The Execution Of 200 Greeks Shot By German Firing Squad JJ

On the 1st of May 1944, just over a month before the D-Day Normandy landings, which would cause more headaches for the Germans during World War II, German forces inside of Athens led groups of Greeks out to a makeshift firing range for their executions. There were in total 200 Greek communists who were executed, and this was a key moment for the Greek resistance during World War II.

When forces rose up against the German occupiers, they often faced the most serious of punishments, being executed after being tortured for hours, days, even weeks. It was the fate that many knew would come for them if they did find themselves being captured. But inside of Athens, and specifically Kaisarani, a suburb of the Greek capital, why were 200 Greek men shot by Germans? And what had they done which led to their brutal executions? Greece had been under what was a dictatorship and very anti-communist rule since 1936 under what was known as

the Mataxis regime. There was a prominent communist party inside the country and many members of the group were persecuted massively and they were locked up in prisons and were subjected to brutal treatment. Many were even sent to exile on very small islands and they faced the threat of being left there to rot.

The dictator of Greece, Iis Mataxis, rejected a call by Mussolini during the war and the Italians to surrender and he then committed Greece to the Allied cause rather than the Axis which brought Greece into World War II officially. The dictator did die shortly after from throat cancer during the Greco Italian War though.

However, the Germans did decide to invade Greece with this and the country was placed under Axis occupation in April 1941 and of course the persecution of communists ramped up. The communists were the enemies of the Nazis and were subjected to further punishing treatment including arrest and deportation to concentration camps.

However, after the Italian surrender in September 1943, many of the communist prisoners were moved to the Haidari concentration camp which was set up within Athens. This was known as the Bastile of Greece and was the largest camp operated within the country. Around 21,000 people passed through it and many were detained for questioning by the Gestapo.

The camp itself was in a very very poor shape and it was surrounded by heavy barbed wire and guards staffed the site ready to shoot anyone who looked like they were about to escape. The Germans who staffed the site were ruthless. The men were put under harsh labor conditions and thousands were executed and hundreds were killed by torture methods deployed at the camp.

However, on the 27th of April 1944, members of the Greek People’s Liberation Army, the ELAS, Partisan troops, ambushed and took out a senior German general named France K and three other senior German officers in Laconia. Reprials ramped up because of this killing, and the Germans would usually take out hundreds of civilians and innocent people for the life of just one German soldier, let alone a high-ranking general like France K.

The day before this attack, a German major general named Harik Creba was kidnapped on Cree. It was certainly a dangerous time to be a German officer in Greece, and the resistance were working with other Allied forces such as the British. As mentioned, the Germans wouldn’t take this without reprisal and revenge. And because of this, the occupation authorities produced and published a proclamation.

They announced that 200 communist prisoners in Kaisarani would be executed in retaliation for the killing of the German general. It was also said that collaborating Greek forces had already executed 100 communists of their own decision in reprisal. It was also said that all males found by German soldiers outside their villages on the Sparty Malawi road would be rounded up and shot too.

But on the 30th of April 1944, news about the executions reached the concentration camp. Camp Commandant, a man named Fischer, made some arrangements for who specifically would be executed. Many prisoners said goodbye to their comrades that evening, and they even held a get together, a sort of party inside of cell block free, wanting to go out with a bang.

In the following morning, 200 inmates were moved from the camp on trucks to a firing range. The prisoners included many people who had previously been held in exile. And as the truck drove some of them off, many of the condemned men sang the Greek national anthem and communist songs as the trucks took them to their deaths. The execution site for the deaths of the 200 Greeks at the hands of the Germans was the Kaisarani rifle range.

The Germans carried out the executions in groups of 20, and the men were led out in their ordinary clothes, and the rifle range had a small embankment at one end, and behind the embankment was a very large concrete wall. The men were arranged on the embankment, and were stood around arms length apart, but they would not go down without a fight.

Stood opposite the men was a huge collection of German troops who were there armed with their rifles and these were the men tasked with executing the Greek communists. The riflemen were not stood too far away. When ordered to, they raised their rifles at their targets. Unarmed Greeks stood by the wall and they then, when given the command, fired straight into them. It was execution.

Cold, ruthless execution. To make things even worse, the Germans did not clean up the executed bodies after they had shot them. So following the first set of executions taking place after the first 20 were shot, the next 20 were led out and they were shot either standing on the bodies of those who went before or they were shot just in front of their comrades being able to see exactly what happened.

Many of the men raised their arms in protest or turned their backs at the final moment before the command was given to fire. And this was their own defiant action at the very end. In total, 10 groups were shot and executed. 200 men in very quick succession. The vast majority of those who were executed that day at the Kaisarani shooting range by the Germans were communists and members of the National Liberation Front, the largest resistance group inside of Greece.

Following the shooting and at the end of the war, the shooting range became a legendary place which emerged as one of the most prominent places of resistance and struggle for the Greek people. But this wasn’t the end of the men’s story. In 2006, photographs emerged showing the executions and these were taken by a German army officer named Herman Hoya and he captured the brutal final moments of the Greek men.

The photograph showed how ruthless the men’s final moments were. And they showed the men arriving at the execution site, getting off the trucks, and it showed their final moments, too. And some were shown raising their fists in defiance even in their final moments. The photographs were taken by the officer who did actually work for the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Gerbles’s Ministry.

So it is possible that the plan was to publish the ruthless images to show Germans back home what was happening to their enemies. The executions of the 200 Greeks at the Kaisani shooting range were just one of many retaliatory executions which were carried out by German forces inside of Greece.

The Germans carried out brutal reprisals for the attacks upon their senior officers and the shooting range executions showed how seriously they took these actions. But this was a terrifying war crime, and the photographs taken of the executions show how defiant and brave the men were in their final moments, even when they were faced with a German rifle being put right in front of them.

Thanks for watching. If you found this video interesting, maybe click subscribe. Once again, thank you so much for watching one of these videos.