[2] He was the grandson of Dimitrios Tsolakoglou, the proestos of Agrafa (1775-1822) and later in his life a Greek War of Independence fighter and a Filiki Eteria member.

The German motorized units, however, succeeded in reaching the vital Metsovon Pass on 18 April, overcame local Greek resistance and captured Ioannina on the following day, thereby effectively cutting off the Hellenic Army.

On 26 April 1941, Tsolakoglou wrote a letter to Adolf Hitler, whom he referred to as the "Führer of the German People" proclaiming his willingness to head a collaborationist government, which he promised would consist of senior generals.

[10] Tsolakoglou himself wrote in his memoirs: "I found myself before a historic dilemma: To allow the fight to continue and have a holocaust or, obeying the pleas of the Army's commanders, to assume the initiative of surrendering.... Having made my decision to dare, I did not consider responsibilities.... Until today I have not regretted my actions.

[13] The narrowness of Tsolakoglou's support was reflected in the composition of his cabinet, which consisted of six other generals, the professor of medicine Konstantinos Logothetopoulos, whose principal qualification for office seemed to be was that he was married to the niece of Field Marshal Wilhelm List, and a shady, disreputable businessman Platon Hadzimikalis, whose main qualification for office was that he had many connections with German businesses and was considered to be a clever man.

[10] In a letter to Hitler, Tsolakoglou warned that allowing the Italians to occupy Greece would "completely undermine the authority of the Greek government".

[14] At the time, Hitler said: "It is none of our business whether the Italian occupation troops can cope with the Greek government or not" as the "German-Italian relationship was of paramount importance".

[14] The handing over of part of Macedonia and Thrace to the Bulgarians, the traditional archenemies of the Greeks, ruined the limited amount of legitimacy that the Tsolakoglou government possessed.

[18] As the famine processed, for many Greeks it seemed that society was breaking down as hundreds of emaciated corpses of those who starved to death lay rotting on the streets while for most ordinary people life became reduced down to desperate, almost primeval struggle to find enough food to keep themselves and their loved ones alive for one more day.

[19] According to a study done by the Hellenic State's Ministry of Health in late 1942, during the Great Famine years 1941-42 for the first time in modern history, the population of Athens declined.

[21] The inability of Tsolakoglou's government, which had promised to protect the Greek people from the occupation by giving Greece a role in the "New Order in Europe", to do anything to change German policies completely discredited the Hellenic State.

[23] Tsolakoglou and Georgios Bakos attempted to create a Schutzstaffel unit composed by volunteer Greeks, in order to help the Germans fight against the Soviet Union.

[16] His prickly sense of Greek nationalism led Tsolakoglou to demand that the Hellenic State be treated as an equal in the "New Order in Europe" instead of the subordinate role that the Germans and Italians saw it as playing.

[24][16] Altenburg had long wanted to replace Tsolakoglou with the veteran politician Ioannis Rallis, but he demurred for the moment following the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein, which ended the Axis hopes of conquering Egypt, leading to Logothetopoulos to be appointed instead.