On May 20, 1941 the islanders of Crete were awakened by the sound of airplanes — hundreds of them — and “umbrella men” falling from the sky in what was an unprecedented airborne attack on an island.
This day marked the start of the epic Battle of Crete, when the Nazis launched Operation Mercury and history would be changed forever.
Big words? No. Not at all.
Unfortunately, you won’t read about this in most American history books. Victors write history and although Greece was on the side of the victors, the country was too destitute and poor, not to mention in the throws of a civil war immediately after WWII — too preoccupied to bother herself with taking her part in the history writing.
So the Brits, Americans and others wrote the history of the war and we learn about Dunkirk, the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Britain… but rarely about Crete.
But the truth is, Crete changed the course of the war and all of world history in so many ways. It was an unprecedented battle on so many fronts, three of which should have brought much more attention to this epic battle.
(1) It was the first battle where German paratroops (Fallschirmjäger) were used on a massive scale, but also the first mainly airborne invasion in military history. Because of the heavy casualties suffered by the paratroopers — 6,000 dead or missing in action — Adolf Hitler forbade further large-scale airborne operations.
Hitler was using Crete as a testing ground for his elite paratroopers. It was a dry run for an airborne invasion of the British Isles, which never materialized since Crete ended up so tragic for him. One has to wonder what the outcome of the war would have been had the Cretans surrendered from day one (like so many other European countries did) and if Hitler would have invaded Britain.
(2) Crete was the first place the invading German troops encountered mass resistance from a civilian population, including the kidnapping of a German general. Two thousand civilians died at the execution wall in the first month of occupation alone and brutal reprisals followed for the next three years of occupation.
The massive and unprecedented resistance — not seen by the French, the Poles or any European people before Crete — led Hitler to send an angry cable to Kurt Student, his general on the island.
“FRANCE FELL IN EIGHT DAYS. WHY IS CRETE STILL FREE?”
(3) Even though Crete eventually fell and the Germans occupied the island, the Cretans never stopped fighting. Hitler was forced to focus on the tiny island and send valuable troops and reinforcements. The unwanted attention to Crete caused him to delay his planned Spring invasion of Russia and instead divert attention to hotbeds of resistance like Crete.
The end result? A delayed invasion of Russia and a catastrophic end in the ice and snow of the Russian winter — something Hitler hadn’t planned.
Hitler won the battle, but with great losses that were noted in German archives and by German commanders in various biographies and testimonies. Hitler lost more men in the Battle of Crete than in any previous battle in the war up to that time.
Hitler’s Chief of Staff, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel admitted during the Nuremberg Trials, “…the unbelievably strong resistance of the Greeks delayed by two or more vital months the German attack against Russia; if we did not have this long delay, the outcome of the war would have been different in the Eastern Front and the war in general. And others would be sitting here today.”
Is The Pappas Post worth $5 a month for all of the content you read? On any given month, we publish dozens of articles that educate, inform, entertain, inspire and enrich thousands who read The Pappas Post. I’m asking those who frequent the site to chip in and help keep the quality of our content high — and free. Click here and start your monthly or annual support today. If you choose to pay (a) $5/month or more or (b) $50/year or more then you will be able to browse our site completely ad-free!
Click here if you would like to subscribe to The Pappas Post Weekly News Update
6 comments
The only thing is..Crete isn't tiiny. It's 112 miles long. Other than this..spot on!
Thanks for writing about this. I am not sure, but I believe I heard a rumor that Zach Galifanakis is preparing to do a serious movie about this.
Remember the Australian ,6 th Division who helped hold the airfields until captured or evacuated.
My late father a member of 2/4 Aust Inf Bat defended the airfield at Heraklion before being evacuated to Eygpt
In Dec 2014 I was able to walk in his footsteps at Heraklion
A beautiful place these days
Crete was on part of the resistance. As it is said at the end of this article, Hitler’s chief of staff referred to the resistance of Greece, not Crete alone. To my opinion this article attempts to alter history a little bit by not presenting the full story.
XIO!! there is no slanting of history in this article at all !!!!yes Crete is a tiny made up of villages….. the article is 100% accurate in depecting the Battle of Crete . Yes there was also a battle going on in Greece but Crete was helping Greece fight that war. Leaving Crete with old men women and children ! if you remember Crete and Greece are separate . now Crete is part of Greece .please do your history before speaking flippant. s cretans are a very proud people and we fought hard and we did change the course of the world .we would all be speaking German now if wasn’t for the Cretans!
& this is why the Germans never helped with the reconstruction of Greece the way they helped elsewhere. They are smart. Keep the Greeks down, you don’t want them too strong for the next invasion to come.