In April 1941, German forces launched a surprise invasion of Greece, sending 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 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 mountains of Greece.
Villages provided food, shelter, and information to the fighters, making entire communities targets of German retaliatory attacks. As the occupation dragged on, German authorities relied increasingly on local collaborators to gather intelligence, hunt down fighters, and take part in anti-insurgency operations.
Greek volunteers were recruited into collaborationist formations that fought alongside the Nazis and participated in arrests, executions, and the destruction of villages across the country.
One of the most notorious figures of the German occupation of Greece was Lieutenant Colonel Georgios Poulos. Born in Romania in 1889 to a Greek family originally from the village of Platanos in western Greece, he later settled in Thessaloniki and pursued a military career in the Greek army.
During the Greco-Turkish War of 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 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. That year, he took part in the failed March 1 coup by supporters of Eleftherios Venizelos, an uprising launched by backers of the former prime minister to prevent what they saw as 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.
World War II 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. Before launching Operation Barbarossa, however, he needed to secure his southern flank to protect vital supply routes and prevent any intervention.
On April 6, 1941, Germany invaded Greece with swift, coordinated attacks. The German Twelfth Army, numbering roughly 680,000 soldiers and led by armored divisions, quickly overwhelmed Greek and British Commonwealth forces. Key positions such as Thessaloniki fell rapidly, and German paratroopers played a crucial role in securing strategic sites. By April 27, 1941, Athens had fallen and mainland Greece was under Axis control.
After the German occupation of Thessaloniki, Poulos tried to establish himself as a political leader under the protection of the occupation authorities. He took command of the National Union of Greece, 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 Allied forces. Despite his enthusiasm, the Germans viewed his political ambitions with suspicion. German military command in Thessaloniki repeatedly demanded the dissolution of his organization, and by the autumn of 1941 it had effectively ceased to function.
Poulos nevertheless remained a valuable collaborator. During the summer of 1941, he supplied the occupation authorities with lists containing the names of suspected leftist and Masonic activists in Thessaloniki. On July 5, 1941, German authorities arrested 278 people believed to be connected to resistance activities.
After his political organization was dissolved, 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 tried to burn down his headquarters but were discovered before they could carry out the attack.
Three months later, on the night of December 23, resistance members attempted to assassinate Poulos by bombing his home in Thessaloniki. He survived both attacks, and German authorities later moved him to a new residence under their protection.
After failing 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 operating alongside the Wehrmacht, the German army, in anti-insurgency operations.
The formation became known as the Poulos Legion, a collaborationist unit that quickly gained a reputation for brutality across 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 pay, 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 supplied the battalion with weapons, uniforms, and provisions. 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 intelligence agency 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 was placed 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 insurgents. Although presented as a military formation fighting communist rebels, the Poulos Legion soon became known for its mistreatment of civilians.
Rather than distinguishing between armed resistance fighters and the local population, its members frequently carried out mass reprisals against entire communities suspected of aiding the Allies or the communist-led Greek People's Liberation Army. Villages were raided, homes were searched, and civilians were arrested on little or no evidence of cooperation with the resistance.
Looting soon became a defining feature of the battalion. During operations, Poulos's men systematically seized livestock, grain, clothing, jewelry, money, and other valuable possessions from villagers. Homes were often set on fire after being looted, 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 members of the battalion of executing villagers without trial, carrying out revenge killings after resistance attacks, and killing civilians encountered during sweeps of the countryside. Women were subjected to sexual violence, particularly during operations in the town of Veria, while arbitrary arrests, beatings, and torture became common methods of intimidating the local population.
The Poulos battalion gained such a notorious reputation across northern Greece that, according to many contemporary accounts, it surpassed that of the German occupation forces themselves. The battalion also suffered losses. In April 1944, the Greek People's Liberation Army, known as ELAS, attacked one of Poulos's formations, killing 83 of his collaborators. Rather than weakening the battalion's resolve, these losses intensified its cycle of revenge against civilians suspected of supporting the resistance.
Among the worst atrocities linked to Poulos's unit was the Hortiatis massacre on September 2, 1944. Working alongside German forces led by the notorious war criminal Fritz Schubert, members of the Poulos battalion surrounded the village near Thessaloniki after resistance fighters attacked German personnel. During the operation, about 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 took part in operations in the town of Giannitsa. About 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 German army 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.
World War II in Europe ended on May 8, 1945. Poulos and his men were eventually 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 before being executed in Athens on June 11, 1949. He was about 60 years old.