‘Negotiations of a Complicated Character'

Rather than present what would necessarily be a summary overview of SOE’s role in Greece during the occupation, I intend to concentrate on a more detailed analysis of one of the most controversial episodes in SOE’s extensive involvement in that country, namely Captain D. J. (Don) Stott’s contacts with high ranking German officials in Athens during October/November 1943. These contacts were made in highly unusual circumstances and, given their nature, they have inevitably, both at the time and subsequently, been the subject of much fevered discussion and, no less inevitably, of much misunderstanding and misinterpretation as to the mainsprings of British policy in wartime Greece. ¹