Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast, episode

113, Operation Marita, Part 1.

Just days into the battle of Yugoslavia, it was over.

Well, meaning anything related to the stopping or slowing down of the next phase of the conflict,

the war of Greece.

Yugoslavia dissected and subdued its own internal factions, equally devastating as any German

might, signed an armistice with Nazi Germany on April 17th.

The war had only started on April 6th.

The new king, King Peter II, just 17 years old, flew out of Yugoslavia to Greece, then

to Palestine, dense to Egypt, and finally to the UK to join the ever-growing group of rulers

or governments evicted from their own country by the Nazis.

Indeed, this lightning warfare seemed to be the new way of things.

Either one was prepared or they were not.

No longer would come as you are, defenses suffice.

Yet that was exactly what Britain brought to the Greek mainland.

Ironically, Hitler didn't want to fight Greece.

Politically, they were unimportant to him, and racially, he saw the Greeks as the honorable

descendants of Alexander the Great's Hoplites.

Now this was unusual for the Nazi leader.

He rarely declared respect for any non-tutans, but in Hitler's world where race told you

all you needed to know about a people, the Greeks were to be respected, even admired.

He certainly admired, though quietly, Greece's resistance to Mussolini's attempts to bring

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