.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{box-sizing:border-box;width:100%;padding:5px;border:none;font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .hidden-title{font-weight:bold;line-height:1.6;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .hidden-content{text-align:left}You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (November 2019) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 8,950 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Max Merten]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template ((Translated|de|Max Merten)) to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Max Merten (8 September 1911 in Berlin-Lichterfelde – 21 September 1971 in West Berlin) was the Kriegsverwaltungsrat (military administration counselor) of the Nazi German occupation forces in Thessaloniki in northern Greece during World War II. He was responsible among other crimes for the deportation of c. 50,000 Jews of the city as part of the Holocaust.

He was arrested during a visit to Greece in 1959, which caused a political scandal, the "Merten Affair" (Υπόθεση Μέρτεν). He was convicted in Greece and sentenced to a 25-year term as a war criminal. Pressure by West Germany, however, led to his extradition to his homeland, where he was set free.[1]

On 28 September 1960 the West German newspapers Hamburger Echo and Der Spiegel published excerpts of Merten's deposition to the German authorities, where Merten claimed that the Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis was an informer during the Nazi occupation of Greece. These statements caused a reaction by the leader of the opposition, Georgios Papandreou, and the Greek Left against Karamanlis.

Karamanlis rejected the claims as unsubstantiated and absurd. Merten's accusations against Karamanlis were never corroborated in a court of law.

Literature

References

  1. ^ "Kathimerini on the Merten affair". Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 12 July 2006.
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