on to rule the country. 

A German Army photo of one of the many Greek resistance fighters
executed by the  collaborationist Security Brigades

Even to this day a Greek village, no matter how small will have two Kafeoin (bars) as those who fought on different sides in the civil war and their descendants will not drink together. With the restoration of Greek democracy in 1974 many Greeks  felt they were “owed” to redress the injustice of what went before, hence the woes of modern Greece shoehorned into a Eurozone of Germany’s making.

http://daithaic.blogspot.co.uk/2007/09/euro-opportunity-or-threat-for-britain.html

“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.”

Bill Shankly, Manager of Liverpool FC

The Gaddafi war crime

The body of Muammar Gaddafi after he was lynched by NTC forces in Sitre

During the Libyan Civil War which has just ended no doubt many war crimes were committed by both sides and many UN members have stated that NATO has operated outside the UN Resolution authorising intervention. Muammar Gaddafi, rightly or wrongly, bravely led from the front in fighting foreign intervention in Libya. His retreating convoy from Sitre was destroyed by NATO forces that intervened in a civil war on the pretext of a UN Resolution authorising protection of civilians. France, UK, Qatar and Egypt had Special Forces on the ground in Libya with no legal basis. Both Muammar and his son Mutassim (who visited the White House in 2009) were murdered after they were captured. Will the International Court of Justice punish this clear war crime?


The lynching of Gadaffi by the NTC forces bring law and democracy to Libya?

The intervention by Western Powers again in Libya is a very dangerous business. Libya had free education, health, women working freely and equally and with a standard of living which was above the USA's. This intervention happened because of the natural resources that the NATO countries want. The western intervention is cynical while at the same time ignoring attacks on civilians in Syria, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. This time Russia is right to deride the cynicism of the "freedom loving democracies."



Libya has also has suffered terribly from foreign intervention in the 20th Century. The Italians invaded in the "Libyan war" which was fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy from September 29, 1911 to October 18, 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy was awarded the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica. These provinces together formed what became known as Libya.


Mutassim Gaddafi after his capture as a POW by NTC troops


Mutassim Gaddafi after his summary execution in the field

During the conflict, Italian forces also occupied the Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean Sea. Italy had agreed to return the Dodecanese Islands to the Ottoman Empire according to the Treaty of Ouchy[in 1912 (also known as the First Treaty of Lausanne (1912), as it was signed at Ouchy Castle in Lausanne, Switzerland). However the vagueness of the text allowed a provisional Italian administration of the islands, and Turkey eventually renounced all claims on these islands in Article 15 of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. In Libya Italy subjected the country to a bloody pacification campaign which saw public hangings in the main towns. Resistance petered out only after the execution of the rebel leader Omar Mukhtar on September 15, 1931. The “War in the desert” against Rommel’s Afrika Corps took place in the Libyan Desert and the country was left destroyed in its aftermath.


Sitre, Libya showing how NATO protected its civilians

This was the genesis of Gaddafi’s strident Libyan nationalism and of the 1969 coup deposing Idris Senussi, leader of the Senussi Sufi sect and a Libyan patriot who opposed the Italians. He was installed by the British in 1951 as the one and only King of Libya. It was also why he closed the British and American bases in Libya, expelled 20,000 Italians and nationalised the foreign owned oil industry.


Mutassim Gadaffi visiting Hilary Clinton in 2009

My point is simple and is nothing to do with pro or anti Gaddafi. Whatever we think otherwise Gaddafi and his son were clearly captured combatants who were entitled to the protection of the Geneva Conventions. The NTC has been recognised as the government by NATO countries and these were their armed forces that captured Gaddafi & his son after NATO attacked a retreating convoy. They were being directed and supported by NATO (including Special Forces on the ground) who used air & naval power (including HMS Liverpool) to capture Sitre. The Allies have executed German & Japanese commanders who breached the Geneva Conventions and Nuremberg established that ignorance of them or "obeying orders" were no defence. These conventions have afforded protection to American, French & British prisoners. The Geneva Conventions are not optional for victors - they ARE International Law.



Who gave coalition forces in Libya the right to eliminate Gaddafi? That's the question Vladimir Putin's been asking, during an official visit to Denmark. The Russian Premier also said NATO's effectively joined one of the warring sides in the conflict. And more responsible action should be taken instead. This has been a murky intervention in a civil war and the war crime committed and recorded in Sitre won't go away, neither will the Geneva Conventions.