Greek governments were forced to wage a difficult diplomatic struggle in order to ensure the permanent and official incorporation of the Dodecanese islands to the Greek State. The fate of the islands was formally linked to the broader scope of the peace negotiations between the victorious and defeated nations of World War II. However, politically, it depended upon the fragile balance of forces and the interests of the main protagonists of the Cold War era, which was just coming to the fore.

One day after the official surrender of Germany, the military commander of the Dodecanese signed the Delivery Protocol of the islands to the allies, in Symi, on 8 May 1945. The German occupation had ended. Everywhere on the Islands, the British forces and the men of the Sacred Band were welcomed with enthusiasm.

World War II served as the catalyst that would change the status quo in the Dodecanese, dragging plans, hopes and diplomatic interests in its maelstrom. When Italy declared war on Greece on October 28, 1940, many volunteers from the Dodecanese joined the “Dodecanese Regiment” or were already serving in other units of the Greek Army. Yet, even after the Greek capitulation, resistance against the Italians and the Germans would continue on the Dodecanese with raids, sabotage acts and espionage.

Italy occupied the Dodecanese Islands in May 1912, during the Italo-Turkish War. The fact that the islands were relieved from Ottoman Rule, combined with Italy’s declarations on the provisional nature of this occupation, fostered hope among the population of the Dodecanese that the much-desired union with Greece would finally come to fruition. Those hopes were expressed on 17 June 1912 in Patmos with the proclamation of the “Autonomous State of the Aegean”.

Towards the end of the 1980s, feminist demands had achieved considerable success. At the institutional level, the laws on equality had steeped into the legal culture of Greece, despite some remaining inequalities under the applicable legal framework. Discriminatory behaviours against women -when identified- acquired a rather social character. The feminism of the period of transition to democracy (Metapolitefsi) managed to identify discriminatory behaviours and to link them with the dominance relationships between men and women.