People of Crete Fight Back

Following the invasion of Crete over 100 civilians were killed by a team of Fallschirmjager led by Oberleutnant Horst Trebes on the order of Generaloberst Kurt Student in retaliation for their involvement in the killing and mutilation of several dozen paratroopers who were caught in trees during the landings.

Everywhere on the island, Cretan civilians, armed and otherwise, joined the battle with whatever weapons were at hand. Cretan civilians went into action armed only with what they could gather, and many Fallschirmjäger were knifed or clubbed to death as soon as they landed. An elderly Cretan was said to have clubbed a parachutist to death with his walking stick before the German could disentangle himself from his parachute lines.

Resistance from the Civilian Population

The Cretans' actions were not limited to harassment since the civil population also played a significant role in the Greek counter-attacks at Kastelli Hill and Paleochora. This was the first time that Germans had encountered broad resistance from a civilian population, and it was initially shocking for them. The Fallschirmjäger reacted with equal ferocity after recovering. The Cretans were regarded as partisans since they wore no identifying insignia or even armbands, the German authorities felt free of the constraints implied by the Geneva conventions.

Further enraging the Fallschirmjäger were rumours of battlefield mutilations by civilians torturing injured Fallschirmjäger. However the book ‘The Lost Battle’, by MacDonald argues that battlefield mutilations were more than likely a result of carrion birds and physical decay of corpses left in the extreme heat. In the village of Kondomari more than 100 civilians were rounded up and executed by the Fallschirmjäger.