Marita and Barbarossa 569 Marita and Barbarossa There Is No Question

marita and barbarossa 569 Chapter twenty Marita and BarBarossa there is no question that the German invasion of Greece on 6 april 1941 was fundamentally connected with the attack launched against the USSr a little over six weeks later, on 22 June. Indeed, as has been discussed, the need to safeguard the romanian oil fields as well as the need to protect the southern flank of the planned thrust into Soviet Union, both of which demanded an intervention in their own right, were driving forces behind hitler’s decision first to capture northern Greece, and then to remove the allied presence from the entire Greek peninsula (and Crete). On 20 Febru- ary 1941 Field Marshal wilhelm Keitel, chief of OKw, presented to hitler a memorandum prepared by Lieutenant General Georg thomas, of the defence economy and armament Office in OKw, entitled ‘Military and economic Consequences of an Operation in the east’. a copy was sent to Göring. In it thomas pointed out that German oil stocks would not be enough to meet the planned German operations in the USSr—rather they would be sufficient for only two complete months of operation. Göring subsequent- ly met with Ion antonescu, the romanian prime Minister, on 5 March, to ensure quicker supply of romanian oil. also, Barbarossa’s ‘directive 21’, of 18 december 1940, saw the line Volga-archangelsk as the final goal of the operation, 1500 kilometres from the reich border, with the early occupation of the donez basin in the south. this omitted the Caucasian oil fields— making the retention and protection of the romanian fields even more important (although by July hitler had foreseen the conquest of Baku in a separate operation after reaching the Volga-archangelsk line).1 hitler saw the eastern Mediterranean primarily, therefore, as a first line of defence for a vital economic resource and his plans for Lebensraum in the east. In this way, in the words of Brigadier walter warlimont, deputy head of OKw Operations Staff, Operation Marita was ‘directed essentially against england’, ‘essentially defensive’, and always secondary to the planned Soviet campaign.2 1 See eichholtz, Krieg um Öl, pp. 46, 80-1. 2 hitler was, for example (according to warlimont), equally ‘determined that Crete should not remain in the hands of the British because of the danger of air attacks on the romanian oil-fields’: warlimont, inside Hitler’s Headquarters 1939-45, p. 131. 570 chapter twenty however, while the connections between Marita and Barbarossa are clear, the strategic importance of the relationship between them, and in particular the degree to which Greece fatally interfered with German plans for the USSr, is much more open to debate. this is a key question because as German fortunes in the USSr waned, the idea that Greece ‘saved’ the Soviets became perhaps the most powerful tool by which those on the allied side involved in Greece legitimised and justified their decisions and actions. Many of the key allied actors in Greece and the wider war in 1941, men such as wilson, eden and Churchill, and after the war on the German side men such as List and even Keitel (eager to find excuses for the failure of Barbarossa), championed the notion that the German invasion of Greece was decisive in this regard. Indeed, as early as September 1941 Colville re- corded Churchill’s reflection that ‘the campaign, and the yugoslav volte-face which it entailed, had delayed Germany and might after all prove to have been an advantage’.3 It was, after all, the continuing British interest and ever-growing presence in the Balkans, culminating in the deployment of w Force, which forced the Germans to act, and in doing so ruined the planned timetable for Barbarossa. Such an enforced delay to the start-date for the invasion of the USSr then put German forces in the east behind schedule, eventually making them vulnerable to the russian winter, which in turn saved Moscow and marked the first step towards German defeat in a theatre that was decisive for the war in europe. the argument made by these men was picked up and passed on by a succession of historians and commentators of the campaign in Greece. If such an interpretation is correct, the repercussions are enormous. any amount of allied ineptitude in Greece, indeed the defeat of the Greek army and w Force in its entirety, melts away in the face of such an argument. If Greece was a material cause of German defeat on the eastern Front then not only was the British deployment wholly justified by any scale of measurement, but the campaign might rightly be described as an important turning point in the war as a whole. that is, of course, if it is correct. Given its importance, such a thesis requires careful thought and analysis.4 3 entry for 28 September 1941, Colville, the Fringes of Power: Downing street diaries 1939-1955, norton, new york, 1985, p. 443. 4 On eden and the origins of this allied justification see richter, Griechenland im Zweiten Weltkrieg, pp. 429-30, and Zacharioudakis, Die deutsch-griechischen Beziehungen 1933-1941, pp. 282-4; on its role in Greek politics and historiography, see richter, Griechenland im Zweiten Weltkrieg, pp. 431-3. On the German generals’ and nazi leaders’ reasons for sup- porting this, because it prevented focus on their own mistakes, ibid., pp. 433-5. It has been speculated that success in Greece opened up significant strategic opportunities for the .

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