Hellenes, Slavs or Levantines? Italian and German Perceptions of Greece during the Second World War

This paper investigates on the perception of modern Greece in Italy and Germany during Fascism and National Socialism, focusing on the period immediately preceding the Axis invasion of 1941 and the occupation years. The aim of this inquiry is to understand the place of this country in the occupiers’ mental maps, whereby the latter expression is understood as encompassing geographic ordering, ethno-national categories and the marking of these categories with wider historical meaning. To this end, a two-sided approach is adopted that combines a long-term with a short-term perspective. Mental maps and cultural stereotypes develop over decades of cultural encounters and are closely related to the self-perception of the individual or collective subjects that construct them. Framed in this longer-term duration, German and Italian perceptions of Greece are to be regarded as two specific national variants of civilizational discourses developed in 19th century Europe that helped construct and justify European domination over marginal and peripheral areas of the world. Differences between the two countries can be explained with reference to their respective place within this larger European phenomenon, their national and, relatedly, imperialist projects.