The Greek prime minister who accepted British aid under invasion
When Germany invaded on 6 April 1941, he rejected the German demand that British forces leave Greece.
Alexandros Koryzis was a lawyer, economist, and banker who helped organize state finance and agricultural credit in Greece. He served as an official and minister under Ioannis Metaxas's authoritarian regime, but became prime minister as an administrator rather than a party politician. After Metaxas's death in January 1941, he led the government in accepting British military assistance and resisting the German invasion, binding Greece's war effort to the Allied coalition. He died by suicide on 18 April, as German forces advanced.
Also known as: Alexandros Korysis
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1903Joined the National Bank of Greece
- 1915Helped organize the bank's agricultural-credit branch
- 1919–1920Economic adviser in Smyrna and founder of a National Bank branch
- 1925–1928First president of the Autonomous Currant Organization
- 1928–1933Deputy governor of the National Bank of Greece
- 1936–1939Minister of State Hygiene and Welfare
- 1939–1941Governor of the National Bank of Greece
- 1941Prime minister of Greece, also holding foreign affairs and defence portfolios
Related historical events
Prime Minister and death in April 1941
When Metaxas died of throat cancer in January 1941, King George II appointed Koryzis prime minister on 29 January. According to the Greek Wikipedia, men close to Metaxas promoted the choice, and the king believed Koryzis was the only man who could inherit Metaxas's authority. In its declaration on taking office the new government promised, under the king's leadership, both victory over the enemy and the advancement of the working classes. Koryzis held the premiership together with the foreign, education and religious affairs, and military, naval and aviation ministries that his predecessor had held, and the cabinet remained unchanged for months.
The war he inherited was the Greco-Italian War, opened by Italy's invasion on 28 October 1940. The Greek army stopped the Italian advance just inside Greek territory by mid-November and counter-attacked into Albania, but the front stabilized in February 1941 and the Italian spring offensive in March failed. By then Greece was far less able than Italy to replace losses of men and material, and was dangerously low on ammunition and supplies.
Koryzis's line was alliance with Britain. The Greek Wikipedia records that on 6 April 1941, half an hour after the German invasion began, he rejected the demand delivered by the German ambassador Erbach-Schönberg that British forces be removed from Greece. Other accounts weigh him differently. Metaxas had declined direct British military assistance on the grounds that Germany could use it as a justification for intervention; according to English Wikipedia, Koryzis agreed to the dispatch of "W Force", two infantry divisions and an armoured brigade of British and Dominion troops. By that decision Greece bound its war effort to the Allies, while the king effectively controlled the government; the same account describes Koryzis as largely powerless.
On 18 April, twelve days into the German invasion, Koryzis attended a cabinet meeting and then spoke privately with George II. What was said was never known, though it has been conjectured that the two may have disagreed about continuing the fight by moving the government to Crete or to British-held Cyprus. According to the Greek Wikipedia, he left the meeting shattered and returned to the prime minister's residence, where shots were heard from the first floor while Ioannis Diakos, sent by the king, was speaking with his wife; the details of the suicide are recounted differently, and English Wikipedia, citing Theodore Stephanides in Crete at the time, says newspapers first reported the death as a heart attack. Greece surrendered to German troops two days later, on 20 April, and its Allied war effort ended in German, Italian and Bulgarian occupation.