*** Welcome to piglix ***

Kaisariani executions


On 1 May 1944, 200 Greek communists (Greek: Οι 200 της Καισαριανής, "The 200 of Kaisariani") were executed at the firing range of the Athens suburb of Kaisariani by the Nazi occupation authorities as reprisal for the killing of a German general by Greek Resistance forces.

Greece had been under the dictatorial and fiercely anti-communist Metaxas Regime since 1936. Members of the Communist Party of Greece were persecuted and put in prison, chiefly in the Akronauplia and Corfu prisons, or sent to internal exile in small islands. With the German invasion of Greece and the start of the Axis Occupation of Greece in April 1941, the communist prisoners were placed under German control. Following the Italian surrender in September 1943, most of the communist prisoners, formerly held in the Italian-run Larissa concentration camp, were moved to Haidari concentration camp in the northwestern suburbs of Athens.

On 27 April 1944, ELAS partisans ambushed and killed German General Franz Krech and three other German officers at Molaoi in Laconia. As a retaliation, the German occupation authorities announced via proclamation the execution of 200 communists on 1 May, as well as the execution of all males found by the German troops outside their villages on the Sparti–Molaoi road. In addition, the German proclamation reported that "under the impression of this crime, Greek volunteers on their own initiative killed a further 100 communists".


...
Wikipedia

...