2 Euro BU

The Dodecanese (Dodekanes) is an island group in the southeastern Aegean near the present-day Turkish coast. The name means “twelve islands,” but refers to a region with numerous inhabited and uninhabited islands. They include, among others, Rhodes (Rhodos), Kos, Kalymnos, Karpathos, Leros, Patmos, Symi and Kastellorizo. Rhodes is the largest island and the historical administrative centre of the group.

The islands had belonged to the Ottoman Empire since the 16th century. During the Italo-Turkish War, they were occupied by Italy in 1912. The Treaty of Lausanne recognised Italian rule in 1923. Under Italy’s fascist government, this was followed by a policy of administrative and cultural Italianisation. At the same time, the majority of the population remained Greek-speaking and Orthodox; Muslim and Jewish communities also existed.

Following Italy’s armistice with the Allies in September 1943, the German Wehrmacht occupied large parts of the island group. Fighting between German troops and Allied and Italian formations took place around Kos and Leros. During the German occupation, almost all Jews still living on Rhodes (Rhodos) and Kos were deported in 1944. After the German surrender, Great Britain temporarily took over the administration.

The cession of the islands to Greece was established in the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty with Italy. Formal incorporation was completed on 7 March 1948; this date is commemorated annually on the islands. It was the result of a long-standing political objective known in Greek as *Enosis*, meaning union with Greece.

With the incorporation of the Dodecanese, Greece essentially acquired its present-day territorial shape. The round anniversary therefore provided the occasion for the commemorative coin. The reference to ancient Rhodian coinage also establishes a connection to the long monetary and commercial history of Rhodes (Rhodos): Rhodian coins circulated widely in the ancient Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean.