On June 2, 1941 a brutal massacre took place in the village of Kondomari, just west of the city of Hania.
The Battle of Crete had just completed and the Allied forces surrendered the island to the invading Nazis. Despite the outcome, the battle changed the course of World War II history and was epic on so many levels, including the fierce resistance that the Nazis encountered from the local Cretan population.
The Nazis were dumbfounded by the resistance, never having experienced such ferocious fighting from civilians anywhere else in Europe.
As retribution for so many German losses, General Kurt Student ordered a long series of mass reprisals against the people of Crete.
The massacre at Kondomari was the first, starting what would be a brutal campaign of terror, attempting to instill fear in the local population.
The massacre was photographed by a German army war correspondent named Franz-Peter Weixler whose negatives were discovered several decades later in the federal German archives.
Weixler’s photographs show a macabre and detailed chronology of what transpired on that fateful day in the tiny Greek village that lost most of its male population.
The Nazi firing squad assassinated almost 70 men.
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33 comments
Ενας σώθηκε σε μία εκτέλεση. Ηρθε ο πατέρας του οικιοθελώς, να τον αντικαταστήσει, και άρχισαν τον καυγά, διότι ήθελε να πεθάνει αυτός και όχι ο πατέρας του. Μετά από αυτό οι γερμανοί δεν το εκτέλεσαν.
Nazi revisionists attempt to let the Wehrmacht off the hook by claiming that it was the SS who committed all the atrocities, when, in fact, the doctrine of cold blooded race superiority suffused the entire German culture. We can’t understand this sort of barbarity from the land of Beethoven and Schiller until we understand the power of certain irrational doctrines that took hold of the early Nazi movement and formed its creed of race superiority. The roots of Nazism can be found before WWI in the demented writings of the influential occultist, Lans Von Liebenfels (Google him) who published “Ostara” magazine in large numbers, a magazine that was avidly read by Hitler and his early cohorts.
A nation that forgets his history will just live it again
Its happening now
Never forget human suffer.Anywhere !
And it is…..
Not only did these monsters commit this attrocity, they went as far as to document it photographically. Disgusting. Did they think that future generations would marvel at their glory…of mowing down unarmed civilians? And, today, their progeny rule Europe? How far we've regressed…
The photos were taken against orders by a German propaganda agent who was trying to expose Germans to the atrocities they had committed. He took these negatives and had them processed, but then was found with them and sentenced to fifteen years in prison for crimes against the state. During the trial they also found him guilty of helping several Cretans to escape the island, which almost tripled his sentence from 15 to 40 years. The somewhat infamous negatives were confiscated off him but were found after the war (and after the photographers death).
I'm glad you posted these disturbing photographs. People have know the truth.
this village was not far from were I used to live and where I have friends. This is horrible all those atrocities that were done and no restitution to the Greek people, I say Angela Merkel start coughing up the monies due to Greece and an apology to the Greek Peaple that were the survivors of this atrocity
f@king nazissss suck my dick!!!!!!!!!!
Very disturbing pictures. We must never forget the atrocities of war, war is real and it is disturbing. How many in Greece now can hold a Nazi flag and call themselves a political party is just as disturbing
Fuck the Nazis,and what ever political party,or individual supports them!!!!
And even after all that some people support neo-Nazi groups like The Golden Dawn in Greece. Shameful.
War crimes killing innocent people and documenting it it is disgusting. The people of Crete and Greece in general have suffered by the hands of the Germans it is now time for the Germans to pay for those crimes of war. This is just one of many atrocities that occurred during the invasion of Greece. In my book if they are made to pay for the war crimes Greece should not have to pay back anything on the current loan and the Germans need to suck it up. Fuck the EU Greece doesn’t need them they need us. My husband was born in Crete may 1941 in the village of Males he and his family were lucky enough to survive . Proud to be Greek not German.
The photographer, a German, defied orders to take the pictures because he opposed the murder of the villagers. He tried to persuade the officer in charge not to kill anyone and saved two or three of the Cretans from being shot. He was a good man. The military didn’t want the slaughter recorded, but he wanted to expose the atrocity. He was punished for his actions, as I’m sure he knew he would be.
I am happy that you posted the pictures. We all learn from our history. I did know that my Daddy was a guerilla in WWI and was affiliated with such a group to fight the Germans. I am proud and happy that he did. If it was me that day, I too will fight. It is like Spartacus says, I want to be a free man, and not a slave. I believe in that principle! We all must unite and fight back. It is a long, long, long time ago and I don’t know what happened in the years since but Germany needs to pay back in monetary form those that they killed. They did it to the Jews. They need to do to the people of Crete. If they have not paid, it is time that they pay up! In turn, our government in Greece must represent the people rather than those that have taken the money out of the country. Greece must survive. Must grow. Must prosper. Finally, must remember the past. The past is the indicator to the future!
Art. 43 HLKO
In order to establish order in an occupied country/ in war, international law allows to shoot partisans. This includes whole villages, if they provide shelter to partisans. This was and is a common way to fight partisans, e.g. today in 2015 Ucraine Western army bombs whole cities and villages in the Eastern Ucraine, for the suspician that pro-russian soldiers are among the civilians. We are talking of douzens of thousands of dead civilians here.
You are incorrect. If you kill entire villages of people it is a war crime. The Germans at Kondomari killed old men as well as young men. It’s possible there may have been some andartes among them but the Germans didn’t care whether they were innocent or not, they just wanted to wipe out every man in the village, nearly 70 of them. As I said, that’s a war crime. Student and the officer in charge of these killings should have been hanged. What were the andartes doing, anyway? Simply defending their land against the invaders. When the Germans bombed Heraklion at the start of the invasion, the Luftwaffe machine-gunned civilians fleeing from the city. These people weren’t fighting the Germans, they were just trying to escape the bombs. Did the Germans really believe, as has been reported, that the people of Crete would welcome them with open arms when innocent men, women and children had been blown to pieces? The Cretan people have always resisted the invader. And guess what? All the invaders are gone and the Cretans are still there. Don’t excuse barbaric wartime acts as being within international law because trying to be an apologist for the inexcusable is absurd. This massacre was an evil, disgusting crime and if I was a German, even after all this time I would feel the deepest shame for Kondomari.
General Kurt Student who was ultimately responsible for this and other war crimes in Crete was put on trial in 1947. He was sentenced to just five years jail but was released in 1948 apparently for medical reasons and lived a further 30 years. So much for justice.
I’m glad you posted the pictures and the story. History cannot be forgotten. We have, obviously, to be remembered again and again that war is hell and turns people, all over the world, no matter what nationality or ethnicity, into monsters. I’m German, and I’m ashamed looking at these pictures. In German schools we are reminded from year 7 on about the terrible German history – and learn that this must never ever happen again.
War is hell.
These photos should be published again and again for the world to see the atrocities of this war. Shooting unarmed civilians also occurred at the village of my parents, Skine, Crete. Retribution for the kidnapping of a German general also occasioned the burning of the entire village. This meant the villagers scattered to live in caves, as did my mother, or under the trees with flimsy sheets for protection from the elements. Some of the more fortunate villagers had relatives in other villages with which to stay. Rebuilding poor impoverished homes went on for decades and many people still live in those homes. The small payments of German retribution have never been enough to compensate for the misery and destruction.
They are back with banks than tanks… how quickly Europe has already forgotten.
It’s about time Greece was repaid ALL the monies due from the thieving Germans. this includes ALL the gold and ALL the currency. They stole everything and most would have gone into the vaults of the Swiss banks at the end of the war. Every EU nation and the USA needs to demand recompense from Merkel and her government. the last “loan” to Greece went directly into the German banks to pay interest. That is a fact!!
First, let me state that, what is, is….
And here you sit and whine, comment and don’t understand why the paratroopers were pissed off ?! I know the stories about paratroopers shot in the back, defenseless.. but just lets quote the text from the first image in the slideshow.
” Resistance by the Cretan population was the fiercest the Nazis had faced in the war up to that point. Many parachutists who were stuck in trees never made it t the ground alive as locals attacked with kitchen utensils, rocks and canes… ”
Then, to differ between civilians and partizans… it kind of coward as a partizan to hide among the civilian population..
IT’S TIME THE GREEK GOVERNMENT DEMANDED THE GERMAN REPARATION FROM WW2 in a short period of German occupation, 1941-1944, the violence of the German-led armies of conquest, turned Greece from a modestly well-to-do country to a country on the brink of death.
The following math of mass starvation and murder tell the story. The numbers come from “The Sacrifices of Greece in the Second World War,” a 1946 report prepared for the Greek government by the architect K. A. Doxiadis.
The story of WWII Greece starts with food, the weapon of starvation for the occupiers. During 1941-1944, there was a dramatic decline in Greek food production: wheat and barley, life and death crops for the Greeks, dropped by 40 percent; beans, 36 percent; tobacco, 89 percent; cotton, 75 percent; olive oil, 16 percent; grapes and raisins, 66 percent; wine, 50 percent; fruits, 20 percent.
The occupiers speeded Greek starvation by killing the peasants’ farm animals. They slaughtered 60 percent of the horses, mules, and cattle; 50 percent of the donkeys, sheep and goats; 80 percent of the hogs; and 50 percent of the chickens.
Next after food, the entire country became a field of desolation for the Germans, Italians and Bulgarians. They destroyed 25 percent of the country’s forests; 56 percent of the roads; 50 to 90 percent of the bridges; 65 percent of automobiles; 60 percent of the trucks; 80 percent of the buses; 100 percent of the trains and railways; 80 percent of the factories; 100 percent of the water and sewage infrastructure.the Germans were invaders. That gives the Cretens the right to defend their lands. IT’S TIME THE GREEK GOVERNMENT DEMANDED THE GERMAN REPARATION FROM WW2
And.. No ! I am not in line with the Nazis
What i said is the back story.
Btw.. have you seen the images of US soldiers execute German teenagers for espionage ?!
i just came across this article and comments. What the US did against German youth is irrelevant to what aggressive thugs did to countries. This was an article about the cowards with advanced weapons of the time did to a small poor country, using specific examples. Your deflections shows that you’re poorly educated.
The Cretan population had every right to kill as many invaders as possible and the invaders had no right to execute people for defending their country
The only reason why Germany has not paid any retribution is that it would create a precedent that ultimately would bankrupt Germany.
It is because they are dishonest to force loans in either direction. Loans to them they do not pay, from them they make billions.
They are liars, trade /emissions cheats, and won;t even pay for a defense they are too cheap or scared to have in light of their past and control an undemocratic union holding economies hostage. They remain scum like their ancestors.
These are the only some surfacing many years later. How many multiply more were never photographed?
Today, Germany is against sanctioning an aggressive war mongering Turkey when both held genocides. What have we learned, where is the justice. Germany rules a Europe it tried to destroy twice and a late to a reluctant war America fears financial contagion after they bailed banks instead of people. It seems to me that we still live in primitive times even though the will of the people, and their morality, is not always represented by those they elect and afraid of brave decisions.
> Kook: I tried to follow your warped argument in defense of your “innocent NAZI soldiers” being shot in the back, and so forth. The overiding question which you are too cowardly to come to terms with is – What the Hell were the Germans doing invading Greece in the first place.? Innocent people, men, women and children had been killed by your German NAZIS. Were the Greeks not supposed to be enraged by this?!! If Someone invades your country unprovoked you fight however neccessary you can. Killing innocent German men, women, and children during the course of the war was then not so bad an idea. And that is exactly what happened with absolutely no regrets on my part – My many thanks to the brutal Russian occupation of Germany. j