Greek partisans
Photo: Sariblog.eu
On the evening of May 9, 1945, the “Reichsender Flensburg” broadcast the last report of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. “Still yesterday” was bravely “defended” until the end of East Prussia, it sounds out of the speakers. “Immigible fame” was acquired in six battles, and an “premature handover” was rejected. Then the view of the south and north of Europe is directed: “Far from home, the defenders of the Atlantic base,” it continues, “our troops in Norway, and the crews of the Aegean Islands in obedience and discipline maintains the weapons of the German soldier.”
The October 18, 1944, Athens was released as the month of Greece, and Thessaloniki followed on October 30th. But in some Greek regions, German soldiers remain out for more than six months and defend “The Wall Towers” for the “leaders” who have already made themselves out of dust. On Westkreta, Kos, Leros, Rhodes, Smaller Islands such as Tilos and also on Milos, German soldiers remain until unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht. The Kykladeninsel Milos was occupied on May 9, 1941. Reduced to the fortress since summer 1943, it was stubbornly defended against English troops and Greek resistance fighter by May 9, 1945. Senseless powder vapors, suffering, fear and terror, countless dead.
30 years ago, the report by Yiannis Mikhail Chalkoutsakis, a first -hand report, appeared posthumously, a dense chronicle: “Milos under the crew”. The author was a soldier and finally lieutenant colonel, born on Milos in 1913, died in Athens in 1993. During the crew, he had his home island hired in an office in which the fortifications were planned and organized for the German conquerors. In this way he got precise position plans, collected information, gave it further to military resistance. In 1944 he joined the “Holy Brigade”, Ieros Lochos, a Greek partisan group.
The Cycladen Island is halfway between Piraeus and Crete, strategically significant for the warfare of the Germans, as a bridge head, stopover and supply base for aircraft and ships. In February/March 1943, the defeat at Stalingrad brings the turn in the war of conquest of the Germans. On February 18, 1943, Propaganda Minister Goebbels gave his notorious speech in the Berlin Sports Palace: “Do you want the total war?”
At the end of June 1943, the Germans carried out a census on Milos, all men between the ages of 18 and 55 are registered; After that, more than 500 men have to do forced labor, plus 35 women. Milos is expanded into a fortress: radar systems, bunkers, trenches, mine fields, aircraft guns, artillery. Ruins of these buildings can still be found scattered across the entire island. “Fortunately for Milos,” writes Chalkoutsakis, “the real Gestapo never came.” Milos, for example, does not occur to massacres like in Crete.
But from mid -1943 at the latest, Milos became a war zone. In autumn the bombings piled up, all the paths on the island are monitored, barbed wire and mine fields secure the stationed German soldiers. Around 1943/44, a radar station is installed in the southwest of the island: topacas. In the letters of the German medical officer Hans Löber, something flamed from suffering and die there. “This week a desert shootout,” wrote Löber in mid -January 1944, “four Greeks, one so heavy that he died after one day.” At the end of July it says: “Many wounded …, often in a bleak state … yesterday … a Greek ran into a minefield and the left lower leg was torn down. I am amputated immediately. “
In August 1944, most German soldiers were evacuated from Milos to Paros. But around 600 get stuck on the island because the transport routes no longer work. In autumn 1944, the bombing became more violent. At the end of September, the German medical officer wrote Löber: »Many wounded, mostly even heavily wounded …, three men who had to be amputated by me alone … It was really troubled weeks. … We were under artillery shot from the sea, under bombs from the air and on -board weapons from low -flyers.«
In September 1944 the Germans begin to blow up fortifications. In October 1944, Stalin and Churchill advised themselves on the future of the countries of Eastern Central and Southeast Europe. Churchill explains that it is largely to do without the influence in Bulgaria and Romania, in return the Soviet Union does not influence influence Greece. British aircraft drop a proclamation of Milos, in which the German soldiers are called up for surrender. Fanatical German commander reject the offer.
In mid -November 1944, British soldiers tried to storm the radar station in the southwest of the island, topacas. Four British soldiers die, the attack is canceled. Three days later, the Germans blow up the station and retire inside the island, to Kaminia. Greek residents are attacked, Löber is also killed.
In mid -January 1945, the air defense position in the Bay of Milos (Corfou) was bombed and abandoned by the Germans at the end of the month. A ammunition depot explodes, 80 German soldiers are said to have died. However, at the end of April 1945, the German commander on the island, Georg Knauer, had a proclamation in which German overlaps and Greek helpers are prospect of draconian punishments. As a reward, the fanatical Nazi is promoted to major on Easter Sunday, May 6th.
It was only after the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht in Berlin-Karlshorst the weapons, which has been celebrated on this Greek island every first Sunday after May 9th since 2004.
Reading tip: Gerhard Paul: May 1945. The absurd end of the “Third Reich”. How and where the Nazi rule really came to an end. Theiss-Verlag, 336 pages, born, 28 €.
Even on Milos, the weapons were only silent after the surrender in Berlin-Karlshorst.
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