The truth about the generals
Sir: I write to acknowledge an error in my article on 'The truth about the generals' (28 June). From more recent information, it is clear that I underrated the military rec- ords of the ex-colonels, and I am glad to correct the misrepresentation.
It remains true that their military service was in no way comparable with that of the senior retired officers whom they now per- secute. Their apologists' claim that they 'fought in the Resistance,' in any ordinary sense of those words is still without foundation. It is also irreconcilable with the way in which they and their apologists per- sistently abuse and insult the Resistance.
C. M. Woodhouse Bois Mill, Latimer, Bucks Sir: With reference to the colonels' atti- tude during Nazi occupation of Greece (28 June) it may be interesting to note that numerous ex-quislings or sub-quislings cooperate with the Junta. Among them General Constantine Kourkoulakos, com- mander of the pro-nazi 'Greek' security bat- talions at Patras in 1944, has been appointed as Governor of the Bank of Greece by the colonels. Members of these security bat- talions acted as hangmen for the Nazis in February 1944 at Ypsila Alonia Place, Patras.
The Nazi victims' union has been out- lawed by the colonels. Mr Papadopoulos himself, in one of his incoherent utterances, described the German ex-servicemen of the Nazi era as 'living historiographers ... who should fight with warlike zeal for the tri- umph of truth about Greece'. Greece and Germany have been referred to by him as 'the salt of the earth' (Credo, Vol. I. pp. 89-90). Moreover, open pro-nazi propo- ganda is permitted by the Junta's censor- ship, e.g. in the daily Hestia or the monthly 4th August. Its current issue (July) expresses antisemitic and racialist views, praises fas- cist Italy's achievements and contains voci- ferous insults against western parliamentary institutions. This rubbish is not considered as 'anti-national', while the call for national unity expressed in King Constantine's new year address presumably is, since no local paper was allowed to publish it.
A convalescent Greek Athens
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