The survey regarding Totalitarianism and the modern European History was conducted by PORU (fielded on 5-6 September, 2017) and was presented in the news website iefimerida.gr (https://goo.gl/Pc5qpp). This research presents remarkable findings with regard to totalitarian regimes of the 20th Century, Nazism and Communism.
Survey’s findings reveal that an outstanding majority of the Greek population (96%) believe that the Nazis didn’t pay any respect to human freedom and dignity. Also they affirm (98.5%) that it has caused millions of deaths.
3 out of 4 (76%) state that the Soviet Union under Stalin did not respect human freedom and dignity and 78.5% believe that Stalinism caused millions of deaths. A high share of 72.5%, believe that communist regimes are responsible for the violent deaths of millions of people.
On the question with regard to “whether the above regimes are similar or not”, one-in-three (33%) says that they are very similar. Another 46% state that there are some similarities but there are also differences between the above regimes, Communism and Nazism.
In overall, this survey exposes a considerable issue. The majority of the Greek public opinion seems to be unaware of important historical events. Greek public opinion didn’t know that in 1940, Soviet Union under Stalin and Germany under Hitler were allies (57.5% responded that they were enemies, while a 29% answered correctly, that they were allies).
*The official report was presented in Greek and you may retrieve it from here: https://goo.gl/QkJnKW
For any inquire, you may also contact poru@uom.edu.gr
