WWII On This Day: July 1

Greece, occupied and blockaded at once

Within months of the Axis conquest, requisitioning, occupation costs, monetary breakdown and disrupted internal transport were already driving Greek food supplies and purchasing power downward. The Allied blockade of Axis-controlled Europe also sharply restricted the imports on which Greece had depended in peacetime. The crisis became catastrophic in the winter of 1941–42, especially in Athens and Piraeus. Roughly 100,000 deaths from hunger and cold are often associated with that winter, while broader estimates for famine, deficiency and epidemic mortality across the occupation are substantially higher.