Holocaust of Viannos
Encyclopedia
The Holocaust of Viannos refers to a mass extermination campaign launched by Nazi
forces against the civilian residents of around 20 villages located in the areas of east Viannos
and west Ierapetra
provinces on the Greek island of Crete
during World War II
. The killings, with a death toll in excess of 500, were carried out on the 14th, 15 and 16 September 1943 by Wehrmacht
forces. They were accompanied by the burning of most villages, and the looting and destruction of harvests. The massive loss of life amounted to one of the deadliest massacre
s during the Axis occupation of Greece. It was ordered by Generalleutnant
Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller
, in retaliation for the support and involvement of the local population in the Cretan resistance
. Müller, who earned the nickname "the Butcher of Crete", was executed after the war for his part in the massacre.
, stretching between the feet of Mount Dikti
in the north and the Libyan Sea
in the south coast of Crete. Following the Battle of Crete
in 1941 during which the island fell to the Axis, Viannos and the nearby Lasithi Prefecture
were part of the Italian occupation zone. Until the end of 1942, the Italians had hardly any presence in the area, hence facilitating the set up and activation of several resistance groups. Among them was one of the largest guerrilla bands in Crete led by Manolis Bandouvas (also spelled as 'Pantouwas'). In early 1943, the increasing activity of guerrillas combined with the rumors that the Allies had plans to invade Crete, led the Italians to start the construction of coastal fortifications and install garrisons in the region. On the other hand, the Germans had started since 1942 to station forces of their own in the coastal villages of Tsoutsouros and Arvi. In May 1943, they also established an outpost
with three men in Kato Simi
that were in charge of collecting potatoes for the provision of occupation troops and keeping the surroundings under surveillance.
in July 1943 followed by the Italian armistice announced on September 8 and the smuggling of the Italian commander of eastern Crete Angelico Carta
to Egypt
, reinforced the rumors that an Allied operation against Crete was imminent. Prompted by this misapprehension, Bandouvas ordered an attack against the German outpost in Kato Simi. According to British sources, he acted without prior consultation, aiming to pave the road for the presumed soon to invade Allies and emerge as a national hero. Bandouvas later claimed that he had instructed his men to capture the Germans alive, conforming to orders from Cairo
. Nevertheless, his claims were denied by SOE
agents Patrick Leigh Fermor
and Thomas James Dunbabin
. Another theory for Bandouvas’ motives suggests that he naively fell into a provocative trap treacherously set by the British who, preparing for the post-war era, aimed to wipe out the increasingly popular local units of pro-communist EAM/ELAS. In any case, on September 10 Bandouvas' partisans killed the two soldiers present at the German outpost at the time of the attack and threw their bodies in a crevice.
to move to the village and investigate their fate. In the mean time, Bandouvas had realized that the village was in danger and he was left with no other option but to defend it. Thus, he set an ambush with 40 of his men in a valley near the entrance of Kato Simi and waited for the Germans. They appeared on the morning of September 12 and were assaulted with running fire. Despite their initial surprise, the Germans managed to retreat and a fierce battle that lasted until the late afternoon begun. In the end, the Germans were dissolved, having suffered heavy losses (various sources estimated their dead between 40 and 200) whereas many were wounded and 12 were captured alive. Bandouvas’ partisans lost only one man and withdrew to the mountains.
Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller ordered troops of the 65th regiment
of the 22. Luftlande Infanterie-Division garrison unit to destroy Viannos and promptly execute all males beyond the age of sixteen as well as everyone who was arrested in the countryside, irrespectively of gender or age. Hence, a plan for the systematic destruction of Viannos was put into place starting on September 13. Separated into smaller groups, forces from the Grenadier-Regiment 65 surrounded the region, invading it simultaneously from various directions. At the beginning, they reassured the locals that their intentions were peaceful, persuading many of the men who had fled to the mountains to return to their homes. On the following day (September 14), they went in for indiscriminate mass executions, impromptu shootings, torture, arrests, lootings, arsons, vandalisms and blow ups. The local population was treated with appalling cruelty: Wombs of pregnant women were slit open, limbs were amputated, infants were stabbed with bayonets or burned alive. Even children, disabled and elderly persons did not escape from the rage of destruction which continued during the next two days, after which the area that was within a few kilometers from the coast was declared a forbidden zone.
General Müller
was captured by the Red Army
in East Prussia
and later extradited to Greece. Along with Bruno Bräuer
, commander of the ‘’Festung Kreta
’’ between 1942–44, he was charged with war crimes by a Greek military court. Both were convicted, sentenced to death on 9 December 1946 and executed by firing squad on 20 May 1947. No one else was ever brought to justice.
Today, each village has a war memorial dedicated to their dead whereas a large memorial commemorating those who lost their lives during the September of 1943 has been erected in the village of Amiras, located at 35.038816°N 25.443397°E.
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
forces against the civilian residents of around 20 villages located in the areas of east Viannos
Viannos
Viannos is a municipality in the Heraklion peripheral unit, Crete, Greece. Population 6,463 . The seat of the municipality is in Ano Viannos....
and west Ierapetra
Ierapetra
Ierapetra is a town in the southeast of the Greek island of Crete and a municipality of Crete region.-History:The town of Ierapetra is located on the southeast coast of Crete, along the beach of Ierapetra Bay. It lies south of Agios Nikolaos and southwest of Sitia and is an important regional...
provinces on the Greek island of Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The killings, with a death toll in excess of 500, were carried out on the 14th, 15 and 16 September 1943 by Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
forces. They were accompanied by the burning of most villages, and the looting and destruction of harvests. The massive loss of life amounted to one of the deadliest massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
s during the Axis occupation of Greece. It was ordered by Generalleutnant
General (Germany)
General is presently the highest rank of the German Army and Luftwaffe . It is the equivalent to the rank of Admiral in the German Navy .-Early history:...
Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller
Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller
Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller was a General in the German army in World War II. He is notorious for having been the most brutal commander of occupied Crete, where he earned the nickname "The Butcher of Crete." After the war, he was tried by a Greek military court for war crimes, convicted and...
, in retaliation for the support and involvement of the local population in the Cretan resistance
Cretan resistance
The Cretan resistance was a resistance movement against Nazi Germany by the residents of the Greek island of Crete during World War II. Part of the larger Greek Resistance, it lasted from May 20, 1941, when the German Wehrmacht invaded the island in the Battle of Crete, until the fall of 1945 when...
. Müller, who earned the nickname "the Butcher of Crete", was executed after the war for his part in the massacre.
Background
Viannos is a mountainous area in the southeastern part of Heraklion PrefectureHeraklion Prefecture
Heraklion is one of the four regional units of Crete. The capital is the city of Heraklion.-Geography:The regional unit of Heraklion borders on the regional units of Rethymno to the west and Lasithi to the east. Farmlands are situated in the central and the northern parts, at the coast and in...
, stretching between the feet of Mount Dikti
Dikti
Dikti or Dicte is a mountain range on the east of the island of Crete in the prefecture of Lassithi. On the west it extends to the prefecture of Heraklio.According to the Greek Mythology, Zeus was reared on this mountain...
in the north and the Libyan Sea
Libyan Sea
The Libyan Sea is the portion of the Mediterranean Sea, north of the African coast of ancient Libya, i.e. Cyrenaica and Marmarica...
in the south coast of Crete. Following the Battle of Crete
Battle of Crete
The Battle of Crete was a battle during World War II on the Greek island of Crete. It began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany launched an airborne invasion of Crete under the code-name Unternehmen Merkur...
in 1941 during which the island fell to the Axis, Viannos and the nearby Lasithi Prefecture
Lasithi
Lasithi is the easternmost regional unit on the island of Crete, to the east of Heraklion. Its capital is Agios Nikolaos, the other major towns being Ierapetra, Sitia and Neapoli. The mountains include the Dikte to the west and the Sitia Mountains to the east...
were part of the Italian occupation zone. Until the end of 1942, the Italians had hardly any presence in the area, hence facilitating the set up and activation of several resistance groups. Among them was one of the largest guerrilla bands in Crete led by Manolis Bandouvas (also spelled as 'Pantouwas'). In early 1943, the increasing activity of guerrillas combined with the rumors that the Allies had plans to invade Crete, led the Italians to start the construction of coastal fortifications and install garrisons in the region. On the other hand, the Germans had started since 1942 to station forces of their own in the coastal villages of Tsoutsouros and Arvi. In May 1943, they also established an outpost
Outpost (military)
An Outpost in military terminology essentially means a detachment of troops stationed at a distance from the main force or formation, usually at a station in a remote or sparsely populated location, positioned to stand guard against unauthorized intrusions and surprise attacks; and the station...
with three men in Kato Simi
Kato Simi
Kato Symi is a small historic village of Crete, in Heraklion Prefecture, 31 kilometers from Ierapetra and 74 kilometers from Heraklion city. Today it belongs to Viannos municipality and borders with Ierapetra municipality. It lies about 780 meters above sea level, south of Mount Dikti in a...
that were in charge of collecting potatoes for the provision of occupation troops and keeping the surroundings under surveillance.
The ambush at Kato Simi
The Allied invasion of SicilyAllied invasion of Sicily
The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis . It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign.Husky began on the night of...
in July 1943 followed by the Italian armistice announced on September 8 and the smuggling of the Italian commander of eastern Crete Angelico Carta
Angelico Carta
Angelico Carta was an Italian military officer. During theAxis occupation of Crete in World War II,he held the rank of Lieutenant General and served as the commander of infantry division "Siena"....
to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, reinforced the rumors that an Allied operation against Crete was imminent. Prompted by this misapprehension, Bandouvas ordered an attack against the German outpost in Kato Simi. According to British sources, he acted without prior consultation, aiming to pave the road for the presumed soon to invade Allies and emerge as a national hero. Bandouvas later claimed that he had instructed his men to capture the Germans alive, conforming to orders from Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
. Nevertheless, his claims were denied by SOE
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...
agents Patrick Leigh Fermor
Patrick Leigh Fermor
Sir Patrick "Paddy" Michael Leigh Fermor, DSO, OBE was a British author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Cretan resistance during World War II. He was widely regarded as "Britain's greatest living travel writer", with books including his classic A Time of...
and Thomas James Dunbabin
Thomas James Dunbabin
Thomas James Dunbabin DSO , was an Australian classicist scholar and archaeologist of Tasmanian origin. His father was , a distinguished journalist. Dunbabin studied at the University of Sydney and then moved to Corpus Christi College, Oxford...
. Another theory for Bandouvas’ motives suggests that he naively fell into a provocative trap treacherously set by the British who, preparing for the post-war era, aimed to wipe out the increasingly popular local units of pro-communist EAM/ELAS. In any case, on September 10 Bandouvas' partisans killed the two soldiers present at the German outpost at the time of the attack and threw their bodies in a crevice.
The battle of Kato Simi
Soon after their death, the bodies of the two German soldiers stationed in Kato Simi were discovered and news of the incident reached their superiors, which ordered an infantry companyCompany (military unit)
A company is a military unit, typically consisting of 80–225 soldiers and usually commanded by a Captain, Major or Commandant. Most companies are formed of three to five platoons although the exact number may vary by country, unit type, and structure...
to move to the village and investigate their fate. In the mean time, Bandouvas had realized that the village was in danger and he was left with no other option but to defend it. Thus, he set an ambush with 40 of his men in a valley near the entrance of Kato Simi and waited for the Germans. They appeared on the morning of September 12 and were assaulted with running fire. Despite their initial surprise, the Germans managed to retreat and a fierce battle that lasted until the late afternoon begun. In the end, the Germans were dissolved, having suffered heavy losses (various sources estimated their dead between 40 and 200) whereas many were wounded and 12 were captured alive. Bandouvas’ partisans lost only one man and withdrew to the mountains.
The reprisals
On the day following the elimination of the German company in Kato Simi, a large force numbering more than 2000 men started to gather in Viannos. Exasperated by the loss of his men and wanting to set an example for fleeing Italians who were considering accessing with the partisans, the commander of HeraklionHeraklion
Heraklion, or Heraclion is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete, Greece. It is the 4th largest city in Greece....
Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller ordered troops of the 65th regiment
Regiment
A regiment is a major tactical military unit, composed of variable numbers of batteries, squadrons or battalions, commanded by a colonel or lieutenant colonel...
of the 22. Luftlande Infanterie-Division garrison unit to destroy Viannos and promptly execute all males beyond the age of sixteen as well as everyone who was arrested in the countryside, irrespectively of gender or age. Hence, a plan for the systematic destruction of Viannos was put into place starting on September 13. Separated into smaller groups, forces from the Grenadier-Regiment 65 surrounded the region, invading it simultaneously from various directions. At the beginning, they reassured the locals that their intentions were peaceful, persuading many of the men who had fled to the mountains to return to their homes. On the following day (September 14), they went in for indiscriminate mass executions, impromptu shootings, torture, arrests, lootings, arsons, vandalisms and blow ups. The local population was treated with appalling cruelty: Wombs of pregnant women were slit open, limbs were amputated, infants were stabbed with bayonets or burned alive. Even children, disabled and elderly persons did not escape from the rage of destruction which continued during the next two days, after which the area that was within a few kilometers from the coast was declared a forbidden zone.
Aftermath
Despite the extent of the destruction of life and property, the retaliatory events that took place in Viannos are today largely unknown to the broader public. The exact number of victims remains unverified. Most sources, however, agree that their number exceeded 500, consisting of inhabitants of the villages of Kefalovryssi, Kato Simi, Amiras, Pefkos, Vachos, Agios Vassilios, Ano Viannos, Sykologos, Krevatas, Kalami and Loutraki in east Viannos as well as those of Myrtos, Gdochia, Riza, Mournies, Mythoi, Malles, Christos and Parsas (present day Metaxochori) in east Ierapetra. About 200 more persons were held hostages. Around 1000 buildings, mostly houses, were destroyed. The surviving villagers were forbidden to bury their dead or return to their villages, most of which had been burned to the ground. No reparations were ever paid to those who survived. It took the villages many years to recover, although some never managed to achieve that completely.General Müller
Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller
Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller was a General in the German army in World War II. He is notorious for having been the most brutal commander of occupied Crete, where he earned the nickname "The Butcher of Crete." After the war, he was tried by a Greek military court for war crimes, convicted and...
was captured by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
in East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
and later extradited to Greece. Along with Bruno Bräuer
Bruno Bräuer
Bruno Bräuer was a German paratrooper from Willmannsdorf, Prussian Silesia. In 1905 he joined the army cadets and started his military career. In World War I he received the Iron Cross first and second class whilst serving in the 7th West Prussian Infantry regiment...
, commander of the ‘’Festung Kreta
Fortress Crete
Fortress Crete was the term used during World War II by the German occupation forces to refer to the garrison and fortification of the Greek island of Crete, which they had captured after a fierce battle at the end of May 1941...
’’ between 1942–44, he was charged with war crimes by a Greek military court. Both were convicted, sentenced to death on 9 December 1946 and executed by firing squad on 20 May 1947. No one else was ever brought to justice.
Today, each village has a war memorial dedicated to their dead whereas a large memorial commemorating those who lost their lives during the September of 1943 has been erected in the village of Amiras, located at 35.038816°N 25.443397°E.
See also
- List of massacres in Greece
- Massacre of KondomariMassacre of KondomariThe Massacre of Kondomari refers to the execution of male civilians from the village of Kondomari in Crete by an ad hoc firing squad consisting of German paratroopers on 2 June 1941 during World War II. The shooting was the first of a long series of mass reprisals in Crete and was also the first...
- Razing of KandanosRazing of KandanosThe Razing of Kandanos or the Holocaust of Kandanos refers to the complete destruction of the village of Kandanos in Western Crete and the killing of about 180 of its inhabitants on 3 June 1941 by German occupying forces during World War II...
- Holocaust of KedrosHolocaust of KedrosThe Holocaust of Kedros , also known as the Holocaust of Amari , refers to an operation mounted by Nazi German forces against the civilian residents of nine villages located in the Amari Valley on the Greek island of Crete during its occupation by the Axis in World War II...
- War crimes of the WehrmachtWar crimes of the WehrmachtWar crimes of the Wehrmacht were those carried out by the German armed forces during World War II. While the principal perpetrators of the Holocaust amongst German armed forces were the Nazi German 'political' armies , the regular armed forces represented by the Wehrmacht committed war crimes of...
External links
- Ο μαύρος Σεπτέμβρης του 1943 στα χωριά της δυτικής Ιεράπετρας, Γ. Χρηστάκης, Ομιλία στο Δήμο Ιεράπετρας 7/9/2007
- Μαύρη Βίβλος της Κατοχής -- Schwarzbuches der Besatzung
- Memories from the holocaust of Ierapetras western villages
- Amiras war memorial
- German occupation of Crete: Viannos (in German -- translate)