In April 1941, German forces launched a sudden invasion of Greece, pushing tanks and aircraft deep into Greek territory while paratroopers seized key bridges and airfields. Within weeks, the Greek army collapsed, and the country fell under Axis occupation. What followed was a repressive occupation system built on intimidation. Even as German authorities carried out mass reprisals against civilians suspected of supporting the resistance, guerrilla movements continued to expand across the Greek mountains.
Villages provided them with food, shelter, and information, making entire communities targets for German retaliatory attacks. As the occupation dragged on, the German authorities leaned increasingly on local collaborators to gather intelligence, hunt down fighters, and take part in anti-partisan operations. Greek volunteers were recruited into collaborationist formations that fought alongside the Nazis, participating in arrests, executions, and the destruction of villages throughout the country. One of the most notorious of these collaborators was Lieutenant Colonel Georgios Poulos.
Born in 1889 in Romania to a Greek family from the village of Platanos in western Greece, Poulos later settled in the city of Thessaloniki and pursued a military career in the Greek army. During the Greco-Turkish War from 1919 to 1922, Greece attempted to expand its territory in Asia Minor following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The campaign ended in military defeat, forcing hundreds of thousands of Greeks to flee from what is now western Turkey. Reports indicate that Poulos served during the conflict, though little is known about his role in it.
By 1935, Poulos had reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. In that year, he took part in the failed pro-Venizelist coup attempt of March 1, an uprising launched by supporters of former Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos to prevent what they believed was a growing restoration of the monarchy and a weakening of the republican system in Greece. The coup collapsed, and after its failure, Poulos was expelled from the army and forced into retirement. The Second World War began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
The early stages of the war saw rapid German advances across Europe, with the fall of Poland, the invasion of France, and the evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk in 1940. After the successful campaign in France, Hitler turned his attention toward the Soviet Union. However, before he could launch Operation Barbarossa, the codename for the invasion of the Soviet Union, he needed to secure the southern flank to protect vital supply routes and prevent any interference. So, on April 6, 1941, Germany invaded Greece with swift, coordinated attacks.
The German Twelfth Army, comprising around 680,000 soldiers and led by armored divisions, quickly overwhelmed the Greek and British Commonwealth forces. Key positions such as Thessaloniki fell rapidly, and German paratroopers played a crucial role in securing strategic locations. By April 27, 1941, Athens had fallen, and mainland Greece was under Axis control. After the German occupation of Thessaloniki, Poulos attempted to establish himself as a political leader under the protection of the occupation authorities.
He took command of the Greek National Union, an extreme nationalist organization that he reorganized into the Greek National Socialist Party. Through publications, newspaper announcements, and public propaganda, Poulos openly promoted collaboration with Nazi Germany while condemning communists and the Allied forces. Despite his enthusiasm, the Germans viewed his political ambitions with suspicion. The German military command in Thessaloniki repeatedly demanded the dissolution of his organization, and by the autumn of 1941, it had effectively ceased to operate.
Nevertheless, Poulos remained a valuable collaborator. During the summer of 1941, he supplied the occupation authorities with lists containing the names of suspected left-wing activists and Freemasons in Thessaloniki. On July 5, 1941, the German authorities arrested 278 people believed to be connected to resistance activities. After the dissolution of his political organization, Poulos continued working for the Germans in a different capacity, becoming an informant for the German counterintelligence unit Sonderkommando 2000.
Throughout 1942, he gathered intelligence on resistance networks and became one of the most prominent Greek collaborators with the occupation authorities in northern Greece. He also published pro-German articles in the collaborationist newspaper Nea Evropi under the pseudonym “A Loyal Greek. ” His activities soon made him a target for the Greek resistance. On August 31, 1941, members of the Greek Communist Party attempted to burn down his headquarters, but they were discovered before they could carry out the attack.
Three months later, on the night of December 23, resistance members tried to assassinate Poulos by bombing his home in Thessaloniki. He survived both attacks, and the German authorities subsequently moved him to a new residence under their protection. Having failed to establish himself as an influential political figure, Poulos turned his attention to building an armed collaborationist force. In early 1943, he entered negotiations with the German military administration in Thessaloniki.
An agreement was reached in May, allowing him to organize a volunteer battalion that would operate alongside the Wehrmacht, the German army, in anti-partisan operations. The formation became known as the Poulos Battalion, a collaborationist unit that quickly gained a reputation for brutality throughout northern Greece. The battalion numbered no more than about 300 men. British and Greek intelligence reports described many of its members as criminals, adventurers, fanatical anti-communists, and individuals of dubious reputation.
Others joined after suffering at the hands of the communist-led resistance, while some enlisted because of poverty or promises of regular wages, food, medical care, and protection for their families. Poulos’s wife also took part in recruiting volunteers by distributing written invitations to potential members. The Germans equipped the battalion with weapons, uniforms, and supplies. Its members wore German military uniforms bearing the insignia of the so-called Hellenic National Army and fought under German command.
In September 1943, the SD, the security service of the SS, formally integrated the unit into its organization in Greece and provided it with offices and training facilities. During the same month, the battalion came under the Second Regiment of the Brandenburg forces and established its headquarters in and around the town of Ptolemaida. From there, Poulos set up a network of outposts across western Macedonia to support German operations against the partisans. Although presented as a military formation fighting communist insurgents, the Poulos Battalion soon became notorious for its mistreatment of civilians.
Instead of distinguishing between armed resistance fighters and the local population, its members frequently carried out mass reprisals against entire communities suspected of helping the Allies or the communist-led Greek People’s Liberation Army, known as ELAS. Villages were raided, homes were searched, and civilians were arrested with little or no evidence of collaboration with the resistance. Looting soon became a hallmark of the battalion. During operations, Poulos’s men systematically confiscated livestock, grain, clothing, jewelry, money, and other valuables from villagers.
Homes were often set on fire after being robbed, leaving entire families without shelter or food. Reports from occupied northern Greece described widespread theft and intimidation accompanying nearly every operation in which the battalion took part. Violence against civilians escalated further. Witnesses accused battalion members of executing villagers without trial, carrying out retaliatory killings after resistance attacks, and murdering civilians encountered during sweeps through the countryside.
Women were subjected to sexual violence, particularly during operations in the city of Veria, while arbitrary arrests, beatings, and torture became common methods of intimidating the local population. The Poulos Battalion earned a terrible reputation throughout northern Greece, according to many contemporary accounts surpassing even that of the German occupation forces themselves. The battalion also suffered losses. In April 1944, ELAS attacked one of Poulos’s formations, killing 83 of his collaborators.
Rather than weakening the battalion’s resolve, these losses intensified the cycle of vengeance against civilians suspected of supporting the resistance. Among the worst atrocities linked to Poulos’s unit was the massacre at Hortiatis on September 2, 1944. Acting alongside German troops led by the notorious war criminal Fritz Schubert, members of the Poulos Battalion surrounded the village near Thessaloniki after resistance fighters had attacked German personnel. During the operation, around 150 civilians were killed, including women and children.
Many victims were locked inside buildings that were set on fire, burning them alive. Less than two weeks later, on September 14, 1944, the Poulos Battalion participated in another massacre, this time in the town of Giannitsa. Around 120 civilians were killed, many homes were burned, women were raped, and numerous men were forced to dig their own graves before being executed. By this stage of the occupation, Poulos’s name had become synonymous in northern Greece with collaboration, terror, and indiscriminate violence against civilians.
As German forces began withdrawing from Greece in the autumn of 1944, Poulos and his battalion retreated with the Wehrmacht rather than surrender. They crossed into Yugoslavia and then Austria, continuing to fight alongside German forces against communist partisans until the final months of the war, remaining loyal to the collapsing Third Reich even as Germany faced inevitable defeat. The Second World War in Europe ended on May 8, 1945. Poulos and his men were ultimately captured by the U.
S. Seventh Army, which later handed them over to Greece. Georgios Poulos was convicted of treason and collaboration with the German occupation authorities and was executed in Athens on June 11, 1949.
He was about 60 years old.