 Germany had occupied Greece in 1941 out of the fear that British bombers based in Greece would bomb the Romanian oil fields and deprived the "Reich" of the oil that powered its war machine.On 23 August 1944, at a meeting at his headquarters, Adolf Hitler told Field Marshal Maximilian von Weichs, the commander of the German forces in the Balkans, that with the Romanian oil fields lost, there was now no more point in occupying Greece and he should begin preparations for a withdrawal from Greece at once.The German troops evacuated Athens on 12 October 1944, and by the end of the month, they had withdrawn from mainland Greece.