Andon Kalchev was a Bulgarian

Bulgarians

The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...

 Axis-collaborationist paramilitary leader active in northern Greece during the country's occupation by the Axis in the Second World War. He was one of the leaders of the Bulgarian-backed Ohrana

Ohrana

Ohrana ; were armed collaborationist detachments organized by the former Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization structures, composed of Bulgarian in Nazi-occupied Greek Macedonia during World War II and led by Bulgarian officers. from Macedonia...

, a paramilitary formation of Bulgarians in Greek Macedonia during World War II Axis occupation. He was active outside the Bulgarian occupied area of Macedonia, under the tolerance of the Italian and German authorities which used him in their fights with rival Greek EAM-ELAS and Yugoslavian resistance groups. Because of his collaborationist activity, he was sentenced to death by military tribunal, and was executed by firing squad on August 27, 1948.

Early life

He was born in Zhuzheltsi, Ottoman Empire, today Spilia

Orestida

Orestida is a municipality in the Kastoria peripheral unit, Greece. The seat of the municipality is in Argos Orestiko.The town of Argos Orestiko hosts the celebration of the ascension of the Holy Cross, in September...

, Kastoria prefecture

Kastoria Prefecture

Kastoria is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of West Macedonia. Its capital is the town of Kastoria.-Geography:...

 in Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 in 1910. After the Balkan Wars

Balkan Wars

The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...

 in 1913, Greece took control of southern Macedonia and began an official policy of forced assimilation

Forced assimilation

Forced assimilation is a process of forced cultural assimilation of religious or ethnic minority groups, into an established and generally larger community...

 which included the settlement of Greeks from other provinces into southern Macedonia, as well as the linguistic and cultural Hellenization of the ethnic Bulgarians. The Greeks expelled Bulgarian Exarchist churchmen and teachers and closed Bulgarian schools and churches. Bulgarian language (including the Macedonian dialects) was prohibited, and its surreptitious use, whenever detected, was ridiculed or punished.

Within Greece, the Macedonian Bulgarians were designated "Slavophone Greeks". After the Balkan Wars and especially after the First World War more than 100,000 Bulgarians from Aegean Macedonia and Western Thrace moved to Bulgaria. At this time the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) began sending armed cheti into Greek Macedonia and Thrace to assassinate officials and stir up the spirit of the oppressed population. Kalchev came from a well known IMRO Bulgarian local family, which emigrated from Greek Macedonia to Balchik

Balchik

Balchik is a Black Sea coastal town and seaside resort in the Southern Dobruja area of northeastern Bulgaria. It is located in Dobrich Oblast and is 42 km northeast of Varna...

, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

 after World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 following the 1919 Greek-Bulgarian voluntary population exchange. Kalchev graduated at a gymnazium in Sofia

Sofia

Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...

 and then at the Leipzig University. Later he went back to Bulgaria, where he graduated also at a military officer's school in Sofia.

Participation by the Bulgarian occupation of Greece

The 4th of August Regime

4th of August Regime

The 4th of August Regime , commonly also known as the Metaxas Regime , was an authoritarian regime under the leadership of General Ioannis Metaxas that ruled Greece from 1936 to 1941...

 in Greece (1936 to 1941) under the leadership of General Ioannis Metaxas

Ioannis Metaxas

Ioannis Metaxas was a Greek general, politician, and dictator, serving as Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941...

 was firmly opposed to the pro-Bulgarian factions of the Slavophones of northern Greece, some of whom underwent political persecution due to advocacy of irredentism with regard to neighboring countries. Metaxas' regime continued repression of the use of Slavic languages both in public and in private as well as expressions of Slavic cultural distinctiveness. As a consequence after the German invasion in Greece (April 6, 1941) followed also a Bulgarian annexation of Eastern Macedonia and part of Western Thrace

Western Thrace

Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...

. Bulgaria joined World War II siding with the Axis in an attempt to solve its "national question" and fulfill the aim of "Greater Bulgaria

Greater Bulgaria

Greater Bulgaria is term to identify the territory associated with a historical national state and a modern Bulgarian irredentist nationalist movement which would include most of Macedonia, Thrace and Moesia...

", especially in the area of Macedonia (where much territory was lost in the Second Balkan War

Second Balkan War

The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 29 June 1913. Bulgaria had a prewar agreement about the division of region of Macedonia...

) and Western Thrace (lost to Greece in the Treaty of Neuilly

Treaty of Neuilly

The Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, dealing with Bulgaria for its role as one of the Central Powers in World War I, was signed on 27 November 1919 at Neuilly-sur-Seine, France....

). Bulgaria joined the Axis on 1 March 1941, explicitly requesting German support for its territorial claims.

A massive campaign of "Bulgarisation

Bulgarisation

Bulgarisation is a term used to describe a cultural change of the spread of Bulgarian culture within various areas in the Balkans....

" was launched, which saw all Greek officials deported. A ban was placed on the use of the Greek language, the names of towns and places changed to the forms traditional in Bulgarian. In addition, the Bulgarian government tried to alter the ethnic composition of the region, by expropriating land and houses from Greeks in favour of Bulgarian settlers (former refugees from Macedonia and others), and by the introduction of forced labour and of economic restrictions for the Greeks in an effort to force them to migrate. A spontaneous and badly organized uprising around Drama

Drama, Greece

Drama , the ancient Drabescus , is a town and municipality in northeastern Greece. Drama is the capital of the peripheral unit of Drama which is part of the East Macedonia and Thrace periphery. The town is the economic center of the municipality , which in turn comprises 53.5 percent of the...

 in late September 1941 was violently crushed by the Bulgarian Army. By late 1941, more than 100,000 Greeks had been expelled from the Bulgarian occupation zone.

When the Bulgarians occupied eastern Macedonia in 1941 they began also a campaign to win the loyalty of the Slavic-speaking inhabitants of Greek Macedonia and to reinforce their Bulgarian ethnic sentiments. While some of these people did greet the Bulgarians as liberators particularly in eastern and central Macedonia (which was under Bulgarian occupation), this campaign was less successful in German-occupied western Macedonia. Kalchev served as officer first into Bulgarian annexed territories, but later was sent into the German occupied Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...

 to found there a Bulgarian military club, when the German High Command approved it in 1941. The Bulgarians soon organized suppyling of food and provisions for the Slavic population in Central and Western Macedonia in an attempt to gain support. Many Slavophone political prisoners were released with the intercession of Bulgarian Club in Thessaloniki, which had made representations to the German occupation authorities.

Founding of Ohrana and collaboration with the Italian and the German occupation forces

In 1942, the Bulgarian club asked assistance from the German High command in organizing armed units among the Bulgarian population in northern Greece. For this purpose, the Bulgarian army, under the approval of the German forces in the Balkans sent a handful of officers to the zones occupied by the Italian and German troops to be attached to the occupying forces as "liaison officers". One of them was Kalchev. These officers were given the objective to form armed Bulgarian militias. Bulgaria was interested in acquiring the zones under Italian and German occupation and hopped to sway the allegiance of the 80,000 Slavs who lived there at the time.

The appearance of Greek partisans in those areas persuaded the Italians to allow the formation of these detachments. The initial detachments were formed in early 1943 in the district of Kastoria

Kastoria

Kastoria is a city in northern Greece in the periphery of West Macedonia. It is the capital of Kastoria peripheral unit. It is situated on a promontory on the western shore of Lake Orestiada, in a valley surrounded by limestone mountains...

 by Andon Kalchev with the support of the head of the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 occupation authorities in Kastoria leutanant Ravali, who armed the local villages to help combat the growing resistance activity by the ELAS. The name given to the armed militias was 'Ohrana

Ohrana

Ohrana ; were armed collaborationist detachments organized by the former Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization structures, composed of Bulgarian in Nazi-occupied Greek Macedonia during World War II and led by Bulgarian officers. from Macedonia...

'. The reasons of locals for taking arms varied. Some of the men were pre-war members of IMRO, and thus harbored deep Bulgarian convictions, some to assist in self-defense of Greek attacks, others because of pro-Nazi sentiments, some to avenge repressions inflicted on them by the Greek authorities during the Metaxas

Ioannis Metaxas

Ioannis Metaxas was a Greek general, politician, and dictator, serving as Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941...

 dictatorship and many took arms in order to defend themselves from the attacks of other Greek resistance movements as the latter saw them as collaboratives with the Italian, Bulgarian and German forces. In the summer of 1944, Ohrana constituted some 12,000 local fighters and volunteers from Bulgaria charged with protection of the local population.

During 1944, whole Slavophone villages were armed by the occupation authorities to counter balance the emerging power of the resistance and especially of Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS). After the war, Andon Kalchev was accused that he participated in atrocities in the town of Kleisoura known as the Massacre

Massacre

A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...

 of Kleisoura with Bulgarian men of the German militia

Militia

The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...

. On April 5, 1944, rebel group EAM-ELAS attacked a German convoy of lorries killing three forerunners motorcyclists. The Germans later in the afternoon, arrived gathered women, childrens and elders of the village and executed 280 people.

Dissolution of Ohrana and military court death sentence

However the advance of the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 into Bulgaria in 1944, the withdrawal of the German armed forces from Greece in October, meant that the Bulgarian Army had to withdraw from Greek Macedonia and Thrace, leaving Greece with the difficult task of post-occupation reconstruction. Kalchev's active collaboration with the Italian and German Army in fighting the resistance forces and the using of local conscripted manpower born a very unpleasant situation for this pro-Bulgarian Slavophone part of the population after the end of the war, leading to a new wave of emigration to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, the last (after World War I) members of the Bulgarian minority of Greece. After the Bulgarian and German withdrawal, he hid in his village until April, 1945. Afterwards Kalchev made an attempt to escape but eventually was captured by the Yugoslav authorities and imprisoned in Bitola. Later he was transferred to the Greek authorities for trial as Axis-collaborator. Kalchev was prosecuted for collaboration, sentenced to death by the Greek military court and executed on August 27, 1948. His last words were: "Long live Macedonia".

See also

• Macedonian Question
• Slavic-speakers of Greek Macedonia
• Axis occupation of Greece during World War II
• Military history of Greece during World War II
  Military history of Greece during World War II
  Greece entered World War II on 28 October 1940, when the Italian army invaded from Albania, beginning the Greco-Italian War. The Greek army was able to stop the invasion and even push back the Italians into Albania, thereby winning one of the first victories for the Allies...
  
  
• Military history of Bulgaria during World War II
  Military history of Bulgaria during World War II
  The military history of Bulgaria during World War II encompasses an initial period of neutrality until 1 March 1941, a period of alliance with the Axis Powers until 9 September 1944 and a period of alignment with the Allies until the end of the war. Bulgaria was a constitutional monarchy during...