The German City Command Headquarters in Athens (Stadtkommandantur Athen) was the seat of the city’s administration, like all command headquarters in occupied cities in Europe. It was established in May 1941 in the National Insurance building at 4 Korai Street. The building had been completed in 1938 and was luxurious for its time. It had an elevator, central heating, and air-raid shelters with special doors fitted with rubber seals to prevent gas from entering the basements[1]. The German forces evacuated the building of its staff and removed furniture and desks, while converting the building’s air-raid shelters into detention cells, group rooms and individual cells.
The Guardhouse was the heart of the military administration of occupied Athens. The unit permanently stationed at 4 Korai Street was the 921st Military Police Unit (Feldgendarmerie), i.e. the German Military Police, which was formally responsible for maintaining order on the streets of the city and the authority to arrest civilians and German military personnel for any offence. In April 1944, the commander of the Guard was a certain Lieutenant Weiss, and the commander of Unit 921 was a certain Lieutenant Weber. At the same time, Unit 921 had a strength of 32 men (1 officer, 27 non-commissioned officers and 4 privates), while there were another 45 men (5 officers, 13 non-commissioned officers and 26 privates) as the permanent force of the Guard Headquarters, for a total of 82 men.[2] Based on photographic material depicting the building, it appears that it also housed the branch of an Air Force command (Generalluftzeugmeister – Verbindungsstelle Athen) and a military cinema (Soldatenkino).
The building was in continuous operation throughout the Occupation (May 1941-October 1944). The “kommandatura”, as it has been imprinted in people’s vocabulary and has survived to this day, was a key reference point in the topography of Athens during the Occupation, as well as a synonym for daily oppression. The appearance of the Military Police men struck terror into the hearts of citizens, who often associated them with the SS and the Gestapo, calling them “Gestapo petals” because of the characteristic kidney-shaped petals they wore around their necks. Thousands of people passed through the basement of the Guard Headquarters, including resistance fighters, demonstrators, and citizens who had been arrested for minor offences, such as violating the curfew. Many of those held at the Command were later transferred to other detention facilities, mainly the Averoff Prison. There is no estimate of the total number of people held there. In November 1943, the International Red Cross Relief Committee (IRRC) reported 100 prisoners and provided interesting information about their living conditions: “The Germans said that they could not prepare food for the prisoners of the Command, but if someone brought them cooked food, they had no objection to distributing it to the prisoners. The days go by and about 100 people are left with just a bit of bread and water as their only food.”[3] Polytechnic student Phoebus Tsekeris, who was arrested on 21 July 1943 in Pangrati and remained in custody for about two months, describes a suffocatingly crowded space and a life full of interrogations, torture and constant terror from the German guards. His description of the prisoner community is also interesting: “People are constantly coming and going in the Komandatura detention centre. People of all ages, from all social classes and various professions, from shoe shiners to university professors. Mostly resistance fighters. But also, pimps and hashish dealers, thieves, homosexuals, all mixed together […] But what mattered most was that all these criminals were not locked up there because of their crimes, but because they had harmed the Germans in some way […] One night I woke up and saw a sight that left me speechless. The entire corridor between the two rows of beds was filled with new arrivals, who were being carried in continuously. They all stood silently because there was no room for them to sit down.[4]
The walls of the underground detention cells were covered with graffiti written by the prisoners, who recorded their details as well as their thoughts and feelings in a few hastily written lines, such as “Mavromatakis executed in the basement”, “8.4.44. Accused of stealing tyres and bicycles from the Axis. Beaten by the soldiers. Oh, bah. And spend Easter in these chains, in this damp tomb”, “I want water”, “Halaris brothers. honourable citizens. They were unjustly detained by informers.” These inscriptions, which have been preserved to this day, are important and unique archaeological examples of the Nazi Occupation, evidence of “the destruction of the individual’s mental integrity, which became the norm during the Occupation.”[5]
The Command was dissolved on 28 September 1944, before the evacuation of Athens by German troops was completed.[6] The building returned to the ownership of the National Insurance Company and the basements were converted into archive storage rooms. On 31 January 1991, following an initiative by the National Insurance Company, the building was listed as a Historic Preserved Monument by the Central Council of Modern Monuments of the Ministry of Culture. During the maintenance works, important remnants of the occupation period were found, including handwritten notes, newspaper clippings, wrappings of everyday objects, metal objects, etc.[7] The inauguration of the space, which was named “Space of Historical Memory 1941-1944,” took place on 16 May 1991. From 1995 to 2008, the space remained closed due to construction work. Today, it is open to visitors and operates daily.
[1] Anna Maria Droumbouki, “Koraes 4. A prison in the city centre,” in: Savvas Stroumbos (ed.), Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony, Nefeli, Athens 2009, pp. 59-70, here p. 61.
[2] RH 34/263, Annex to Athens City Command, Tgb. No. 730/44 geh., List of troops present in Athens, 10 April 1944.
[3] ELIA-MIET, Aristotelis Koutsoumaris Archive, F. 52, subfile 2, Koutsoumaris, Note to Mr. Fischer, Athens, 2 November 1943.
[4] Foivos Tsekkeris, Here is the Polytechnic. During the years of the Occupation. From the struggles with the Student Union. Athens 2007, p. 101
[5] Droumbouki, Korai 4, pp. 65, 66.
[6] Eleftheria, 30 September 1944.
[7] Droumbouki, Korai 4, pp. 67, 68.
