Τα ταξίδια του Χέρμαν Γκαίρινγκ και η γερμανική πολιτική στα Βαλκάνια (1934-1936)

Abstract

After Hitler’s rise to power. National Socialist Germany took action with
the aim to restore diplomatic, economic and political relations with the Balkan
countries, which had suffered great damage in the Great War. In the beginning,
this action took the form of unofficial contact with the various countries,
in which the German representative Hermann Goring, Speaker of the
House of the Third Reich and Minister of Aviation, played a leading part.
From 1934 the German dignitary carried out a series of trips, visiting the
Balkan capitals and making contacts at a high political level. As was to be
expected, Göring’s trips sounded the alarm in diplomatic and political circles,
especially in all the countries that had been involved in World War I and
which consequently followed closely the reactivation of German politics in the
Balkans. Naturally, evaluation of the German diplomatic attempts to gain lost
ground in the region and to compete with the other powers was in direct
interdependence with the legacy of the war. If for some Balkan countries the
political counterbalance and revisionism had found an important ally in the
unstable international scene of the interwar period, for others the German
factor seeking fertile ground in the “power-keg of Europe”, which was the
Balkans, once again seriously threatened stability and peace.