World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseStefanos Sarafis was born in Trikala in central Greece in 1890. After studying law at the University of Athens, he enlisted in the Greek Army during the Balkan Wars, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1913. He participated in two failed Venizelist coup d'état attempts in the mid-1930s. He was sentenced to life imprisonment after being captured after the second failed coup, but he was pardoned by the government, although he was exiled to the island of Milos which had no military presence. After the German conquest of Greece, he returned from exile and became a leading figure in the Greek republican resistance movement. In 1943, he was arrested by communist guerrilla fighters, who soon won his allegiance and appointed him to high leadership positions, including the chief of the general staff. After WW2, after the communist defeat in the Greek Civil War, he was again exiled, this time to the island of Serifos. He married English academic Marion Pascoe, whom he had met on Milos during his first exile, in 1952. In 1956, as a member of the United Democratic Left political party, he was elected to the legislature. He was killed in a traffic accident in the Alimos suburb of Athens, Greece in the following year.

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Stefanos Sarafis Timeline