The Kontomari Massacre: The Nazi Atrocity Following the Battle of Crete

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On June 2, 1941, Nazi troops executed the antheral colonisation of the tiny colony of Kontomari successful Chania, Crete, successful an lawsuit etched successful past arsenic the Kontomari Massacre.

It serves arsenic a grim reminder of the brutal reprisals unleashed by German forces aft the hard-fought Battle of Crete.

In the last days of May 1941, pursuing a fierce and heroic absorption by Cretan civilians and Allied forces from Greece, New Zealand, Australia, and Britain, the Battle of Crete concluded with a German victory. The Germans had launched their penetration connected May 20, relying exclusively connected airborne forces. Despite suffering dense losses, they achieved their nonsubjective of occupying the land by May 29.

The German triumph came astatine a important price. The Nazis sustained astir 14,000 casualties, including a important information of their elite paratrooper corps. Winston Churchill, successful his memoirs, famously remarked that with the forces Germany mislaid successful Crete, they “could person occupied Cyprus, Iraq, Syria, and adjacent Persia.”

A important origin successful these dense German losses was the unprecedented and heroic absorption of the Cretan people. Lacking capable weaponry, civilians bravely resisted with immoderate they could find – from cultivation tools to stones and adjacent bare hands.

Nazi massacre successful Kontomari

This unexpected and fierce civilian absorption infuriated the Nazis, starring to an contiguous and savage question of reprisals. From the infinitesimal they gained control, the occupiers launched systematic raids connected cities and villages, leaving down a way of demolition and death.

As noted by Tasos Vournas successful “Ta Nea” connected October 27, 1990: “After the extremity of the Battle of Crete and the removal from the land of those Allied forces who were capable to flight by vessel to Egypt, the Nazis unleashed a savage question of reprisals against the civilian population. Villages specified arsenic Perivolia, Alkianos, Kirtomados, Agia, Stalos, Galatas, Maleme, Tavronitis, Kontomari, Platanias, Kastelli Kissamos, Skenes, Fournes, Messala, Vatolakos, Modi, Viannos and others were burned and the antheral inhabitants were shot.”

On that fateful day, June 2, 1941, German troops entered Kontomari with a singular, horrific purpose: the extermination of the village’s antheral population. They rounded up the men, executing them successful acold humor careless of their age.

Decades later, “Taxydromos” mag published shocking photographic worldly from the BUNDESARCHIV Archive of Federal Germany. These harrowing photographs, taken by German Lieutenant Vance Peter Weixler, provided irrefutable ocular grounds of the massacre.

The gathering and execution

The massacre took spot aft each the inhabitants of the colony had been gathered. General Student’s bid was explicit: “All the men of the colony from 18 to 50 years aged are to beryllium executed, without immoderate discrimination.”

And yet until that moment, nary 1 believed successful the execution. Most radical thought that they would beryllium fixed the chore of burying the killed Germans who had fallen successful the archetypal days of the fighting.

The German execution squad had taken positions astir the aboriginal dormant and was waiting for the bid to pb them a fewer meters higher into the olive grove, wherever the execution would instrumentality spot successful the adjacent fewer minutes.

The bodies of the village’s young men prevarication dormant connected the crushed and further away, a German soldier, with a pistol successful his hand, shoots implicit each dormant body, completing the representation of horror.

The Kontomari Massacre stands arsenic a chilling testament to the Nazi regime’s brutality and a poignant reminder of the immense sacrifices made by the Cretan radical during World War II.

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