Kidnap of Heinrich Kreipe
| Kidnap of General Kreipe | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Mediterranean, Middle East and African theatres of World War II | |||||||
 General Heinrich Kreipe |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Special Operations Executive (SOE) National Organization of Crete
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 Nazi Germany
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Patrick Leigh Fermor
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Heinrich Kreipe
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| Strength | |||||||
| 4 Special Operations Executive agents Men of Cretan resistance |
22nd Airlanding Division 164th Infantry Division |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| None | 1 captured 1 killed |
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The kidnap of General Heinrich Kreipe was a Second World War operation by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), an organisation of the United Kingdom. The mission took place on the German occupied island of Crete in May 1944.
On 1 March 1944, Kreipe was appointed Commander of the 22nd Air Landing Infantry Division operating on Crete, replacing General Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, who had been made the German commander in the Dodecanese and who had a reputation for brutality towards the Cretan people. The SOE team of Major Patrick Leigh Fermor and Captain William Stanley Moss had planned to abduct Müller, but when he was replaced, proceeded with their plans and targeted Kreipe instead. Helped by Cretan resistance fighters, the SOE team successfully abducted Kreipe and managed to evade the German troops searching for them. When the team reached the coast, they were picked up by the Royal Navy and taken to Egypt.
These events were portrayed in Moss's book Ill Met by Moonlight. and Leigh Fermor's book, Abducting a General.
The British Army and allied forces from various countries of the British Commonwealth had been driven out of Crete after the Battle of Crete in May 1941. Following the evacuation of the surviving British forces, the Special Operations Executive landed agents on the island to assist and advise the Cretan resistance movements. They had a number of objectives including liaison, intelligence gathering, preparing the local resistance and assisting escapers and evaders to leave the island.
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