Crew of a PzKpfw IV of 2nd SS Panzer Regiment, 2nd SS Panzer Division, "Das Reich", in the Russian woods.  The vehicle mark on the left side of the glacis plate (along with the snow) indicates that this photo dates from winter, 1943-'44.  Best regards, JR.

Cheerful in the cold - SS "Das Reich".

Greek soldiers, prisoners of war, stand aside as PzKpfw IV passes on the road.  The Greeks were relatively easily defeated by the Germans, but they never had much chance of holding off such an effective enemy for long.  Greece was a very poor agricultural country whose capacity to earn foreign exchange was almost entirely confined to agricultural produce (principally tobacco) and shipping.  Shipping had not exactly been helped by the war in the Med, and the tobacco business had largely been cornered by Germany for its own predatory reasons.  This meant that the capacity of the authoritarian, pro-British Greek régime to maintain and update its military forces was limited, a situation made worse by its need to respond to German "influence" in the matter of military procurement (Germany supplied a great deal of the country's foreign exchange through tobacco purchases).  

Laboring under these handicaps, the Greek army performed surprisingly well during its brief participation in the war.  Attacked by Italy, they quickly threw the invaders out of Greece and Macedonia, driving them back into Italian-occupied Albania.  In fact, the Italians suffered a series of humiliating defeats, and were in danger of losing their invasion force against Albania's Adriatic coast.  The Greeks, however, did not have the resources to resist Germany's "rescue mission" for the Italians - a two-pronged thrust that cut the Greek army (structurally at least) in pieces.

It has been argued by some that Hitler's Balkan intervention would likely have been fought, anyway, to forestall British intervention in Greece; a very questionable view, I think.  Nonetheless, Hitler had little reason to thank Mussolini and his grandiose adventurism for making this war unavoidable, arguably delaying his attack on the Soviet Union by some months (although that, for some, is also arguable ...).  Best regards, JR.

Greek tragedy, 1941.

A German soldier from the SS Division "Das Reich", struggles with his BMW R-12 motorcycle in the Russian mud. (1941).