He asked Trebes if he knew what he had done. The young Nazi replied that he had merely carried out Göring’s orders. The soldiers cleared their weapons and returned to the vehicles.
Next, it was the turn of Kandanos, where, during the invasion, a small detachment of German motorcycle troops, armed with MG34 sidecar-mounted machine guns, had tried to move through the village on their way south to secure the port of Paleochora. The villagers barred the way at Floria and the next day ambushed troops of the 5th Gebirgsjäger at Kandanos Gorge. Outnumbered and heavily outgunned, the villagers fought for two days before retreating to the mountains.
On 3 June soldiers from the 11th Battalion, 1st Luftlande Assault division, stormed into Kandanos, executed about 180 of men, women and children, slaughtered the livestock and burned down the houses. Other villages in the area, including Floria and Kakopetro, met the same fate. Kandanos was declared a ‘dead zone’ into which Cretans were forbidden to enter. Signs were put up on all the roads into the village saying: ‘Here stood Kandanos, destroyed in retaliation for the bestial ambush murder of a paratrooper platoon and a half-platoon of military engineers by armed men and women. Never to be rebuilt again.’
A few days later Göring awarded young Trebes the Knight’s Cross for ‘bravery on Crete’. Weixler was court-martialled for taking photographs and helping some of the Kondomari villagers to escape.
See Notes to Chapter 6
7
Fortress Crete
In June 1940, General Student left for mainland Europe and was replaced with General Andrae, a senior commander in the Luftwaffe and former head of the state police in Germany. Chania was chosen as the headquarters of ‘ Festung Kreta ’ – Fortress Crete – with a divisional commander in Archanes, south of Heraklion, who was given the Villa Ariadne, sometime home of John Pendlebury. Control of the island was shared with their Axis partners, the Italians. The Germans held the most strategically important regions in the west – Chania, Rethymnon and Heraklion – while the Italians, under General Angelo Carta, were given command of the more minor eastern provinces of Sitia and Lasithi. All towns were heavily garrisoned and supported by a system of outposts. The Germans used two security forces: the Feldgendarmerie , military police, and the Geheime Feldpolizei , the field secret police. Later they were able to call upon the Jagdkommando Schubert – a paramilitary force set up by a German of Greek origin, Friedrich ‘Fritz’ Schubert, nicknamed ‘The Turk’. He recruited violent men – criminals and murderers – to terrorise the islanders using torture, rape, beatings and burning.
In the towns and cities the regime began to establish itself with increasing efficiency. In Heraklion, on the first day of peace, engineers retrieved a huge electric motor that had been used in the harbour and used it to pump the town’s water supplies. The streets were cleared of barricades, and the detritus of battle was gathered up. Hundreds of parachutes were retrieved and piled into the water of the Morozoni Fountain in Lion Square where they were washed by local women for reuse. Frau Bauritz presented herself to the German intelligence service and gave them her lists of German-speaking students. These young people were rounded up and pressed into service as translators. Frau Bauritz herself was recruited as a translator at the Kreiskommandantur, the German headquarters in the centre of the town.
While control of the towns and more accessible villages was comparatively simple, the wild mountains, populated by warriors whose ancestors had fought invaders for over three hundred years, were another matter. It was here that the resistance was born and operated. If the Cretans themselves found the mountains dangerous, even the toughest Axis paratroopers and Alpine soldiers would find them terrifying. For many months after the German
Next, it was the turn of Kandanos, where, during the invasion, a small detachment of German motorcycle troops, armed with MG34 sidecar-mounted machine guns, had tried to move through the village on their way south to secure the port of Paleochora. The villagers barred the way at Floria and the next day ambushed troops of the 5th Gebirgsjäger at Kandanos Gorge. Outnumbered and heavily outgunned, the villagers fought for two days before retreating to the mountains.
On 3 June soldiers from the 11th Battalion, 1st Luftlande Assault division, stormed into Kandanos, executed about 180 of men, women and children, slaughtered the livestock and burned down the houses. Other villages in the area, including Floria and Kakopetro, met the same fate. Kandanos was declared a ‘dead zone’ into which Cretans were forbidden to enter. Signs were put up on all the roads into the village saying: ‘Here stood Kandanos, destroyed in retaliation for the bestial ambush murder of a paratrooper platoon and a half-platoon of military engineers by armed men and women. Never to be rebuilt again.’
A few days later Göring awarded young Trebes the Knight’s Cross for ‘bravery on Crete’. Weixler was court-martialled for taking photographs and helping some of the Kondomari villagers to escape.
See Notes to Chapter 6
7
Fortress Crete
In June 1940, General Student left for mainland Europe and was replaced with General Andrae, a senior commander in the Luftwaffe and former head of the state police in Germany. Chania was chosen as the headquarters of ‘ Festung Kreta ’ – Fortress Crete – with a divisional commander in Archanes, south of Heraklion, who was given the Villa Ariadne, sometime home of John Pendlebury. Control of the island was shared with their Axis partners, the Italians. The Germans held the most strategically important regions in the west – Chania, Rethymnon and Heraklion – while the Italians, under General Angelo Carta, were given command of the more minor eastern provinces of Sitia and Lasithi. All towns were heavily garrisoned and supported by a system of outposts. The Germans used two security forces: the Feldgendarmerie , military police, and the Geheime Feldpolizei , the field secret police. Later they were able to call upon the Jagdkommando Schubert – a paramilitary force set up by a German of Greek origin, Friedrich ‘Fritz’ Schubert, nicknamed ‘The Turk’. He recruited violent men – criminals and murderers – to terrorise the islanders using torture, rape, beatings and burning.
In the towns and cities the regime began to establish itself with increasing efficiency. In Heraklion, on the first day of peace, engineers retrieved a huge electric motor that had been used in the harbour and used it to pump the town’s water supplies. The streets were cleared of barricades, and the detritus of battle was gathered up. Hundreds of parachutes were retrieved and piled into the water of the Morozoni Fountain in Lion Square where they were washed by local women for reuse. Frau Bauritz presented herself to the German intelligence service and gave them her lists of German-speaking students. These young people were rounded up and pressed into service as translators. Frau Bauritz herself was recruited as a translator at the Kreiskommandantur, the German headquarters in the centre of the town.
While control of the towns and more accessible villages was comparatively simple, the wild mountains, populated by warriors whose ancestors had fought invaders for over three hundred years, were another matter. It was here that the resistance was born and operated. If the Cretans themselves found the mountains dangerous, even the toughest Axis paratroopers and Alpine soldiers would find them terrifying. For many months after the German
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