‘Behind All This façade’. The Special Operations Executive in Greece in the Light of New Documents

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article discusses the activities of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Greece during World War II, re-evaluating the stormy relationship between SOE and the Foreign Office (FO) in the light of previously unused SOE records. Although standard accounts of SOE in Greece blame the Foreign Office for its inability to understand the situation and, indirectly, for the outbreak of the Civil War in December 1944, this article argues that both SOE and the Foreign Office were out of touch with what was happening in occupied Greece. It also argues that between September 1942 and the Spring of 1943, SOE intentionally acted behind the back of the Foreign Office, deeply entangling itself in the Greek resistance movement without any real awareness of the political situation in the country. For intelligence studies, this story provides a unique insight into the British approach to the political complexities of occupied Europe during World War II.