The Brutal Nazi Massacre of a Cretan Village in Pictures

The Pappas Post ^ | May 28, 2014 | Gregory Pappas

[Kolokotronis]

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 and 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. Almost 70 men were assassinated by firing squad that day.

[BeadCounter]

Totally agree, Imperial Japan imho was just as bad or nearly as bad. Fatalities between Europe and Asia are actually pretty close to each other.

The contest to behead 100 persons by two officers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to_kill_100_people_using_a_sword

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

So do you think the German taxpayers (the overwhelming majority today born after WWII ended) are obligated to pay for Greece’s irresponsible economic policies which bankrupted that country?

[DesertRhino]

I agree with you with one caveat. Nazis were the most evil thing to happen to Europe. I think they were even more evil that the communists for two specific reasons. One, they were an educated western nation. Arguably one of the most educated down to low levels of its citizenry. Its hard to believe, but post WWI most of Russia was one step out of feudal serfdom.
I blame an educated man more for the same crime.

Second, the worst German crime of all was Barbarossa. Huge segments of the populace of Ukraine had just suffered a decade of mass murder and rape of a nation. When the Germans rolled in, they thought their salvation was at hand and regarded the Germans as a civilized people.
Imagine someone being raped. Someone comes up and knocks out the rapist. As you feel saved, you see him unbuckling his belt. I can think of no greater crime.

Now for the caveat. I absolutely do not support someone decades or centuries later, being forced to pay for what some ancestor has done. This violates every concept of justice I know.
The exception is financial. If say for example, the Germans looted the Greek bank and gold reserves, then that should have to be paid back by the government that inherited all the nazi debts.

But the only Germans who should owe penance to those murdered people on Crete, are the murderers and their leaders. No modern German under 80 had the slightest thing to do with it. It would be the same as those who would blame me as a white male for slavery in 1840.

[MEG33]

AMEN!

[LouAvul]

You kidding? Wernher von Braun, head of our space program was not only a former Nazi, he was a member of the SS.

And don't forget that crazy Joe Stalin was our ally after his buddy Hitler turned on him.

The "West" can hardly be accused of exercising common sense.

[DesertRhino]

I have been a tourist in Germany twice in the last few years and couldn’t disagree more.
People have been kind, helpful, friendly, warm and I had a few great conversations with some cops.

I had exactly two “bad” experiences that were solely based in the culture. When I turned in my rental car I expected a trash can at the turn in point, sure enough there wasn’t one. A surly old Frau checking the car in took a CSI blue light to the seats and found where I had spilled some red bull, then she glared at my pile of Mcdonalds coffee cups. I would not have wanted her to decide my fate.

Second, I was confused at an autobahn exit and accidently ran a red light leading into a Mcd’s parking lot. A guy pulled up and told me “you ran that red light!” I was friendly and thanked him for letting me know. He drove away.
My daughter said “dad, do you even understand he wasn’t being a nice guy? That was him being aggressive as he could dare to imagine”.

Germans take cars and driving seriously. Great fun driving there. But I was a noob on that part of their culture. Ill try harder next time. But Germans are the most unwarlike people you will find in Europe today.

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

Precisely.

I could not have said it better.

Greek Socialism, not German Nazism is responsible for all of Greece’s problems they face today.

[painter]

I would like to see a video of Berlin a year later. The difference between
East and West

[central_va]

Hitler thought his Japanese ally was unnecessarily cruel to the Chinese.

[DesertRhino]

“What this says to me: Never, ever, ever stop fighting until you draw your last breath. I don’t want to die getting shot like a dog.”

And the odd thing, proven time and again by the USMC, is that if you fight -exactly- that way, the curve to defeat you that seemed so easy before, takes an incredible upward vertical turn.
The resistance borne of the knowledge of no quarter is nearly impossible to overcome and requires application of insane overwhelming power to win. Stalingrad, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of Berlin are examples of this.

[Albion Wilde]

So terrible. So sad.

[dfwgator]

“The village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne in Nazi occupied France was destroyed on 10 June 1944, when 642 of its inhabitants, including women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company.

Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came.....

[Leaning Right]

But the only Germans who should owe penance to those murdered people on Crete, are the murderers and their leaders. No modern German under 80 had the slightest thing to do with it.

Your point has merit, but I'd make a slightly different argument, focusing on the victims rather than on the criminals. Reparations are in order as long as anyone is still alive who was directly affected by these war crimes.

And those directly affected would be the people who were there at the time, and their children.

I include the children because what has happened to your parents, good or bad, greatly affects you. This is less so with grandchildren, and much less so with generations thereafter.

[pierrem15]

My wife and I visited Greece for the first time several years ago.

She's from the former East Block: her initial reaction looking at the dilapidated state of things was, "We had almost 50 years of Communism, what's the Greeks' excuse?"

[dfwgator]

Then there was Palmiry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmiry_massacre

[BeadCounter]

Right, Poland is at the top for the countries that suffered the most I’d think. Serbia probably too.

[DesertRhino]

I agree the victims should be made whole. Government should not be exempt from something that would be a prosecutable crime if you or I did it.
The Nazi murders are fine examples.
The 8th air force killed massive numbers of people, that is a legitimate act of war.
It has never been a legitimate act of war to round up civilians and murder them. It has never been legitimate to make groups of woman strip naked, stand by a ditch and shoot them one by one.
It has never been legitimate to murder POWs. The Germans and Japs did that wholesale.

But the question is who owes the victims something? Germany ceased to exist. The government today has nothing to do with Nazi crimes. What you would have is a nation and government that was not involved, taxing people who were not involved to pay those reparations.

The only thing the Germans owe the Greeks today is from the German central bank which forced at gunpoint the Greek central bank to give them immense loans. That should be paid back with interest.
But I cannot see taxing my 50 year old German friends, so that a government that had nothing to do with Nazi crimes, can give money to someone who never met a Nazi. That’s just nuts to me.

Greece and Germany have modern choice to make. The Germans can cut them off. The Greeks may leave NATO and invite the Russians in. Of Germany may carry them for geopolitical reasons.
Its a European problem.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

We can not stop the killing of one child at the hands of the Nazis 70+ years ago. BUT we can stop the murder of thousands by IS and we do not—Why? The outrage should reach fevor pitch—we should be willing to send Millions, tens of Millions, of Americans to stamp out theis new outrage! This should not be permitted today! But we sit back and do nothing. Why? Tell me why Americans can get all worked up over the death of one black thug to police and forget the piles of innocents murdered by IS? Why? A few Americans are going over there to join the Kurds and fight—why not many more? Why not whole divions like in the Spanish Civil war so long ago? Wake up America, look up from your hand held computers!

[Regulator]

Yours is the common sense position.

I have known many people in Germany, spent much time there.

270 years ago my namesake ancestors came from there, Anabaptist Dunkards fleeing the State religions of the principalities. So I’m not exactly predisposed to hating Germans. I am one, by lineage.

But recently have seen the old attitudes coming back there. Now that they are back on their feet, even first in Europe...the same old arrogance is asserting itself.

They should be kissing the ground that we did not exterminate them as a blight on humanity in 1945. We could have. With a couple of bombs. And left a smoking, radioactive hole.

Sort of a monument that says “don’t do this”.

But we didn’t. We instituted the Marshall Plan, and put our men in harms way to prevent T-54s coming through the Fulda Gap.

Many people don’t understand that.

You were there. You saw it. So did I. Was in Czechoslovakia in the early 1970s, had to go through the No Man’s land with the barbed wire and the gun towers. You haven’t lived until you’ve been searched by a Communist soldier with a Kalashnikov looking for...Time magazine.

Seeing Communism you never forget. This is why we are against them. And that was at the height of Vietnam.

I never forgot.

But that is why we did it. And it is what we SAVED them from: the vengeance of the Russians. Because THAT would have made Barbarossa look like a party.

The older I get the more I think of the enormity of it, and the desperation that the rest of Europe had to endure.

The very existence of the white race - the Europeans - was at stake, and these deranged idiot clowns almost did it: wiping out everyone else so that only they were left.

But it was a stupid fantasy and evidence of their own limited understanding that they thought they could do that.

We stopped it, fixed it and the modern world is what it is because we USED to have adults running the country, some of the greatest men humanity has ever produced. We had a system that advanced such men.

But their children and their children’s children must never forget, or let themselves think it was really no big deal. The Japanese have begun to do that. And so periodically they should be reminded: you could be everyone else’s slaves. Or dead. Or never born.

Yes. Guilt should not be consanguineous. But culture and nationality did this, and that continues. Until the German culture is convinced, we should continue to remind them: it was your nation that did this, and the damage remains along with the memories. Do your best to convince all of us that it won’t happen again.

Ever.

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

Precisely.

Greece should not be in this mess. The country is blessed with a near perfect Mediterranean climate, a beautiful surrounding sea, many attractive islands, sophisticated art, the cradle of Western civilization with many fine museums and a history going back thousands of years, a natural tourist attraction, a strategic location with close geographic connections to three continents. My God, the possibilities and potential for this small nation could be virtually limitless if would embrace full throttled capitalism. And because much of Europe is so socialistic, anti-business, and anti-competitive, think of all the jobs and businesses Greece could attract from surrounding nations if it would abandon its statist policies.