Cretan Resistance Memorial - Anogia (Crete)

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Historical information

In January 1944, the Cairo East section of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) conceived a daring plan to kidnap Generalleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, the commander of the 22nd Infantry Division based on Crete. After parachuting into Crete in early February, Major Patrick Leigh-Fermor, the operation leader, was joined four weeks later by his second-in-command, Captain W. Stanley Moss, and two Greek SOE agents all of whom arrived by sea. Although Generalmajor Kreipe succeeded Generalleutnant Müller effective 1 March 1944, the SOE elected to continue with the kidnap mission. Joining with Cretan partisans, the SOE agents studied Generalmajor Kreipe’s daily work habits and the travel route from his quarters at Knossos to the divisional headquarters at Ano Arkhanais. On the evening of 26 April 1944, Major Leigh-Fermor and Captain Moss, dressed as German military policemen, stopped Generalmajor Kreipe’s staff car on a hairpin turn under the guise of a routine traffic control point. After pulling the general out of the car and throwing him into the back seat, the agents drove him to an isolated spot where he was taken on a grueling cross-country trek over the mountains to the southern shore of the island. On 14 May 1944, the SOE agents and their captive German general were finally picked up by a British motor-launch on a desolate beach near Rodakino and transported to Mersa Matruh, Egypt. Major Leigh-Fermor and Captain Moss both received the Distinguished Service Order for the operation.

The present Anogia has been rebuilt after the total destruction during World War II by the Germans as a punishment, because the Resistance had taken the German general Kreipe prisoner there, before he was removed from Crete. On August 13th 1944 two German battalions surrounded Anogia. They took 50 hostages, looted the village and brought their loot back to Iraklion. The destruction of the village continued until September 5th. A total of 26 men and 11 women were shot and almost the whole city was burnt down. Only a few houses and the Agios Ioannis church in the square were not consumed by fire. The town hall has a memorial tablet with the German order of the destruction of the village.

Location information

The Cretan Resitance Memorial is located in Anogia (Crete in Greece) near the Psiloritis mountains..