1. Georgios Tsolakoglou was a Greek army officer who headed the government of Greece from 1941 to 1942, in the early phase of the country's occupation by Axis powers during World War II.
20 Facts About Georgios Tsolakoglou
1. 2.
Georgios Tsolakoglou's popularity plunged further following the Italian takeover of the occupation, as well as Bulgaria's annexation of Northern Greece.
3.
Georgios Tsolakoglou was unable to alleviate Germany's large-scale plunder of the country, which led to the Great Famine that resulted in the deaths of nearly 300,000 Greeks.
4.
Georgios Tsolakoglou remained head of the government until December 1942, when he was dismissed and replaced by Konstantinos Logothetopoulos.
5.
Georgios Tsolakoglou's sentence was ultimately commuted to life imprisonment, and he died in prison of leukaemia in 1948.
6.
Georgios Tsolakoglou was the grandson of Dimitrios Tsolakoglou, the proestos of Agrafa and later in his life a Greek War of Independence fighter and a Filiki Eteria member.
7.
Dimitrios and his son, Konstantinos Georgios Tsolakoglou, were hanged in 1822 by Hursid Pasha.
8.
Georgios Tsolakoglou himself was born in Rentina, a village in Agrafa.
9.
Georgios Tsolakoglou immediately sent messengers to the Germans proposing surrender, and on the same day signed a surrender protocol with the commander of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler brigade, SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Sepp Dietrich.
10.
On 26 April 1941, Georgios Tsolakoglou wrote a letter to Adolf Hitler, whom he referred to as the "Fuhrer of the German People" proclaiming his willingness to head a collaborationist government, which he promised would consist of senior generals.
11.
Hitler's first choice for heading a collaborationist government in Greece would have been the legal government headed by King George II and Prime Minister Emmanouil Tsouderos, but as the government had retreated to Crete to continue the struggle, Georgios Tsolakoglou was considered a satisfactory substitute.
12.
On 30 April 1941, Georgios Tsolakoglou was appointed Prime Minister of a collaborationist government by the Axis occupation authorities.
13.
Georgios Tsolakoglou attempted to prevent an Italian occupation of Greece, telling Gunther Altenburg of the German Foreign Office that the Greeks knew that Germany had defeated Greece, but that Greece had defeated Italy, and that the Greek people would find an Italian occupation deeply humiliating.
14.
Georgios Tsolakoglou warned of a collapse in law and order in Greece if the Italians arrived and behaved "like tyrants".
15.
The fact that the Bulgarians immediately annexed these territories and began expelling Greek officials and ordinary citizens while Georgios Tsolakoglou was reduced to writing letters to German and Italian officials fruitlessly asking them to stop the expulsions contributed to his unpopularity and undermined his claim to be protecting the Greeks.
16.
The Georgios Tsolakoglou government aimed to release Greek POWs and help the victims of the war.
17.
Tsolakoglou and Georgios Bakos attempted to create a Schutzstaffel unit composed by volunteer Greeks, in order to help the Germans fight against the Soviet Union.
18.
Georgios Tsolakoglou remained as head of the government until 2 December 1942, when he retired, citing health issues, and was replaced by Konstantinos Logothetopoulos.
19.
Altenburg considered Georgios Tsolakoglou to be a stupid and clumsy leader, and wanted a mainstream Greek politician to assume the leadership of the Hellenic State to give it more legitimacy and competent leadership.
20.
Georgios Tsolakoglou's sentence was ultimately commuted to life imprisonment, and he died in prison of leukaemia in 1948.