Athens in the 1940s is illuminated as part of a multifaceted journey through time spanning many years in the exhibition ‘Athens 1834–1944: The Birth of the Modern City’ at the National Historical Museum in the capital of Greece. Objects and photographic material depict, among other things, aspects of the city and its people during the years of the Greco-Italian War the German Occupation that followed.
Among the exhibits, visitors can see a portable, hand-operated air-raid siren from World War II (1940-1944), as well as the helmet (Wehrmacht M35) left behind by the last German soldier as he departed from the Kommandantur during Athens’s liberation on October 12, 1944. The helmet is accompanied by an interesting note: “It was October 12, 1944, at 5:45 in the afternoon when the ‘ungrateful’ German whose head I had protected ‘abandoned me’ on the downhill stretch of Anagnostopoulou Street, speeding away from the Kommandantur on our motorcycle… ‘MEIN KAMPF’ was over… and since then I have remained in Greece as a ‘foundling’.”
Two photographs – one showing Greek conscripts arriving to enlist by every available means following the declaration of the Greco-Italian War, and the other showing celebrations of the victories on the Albanian front November to December 1940 – provide visitors to the exhibition with their chronological introduction to the events of 1940.
A German soldier removes the German flag from the Acropolis. K. Megalokonomou, October 12, 1944. (Courtesy of the National Historical Museum)
A painting by Frederick V. Carabott depicts a characteristic scene from the terrible winter of 1941, when thousands of people were dying in the streets from hunger, the freezing cold, and the typhus epidemic. The nightmarish winter of 1941-1942 in Athens is also depicted in photographs from the period, with scenes of hungry children waiting at a soup kitchen, people searching for food in piles of garbage, the dead being transported to the cemetery, and homeless people seeking warmth at the electric railway’s ventilation grate in Omonia Square drawing visitors’ attention.
The exhibition’s photographic material also includes other characteristic scenes of everyday life during 1941-1944, including the sale of oil on the black market, the line to buy cigarettes at a kiosk in Monastiraki Square, and street photographers at the foot of the Acropolis during the German Occupation.
It is October 12, 1944, and the camera records people paying homage at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the very day of Athens’s liberation from the German Occupation, while a German soldier removes the German flag from the Acropolis. The museum’s related photographic material depicts two moments of particular historical symbolism: the end of the Occupation and Athens’s return to freedom.
Photographic material from the nightmarish winter of 1941-1942 in Athens. (TNH/Eirini Zachariadis)
A Few General Words About the Exhibition
The exhibition depicts Athens’s transformation from a provincial town into a European metropolis, beginning with the transfer of the seat of government in 1834 and continuing through its liberation from the German Occupation.
Through rare documents, photographs, and objects from the collections of the National Historical Museum, along with selected exhibits from collaborating institutions, the exhibition attempts a multilayered approach to the historical course, the factors that shaped modern Athens, and the challenges that marked its journey. The presentation focuses on urban and population development, public and private architecture, and the gradual improvement of living conditions through infrastructure development. It also sheds light on the challenges of residents’ everyday lives, social and economic progress, political life, intellectual production, and important social milestones.
The exhibition opened on September 8, 2026, and will run until June 30, 2027.
The helmet (Wehrmacht M35) left behind by the last German soldier. (TNH/Eirini Zachariadis)
A portable, hand-operated air-raid siren used during World War II (1940–1944).
Photo: TNH/Eirini Zachariadis
Paying homage at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the day of Athens’s liberation from the German Occupation, October 12, 1944. (Courtesy of the National Historical Museum)
