| Massacre of Kondomari | |
|---|---|
 Cretan Greek civilians confronting German Fallschirmjäger paratroopers before the killing began at Kondomari, Crete, in June 1941 | |
| Location | Kondomari, Chania, Crete, Kingdom of Greece (under German occupation) |
| Coordinates | 35°30′25″N 23°51′22″E / 35.50694°N 23.85611°E |
| Date | 2 June 1941 |
| Weapons | Machine guns and rifles |
| Deaths | 23 (German estimate), 60 Cretan men (other sources)[1] |
| Perpetrators | Fallschirmjäger of III Battalion of Luftlande-Sturm-Regiment under Oberleutnant Horst Trebes, following reprisal orders by Generaloberst Kurt Student |
The Massacre of Kondomari (Greek: Σφαγή στο Κοντομαρί) was the execution of male civilians from the village of Kondomari in Crete by an ad hoc firing squad consisting of German paratroopers on 2 June 1941 during World War II.[2][3] The shooting was the first of a series of reprisals in Crete. It was orchestrated by Generaloberst Kurt Student, in retaliation for the participation of Cretans in the Battle of Crete which had ended with the surrender of the island two days earlier. The massacre was photographed by Franz-Peter Weixler, a German army war propaganda correspondent, whose negatives were discovered 39 years later in the federal German archives by a Greek journalist.
- ^ Beevor, Antony (1992), Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, Piscataway, NJ: Penguin Books
- ^ Heaton, C.D. German Anti-partisan Warfare in Europe, 1939–1945, Schiffer Pub., 2001, ISBN 978-0764313950.
- ^ Mazower, Mark. Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–44, Yale University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-300-08923-6.