| Kidnap of Major General Kreipe | |
|---|---|
| Part ofSOE operations and theMediterranean and Middle East theatre | |
 The abduction team | |
| Type | Kidnapping |
| Location | Crete, Greece 35°15′51″N25°10′55″E / 35.26429°N 25.18202°E /35.26429; 25.18202 |
| Planned by | Special Operations Executive |
| Commanded by | Patrick Leigh Fermor |
| Target | Heinrich Kreipe |
| Date | 4 February – 14 May 1944 |
| Casualties | Kreipe's driver |
Thekidnapping of Heinrich Kreipe was an operation executed jointly by the BritishSpecial Operations Executive (SOE) andlocal resistance members inCrete inGerman-occupied Greece during theSecond World War. The operation was launched on 4 February 1944, when SOE officerPatrick Leigh Fermor landed in Crete with the intention of abducting notorious war criminal and commander of22nd Air Landing Division,Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller. By the time of the arrival of the rest of the abduction team, led byWilliam Stanley Moss, two months later, Müller had been succeeded byHeinrich Kreipe, who was chosen as the new target.
On the night of 26 April, Kreipe's car was ambushed while en route from his residence to his divisional headquarters. Kreipe was tied and forced into the back seat while Leigh Fermor and Moss impersonated him and his driver respectively. Kreipe's notorious impatience at roadblocks enabled the car to pass numerous checkpoints before being abandoned at the hamlet of Heliana. The abductors continued on foot, continuing to evade thousands of Axis soldiers sent to stop them, with the help of guides from the local resistance. On 14 May, the team was picked up by a British motorboat from the Rodakino beach and transported to British-held Egypt.
The success of the operation was put into question several months afterwards. The outcome came to be seen as a symbolic propaganda victory rather than a strategic one, with thePolitical Warfare Executive exploiting Kreipe's capture to suggest he had defected. The relatively harmless Kreipe was replaced by Müller who ordered mass reprisals against the civilian population of the island, known as theHolocaust of Kedros. The abduction operation entered popular imagination through the biographical works of several of its participants, most notably Moss's bookIll Met by Moonlight.
Greece entered theSecond World War on the side of theAllies following anItalian invasion fromAlbania on 28 October 1940. The following year, on 6 April,Nazi Germany launched an invasion of its own fromBulgaria known asOperation Marita;Athens was occupied on 28 April and the resistance on the Greek mainland had ceased by the 30th.[1]King George II and his government had left the Greek mainland forCrete five days earlier.[2] The island was in turnattacked by a Nazi airborne invasion on 20 May 1941.[3] The Germans prevailed after seven days of fighting, forcing an Allied withdrawal toEgypt.[4]
With the conclusion of Operation Marita, Greece was subjected to aTriple Occupation by Germany, Italy and Bulgaria.[5] Crete, now calledFortress Crete, was shared between Germany and Italy. The Germans occupied the western threeprefectures of the island with their headquarters inChania, whilst the Italians occupied the easternmost prefecture ofLasithi.[6] It did not take long for theCretan resistance to spring up. They assisted Allied soldiers stranded on the island in evading capture and helped them escape to the British controlled Middle East. The escapees helped establish contact between theSpecial Operations Executive's (SOE)Cairo branch and Cretan resistance organisations. Supplied with wireless sets and augmented by SOE stay behind operatives, they began co-ordinating their actions with the Allied command.[7] Following thesurrender of Italy to the Allies in September 1943,Angelico Carta, the commander of theItalian 51st Infantry Division, decided to side with the Allies. Evading German patrols and observation planes he embarked on a SOEmotor torpedo boat at Soutsouro reachingMersa Matruh the next afternoon, on 23 September 1943.[8][9]
British officers had considered the idea of capturing a senior German officer as early as November 1942, when a SOE agent on Crete,Xan Fielding, proposed seizing the island's chief military governor at the time,Alexander Andrae. When Andrae was posted away, his successorBruno Bräuer was targeted for capture. None of these plans were carried out. Carta's successful escape to Egypt rekindled the idea of abducting the chief military commander of Crete.[10] In 1943,CaptainWilliam Stanley Moss, a recent SOE recruit andMajorPatrick Leigh Fermor, an officer of SOE Cairo's Cretan Desk; hatched a plan for the abduction of GeneralFriedrich-Wilhelm Müller, then commander of the22nd Air Landing Division.[11] Müller had gained a reputation for brutality and was despised by the Cretan people, being responsible for mass executions, torture, the razing of villages and conscripting civilians into labour units. The SOE planned to kidnap him while keeping the use of violence at a minimum and transport him to Egypt, thus giving a morale boost to the Cretans.[12] Leigh Fermor submitted the plan to the commander of the SOE in the Middle EastBrigadier Karl Vere Barker-Benfield. The plan received widespread support in SOE's Cairo branch, with Special Operations Committee senior executive Bickham Sweet-Escott being the only one to oppose it. Sweet-Escott argued that the benefit of raising the morale of the Cretan resistance was significantly outweighed by the high risk ofGerman reprisals. Nevertheless, in September 1943, Barker-Benfield approved the plan and the operation was set in motion.[13]
In late 1943, Leigh Fermor and Moss formed a squad with two Cretan resistance members, Georgios Tyrakis and Emmanouil Paterakis, who were to accompany them in their mission. After undergoing training at an SOE camp inRamat David,Palestine[13] and facing numerous delays the team flew to the headquarters of the British8th Army[14] inBari on 4 January 1944.[15] On 4 February, they boarded a bomber at theBrindisi airport which was to transport them to Crete's Katharo plateau. Leigh Fermor was the only one airdropped, due to a sudden weather change that caused the area to be obscured by clouds. Leigh Fermor was greeted by Cretan resistance members and SOE CaptainSandy Rendel, while the rest of the squad returned to Cairo.[8] While hiding in a cave above the village of Tapais in theLasithi mountains, Leigh Fermor reestablished old contacts, and learned that Müller had been replaced byMajor GeneralHeinrich Kreipe on 1 March.[16] On 30 March, Leigh Fermor informed the Cretan section of SOE Cairo about Müller's replacement, simultaneously signaling his intent to carry out the operation. Although Leigh Fermor knew little about Kreipe, he insisted that the capture of a high ranking German officer was sufficient to raise the morale of both the Cretans and SOE's Greek section.[17] The rest of the team attempted to parachute into Crete seven more times without success; after two months, on 4 April, they arrived bymotor launch[18] at Tsoutsoura.[19]
The team moved to a cave system in the mountains above Kastamonitsa village, the hideout of a local resistance group.[20] The SOE team was joined by Antonios and Grigorios Papaleonidas, Michail Akoumianakis and Grigorios Chnarakis. Akoumianakis' house was located across the road from Kreipe's residence, the Villa Ariadne, in the village ofKnossos.[21] Leigh Fermor disguised himself as a Cretan shepherd for his trip to Knossos. After traveling by bus with Akoumianakis, he reconnoitered the vicinity of the villa. Enclosed by a triple wire barrier (one of which was rumoured to be electrified) and guarded by a sizeable garrison, it was deemed too well-fortified for a direct assault. It was decided to seize Kreipe during one of his frequent trips from his residence to his divisional headquarters inAno Archanes, some 5 miles (8.0 km) away. Surveying the route, they discovered aT-junction where the road from Archanes joined the main road toHeraklion, forcing cars to slow down to almost a standstill; the location was subsequently named Point A. The owner of a small cottage outsideSkalani (el), some twenty minutes travel time from the abduction point, agreed to collaborate, turning the building into an observation point.[22] Owing to the heavy traffic on the main road, the operation had to be undertaken at night.[23]
Akoumianakis supplied the team with twoFeldgendarmerie summer uniforms, complete with rank insignia for acorporal, campaign badges, side arms and a traffic policeman's stick.[24] Athanasakis set up an observation post on a height overlooking the German headquarters, signalling whenever Kreipe left the building. Four more resistance members, Efstratios Saviolakis, Dimitrios Tzatzadakis, Nikolaos Komis and Antonios Zoidakis, were recruited as guides. Shortly before the abduction was to take place, the team received a letter from a local commander of the pro-communistGreek People's Liberation Army (ELAS), who threatened to betray them to the authorities if they did not vacate the area. Leigh Fermor replied with an ambiguously written note and the ELAS commander did not carry out his threat. The operation was postponed for several days as the general did not leave his residence.[25]
On the night of 26/27 April 1944, Leigh Fermor and Moss received a signal that the general had got into his car. Changing into the German uniforms, they followed Saviolakis to Point A. Leigh Fermor and Moss hid in a ditch on the east side of the road. Further to the west Zoidakis, the Papaleonidas brothers, Tyrakis and Komis lay in wait. At 9:30 pm, Tzatzadakis flashed his torch three times signalling that Kreipe's car was approaching unescorted. Leigh Fermor and Moss blocked the road and as the car came closer Moss waved his policeman's stick and shouted "Halt!". When the car stopped, Leigh Fermor requested that identity papers be shown. As Kreipe reached for his pocket, Leigh Fermor jacked the door open, while simultaneously pressing his automatic weapon against Kreipe's chest. The rest of the team sprung up and surrounded the car. A brief struggle ensued, which ended when Paterakis tied Kreipe and Moss struck the driver on the head with hiscosh, knocking him unconscious. Moss took up the driver's seat and Leigh Fermor impersonated the general, with Kreipe, Saviolakis, Tyrakis and Paterakis in the backseat, driving off to Heraklion. The rest cleared the spot of signs of struggle and also headed to Heraklion with the driver.[26]
The car passed through 22 checkpoints in Heraklion, coming into the road toRethymno and stopping outside a steep mountain track leading toAnogeia.[22] Kreipe's penchant for being impatient at roadblocks and acting rudely to the people manning them had made him unpopular among his subordinates, contributing to the success of his kidnapping as the car sped through the check points without stopping.[27] Leigh Fermor drove to the hamlet of Heliana where he abandoned the car. To prevent reprisals against the area's population, he left a note claiming that British special forces had conducted the operation without any local support and scattered incriminating evidence. The team then ascended to Anogeia, where they rested for a few hours. Late in the afternoon of 27 April, a German reconnaissance aircraft dropped leaflets unto the village threatening reprisals if the general was not returned within three days. They soon departed forMount Ida, where they were met by a band of resistance men led by Michael Xylouris and the SOE officers attached to them. The breakdown of their wireless station meant that all communication had to be conducted by runners, hindering the evacuation. The next day, the team was informed that the Cretans had murdered Kreipe's driver as he was too stunned to walk at the necessary pace for the rebels to avoid capture. The team continued its ascent on Ida, where they stayed with another Cretan resistance group.[28]
As the team continued their journey from Ida to theAmari Valley, Crete's garrison of over 30,000 men had been placed on alert and Axis troops began to assemble around the mountain range in an attempt to block their escape.[29] After crossing the valley they reached the village of Agia Paraskevi. A report transmitted by theBBC had alerted the Germans that Kreipe had yet to leave the island. Rumours of a general uprising and an Allied invasion had prompted Bräuer to strengthen Chania's garrison and continue the security sweeps. Kreipe'saide-de-camp and guards were arrested on suspicion of complicity. The arrival of a runner enabled the abduction team to request that a boat be sent to Saktouria on 2 May.[30] The runner unexpectedly did not return the following day and the party was informed that Saktouria and other hotbeds of resistance had been destroyed by German troops. Moss and Leigh Fermor set off to the Amari valley in search of a wireless station. On 5 May, they reached the village of Pantanassa where they were able to send and receive written messages once again.[31]
A day later dispatch runnerGeorge Psychoundakis brought SOE officer Dick Barnes and a wireless set to the village. In the meantime, the rest of the party evaded a German patrol by moving to Patsos, just two hours away from Pantanassa. It then became known that a unit of theSpecial Boat Service (SBS) led byGeorge Jellicoe was to land at Limni beach on 9 May, to assist with the evacuation.[32] Moss and Leigh Fermor rendezvoused with the rest of the abduction team at the hamlet of Karines and advanced to Fotinou and then Vilandredo. Once a 200-man German column came toArgygoupoli just an hour's distance from Vilandredo,Dennis Ciclitira and a band of ELAS fighters assisted the team in avoiding their pursuers.[29] When the team reachedAsi Gonia, a runner told them that a boat was going to pick them up at Rodakino beach on the night of 14 May. The Rodakiniot guerillas accompanied the team on their final trek. The team, Kreipe, two German prisoners of war and a sick Soviet prisoner of war boarded HMS Motor Launch ML 842 (commanded by Brian Coleman) on 14 May 1944 from Peristeres Beach, west of Rodakino, Operation BRICKLAYER[33], at 10:00 pm, concluding their mission by landing at Mersa Matruh in Egypt.[34]
Major Leigh Fermor was awarded theDistinguished Service Order and Captain Moss theMilitary Cross, "For [their] outstanding display of courage and audacity" during the operation. The awards weregazetted on 13 July 1944.[35] Following his interrogation Kreipe was transferred toCalgary in Canada, where he was interned with other captured German generals until 1947.[36] The operation dealt a blow to Axis morale on the island and raised that of the local resistance, as the BBC and Royal Air Force praised the operation's success through radio broadcasts and leaflet drops respectively.[37] The wisdom of the abduction came into question as Kreipe was characterised as anti–Nazi by his interrogator.[36] Despite his position he possessed very little information of value to British Intelligence and by the time of his capture Crete was a backwater.[38]
On 8 August 1944, a German punitive expedition sent against the village of Anogeia was ambushed by Moss and Michael Xylouris' band. TheDamasta sabotage, as this came to be known, resulted in the death of thirty Germans, twelve of whom were murdered after surrendering.[39] Müller, who had returned to his role of commander of Fortress Crete, was determined to penalise the inhabitants of Anogeia for providing shelter to the Kreipe abduction team and their role in the Damasta sabotage. The British historian Alan Ogden saw the order of the day to destroy Anogeia as specific and retrospective, confirming British fears of mass reprisals.[40] The British military historianAntony Beevor and the German historianGottfried Schramm saw the wave of German reprisals that followed the operation as unconnected to Kreipe's abduction. Beevor and Schramm saw the terror campaign as a means to facilitate the planned German evacuation from much of the island to the stronghold of Chania.[41]
TheHolocaust of Kedros was an operation involving 2,000 Axis soldiers who targeted Anogeia andDamasta. A total of 900 houses were burned, 50 civilians were shot and 3,500 became internally displaced. In the following days the operation expanded to other villages, men were executed, houses were looted and then burned or dynamited regardless of their involvement in resistance activities.[42] Local resistance bands could do nothing but watch, being vastly outnumbered.[43]
While SOE planned and executed the abduction, thePolitical Warfare Executive (PWE)—the clandestine British body responsible for psychological warfare—managed the subsequent propaganda campaign. The two organisations had operated separately since August 1941, when propaganda functions were removed from SOE and placed under Foreign Office control.[44]
Allied propaganda portrayed the kidnapping as a cover story for Kreipe's voluntary defection, suggesting he had fled to the Allies from disillusionment with the Nazi regime.[45] This disinformation aimed to undermine confidence in the loyalty of senior German officers. The Germans did not publicly credit the defection narrative; however, the arrest of Kreipe's aide-de-camp and guards on suspicion of complicity suggests the operation succeeded in creating distrust within the garrison.[46]
These events were portrayed in Moss's 1950 semi-autobiographical bookIll Met by Moonlight: The Abduction of General Kreipe.[47] In 1957, the book was turned into thefilm starringDirk Bogarde,David Oxley andMarius Goring.[48] Leigh Fermor and Psychoundakis also recounted their experiences in the respective biographical worksAbducting a General: The Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete andThe Cretan Runner: His Story of the German Occupation.[32]
