28582 - Turkey’s Nazi unreliability

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Athena Kehagias

When we examine the map of Greece’s triple occupation by the axis during the 1941-1944 period, we observe that there isn’t even one region under Turkish occupation.
The Nazi regime in collaboration with the fascist regime, is in control of almost all of Greece.
On the 1st of March of 1941, Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact, because it wants to grab hold of the regions were Bulgarian communities reside within Greece, and more specifically, Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, but within Yugoslavia as well.
In April they invade all these regions except from that of Evros, where the Nazis explained to the Bulgarians that they shouldn’t come near it, in order to avoid their presence been misinterpreted by Turkey.
Hitler wanted Turkey by his side because she had already allied with Germany in World War II.
Turkey played a neutral role. But on the 18th of June in 1941, she signed the German-Turkish treaty of Friendship in Ankara.
So, Hitler and Inonu agreed upon matters.
This of course was an expected result due to the past of the two regimes.
But the most important thing is that although this treaty existed, and was signed for a 10 year duration, the Nazi regime never opted for Turkey to help for the occupation of Greece, and that at a strategic level quite simply means, that she was unreliable even for them, during real and important combats.