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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 June 2021
This article examines the German reaction to the abduction by the SOE (Special Operations Executive) of General Kreipe in Crete in May 1944 and questions whether the operation should have been launched. Observance of the Laws and Customs of War as defined at the time had been compromised by SOE's charter from the outset, and the reaction of the occupying powers – Germany and Italy – to partisan warfare evolved accordingly. The article concludes by highlighting the legal findings of the American Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg trial of the ‘Balkan Generals’ and contrasts them with the Athens trial of Generals Müller and Bräuer.
1 Lowe, K., Savage Continent: Europe in the aftermath of World War II (London 2002)Google Scholar.
2 The National Archives (TNA) HS5/723 - Report No.1 (New Series) 8–23 September. The Villa Ariadne at Knossos, built by the archaeologist Arthur (later, Sir Arthur) Evans in 1906, was used by Müller as his private residence.
3 TNA HS5/725 – Fielding to Major Jack Hughes-Smith, 28 July 1943.
4 TNA HS5/728.
5 Cooper, A., Cairo in the War (London 1989) 301Google Scholar.
6 Moss, W.S., Ill Met by Moonlight (London 1950)Google Scholar, Afterword.
7 Smiley and McLean were regular army officers working for SOE in Albania.
8 Andrew Tarnowski: https://patrickleighfermor.org/tag/tara/.
9 TNA HS9/122/7. Contrary to several recent accounts, Brigadier Karl Barker-Benfield did not take over as head of Force 133 until April 1944.
10 Inter-Services Liaison Department, a cover name for Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).
11 Sweet-Escott, B., Baker Street Irregular (London 1955)Google Scholar.
12 Fermor, P. Leigh, Abducting a General (London 2014)Google Scholar.
13 TNA HS5/725. He was referring to the SBS raid on Heraklion. Fourth Report Crete June 1942.
14 Commission on the Responsibility of the Authors of the War and on Enforcement of Penalties, The American Journal of International Law 14.1/2 (Jan.–Apr. 1920) 114–15.
15 Rules of Land Warfare (US War Office). paras 348–59.
16 Chapter XIV, Article 414.
17 Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Wilhelm List, et al., Defendants, sitting at Nuremberg, Germany, on 15 July 1947 (Case 7, The ‘hostage’ case).
18 Case 7, The ‘hostage’ case.
19 TNA HS5/728.
20 M. Mazower, Inside Hitler's Greece: the experience of occupation, 1941–44 (New Haven 2001), 173.
21 By using military tribunals, the Germans were following due process of military law.
22 Directive No 31a.
23 Official Transcript of Case 7, The ‘hostage’ case.
24 H. Neubacher, Sonderauftrag Suedosten 1940–4 (Göttingen 1956).
25 Official Transcript of Case 7, The ‘hostage’ case.
26 TNA HS5/726 – Fielding Western Crete 8.
27 TNA HS5/725 – Report No 4.
29 The codename for guerrilla operations to hinder the German withdrawal from Greece.
30 TNA HS5/336, HS5/611, HS5/607.
31 Russian forces had captured Iaşi in Romania, were a few miles from Lvov and were pressing hard on the borders of the Baltic States; in Italy, Monte Cassino had been reduced to rubble and the initiative regained by the Allies at Anzio.
32 Letter Beutin/Moss 27 September 1950 (translated by Leigh Fermor), Moss family archives.
33 Moss refers to ‘this beautiful car’ in Ill Met by Moonlight.
34 Case 7, The ‘hostage’ case. In Greece, a Military Commander for the Salonika area and the northern Aegean islands was appointed by Oberkommando der Wehrmacht and a Military Commander for southern Greece, with authority at Athens and in Crete and the southern Aegean islands, was appointed by the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe.
35 96437 Group II/38 Salonika to Berlin.
36 96438 Group II/38 Salonika to Berlin.
37 TNA HS5/671.
38 Leigh Fermor attributes this to the SOE landing of three tons of stores at Melissa at the beginning of April.
39 On 5 May Paratiritis printed a notice: ‘The villages Kamares, Lochira, Margarikari and Sachtouria […] have been destroyed and obliterated. The men were captured, women and children transported to other villages. These villagers have for months granted communist gangs and venal individuals shelter and protection. Here, the peaceful part of the population is just as guilty because they did not report these treasonable intrigues to the authorities.’
40 TNA HS5/671.
41 Ibid.
42 100377 Group 11/13 Sofia to Berlin.
43 TNA HS5/672.
44 Leigh Fermor, who had been hospitalized in Cairo after the kidnap, returned to Crete on 28 October 1944 until 23 December 1944.
45 Report No 1 dated 15 August 1944 Major Ian Patterson, MC; TNA WO218/108 and 109.
46 Report on Operations carried out by L Squadron, 1 SBS between 1 July and 3 August 1944. Para 4 Security.
47 Moss, W. S., A War of Shadows (London 2014) 26–38Google Scholar.
48 Lodwick, J., Bid the Soldiers Shoot (London 1958), 219–20Google Scholar.
49 A non-Communist Cretan resistance organization supported by MI6 and SOE.
50 TNA 5/724 and HS5/671 - Cpl Lewis interrogated him but had to hand him back to the ELAS band (Appendix to Maj. Dunbabin's Report 14 August 1944).
51 W. S. Moss, A War of Shadows (London 2014) 46–7.
52 TNA HS5/725.
53 R. Stroud, Kidnap in Crete (London 2014) - Note to Chapter 17: interview author and Constantine Mamalakis.
54 The head was kept as a gruesome souvenir, possibly in Anogia, until ten years ago when Mamalakis returned it to the keepers of the German war cemetery at Maleme (Correspondence Stroud/Ogden 17 July 2015).
55 H. Pescher, General Kreipe wird entführt (Mähringen 2007). The official register of Rethymnon Prefecture lists 117 Anogians executed during the German occupation.
56 Leigh Fermor, Abducting a General, 60.
57 Ibid., 61.
58 TNA WO204/9240 – SBS's SENFORCE lost two killed in an ELAS ambush in December 1944 and two British soldiers were also killed by ELAS snipers.
59 National Library of Scotland (NLS) Acc. 133338/107-108.
60 Woodhouse, C. M., Apple of Discord (London 1948) 172Google Scholar.
61 The Greek War Crimes Commissioners were M. Stavropoulos (20 October 1943–1946) and A. Dimitsas (October 1946).
62 History of UNWCC and Development of the Laws of War, HMSO 1948. As at 1 June 1947, six cases had been tried in Greece involving eleven people. Three were sentenced to death, seven imprisoned and one acquitted.
63 E. Haidia, ‘The punishment of collaborators in Northern Greece’, in M. Mazower (ed.), After the War was Over: reconstructing the family, nation, and state in Greece, 1943–1960 (Princeton 2000) 42–61.
64 Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects.
65 In May 1947, the US refused to release General Simana to the Greeks on the grounds that he was required as a witness at another trial. Dimitsas had earlier sent a list of charges against him to London.
66 War Crimes Section of the Judge Advocate General's Branch of 21st Army HQ.
67 Andrae was at 186 PW Camp. A secret telegram of 21 November 1945 refers to Bräuer and Müller believed to be held 8 Corps Area BAOR. Transfer to be arranged to CMF re charges of war crimes in Greece. Müller and Bräuer were sent by air to Rome on 20 February 1946.
68 Formal request for Andrae on 30 September 1946.
69 TNA FO371/4202 – WO to FO 5 October 1946.
70 TNA WO311/78 – War Crimes in Crete JAG Loose minute 30 November 1945.
71 TNA WO311/78 – Letter Dimitsas/Lt Col Barratt 3 November 1947.
72 TNA FO371 U8289 24 December 1946.
73 Constituted on 1 February 1945.
74 This trial, the seventh in a series of twelve, was known as the Balkan Generals trial or Hostages Trial.
75 Von Weichs was deemed too ill to stand trial and died in 1954.
76 Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, VIII, UNWCC, 1949.