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Viannos Massacre Memorial

Amiras village, Viannos Municipality, Heraκlion region / Southeast Crete

By Desolation Road

September 17^th, 2020

On the morning of September 14, 1943, a strange tranquility was prevailing in the mountain villages of the Viannos region, in the south of central Crete. Everything seemed peaceful in the holiness of the day that was dawning. The villagers were wearing their good clothing and preparing to go to church, for the service of one of the most important feasts of Orthodoxy, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

At that time, like all of Greece, Viannos was under the Occupation of the Axis military forces during WW2. At the previous weeks, however, after the surrender of the Italians (who controlled the area), Viannos was experiencing the German siege - which had escalated into terrorism, following the killing of dozens of Wehrmacht soldiers by Cretan partisans during the preceding days.

The day before, the Germans had assured the men of the villages who had sought refuge in the mountains (for fear of retaliation for the killing of the Wehrmacht soldiers) that they would be safe to return to their villages and homes. Thus, when September 14th dawned, the Nazis' assurances and the sanctity of the day emitted a calmness that foretold nothing of the storm that would follow.

The Germans, violating their military oath, launched a mass extermination campaign, when the morning came. Generalleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, later known as "The Butcher of Crete", ordered the simultaneous invasion of seperate groups of the 65th Regiment of the 22nd Luftlande Infanterie-Division in more than 20 villages of Viannos and Ierapetra regions.

Apparently, the order of Bruno Bräuer, commander of the "Festung Kreta" between 1942-'44, to Müller was to "destroy the province of Viannos, execute immediately, without procedure, the males who are over 16 years old as well as all those arrested in the countryside, regardless of gender and age ".

A total of 401 people were executed or slaughtered that day (out of 461 in the area throughout the whole Occupation period). The Nazi death machine showed its most horrible face here: all men over the age of 16 were led, in groups of twenty, to the execution squad. In Amiras, this happened on a terrace in Ampelia. There, the mother of the Syggelakis family saw the execution of her husband and four sons. Matthaios Christakis was led to the firing squad together with his two sons.

Viannos Massacre Memorial

Viannos Massacre Memorial

Viannos Massacre Memorial

Viannos Massacre Memorial

Pregnant women were slaughtered in the most inhuman way in the womb, such as Aikaterini Papadimitropoulou, who was pregnant with her 8-month-old fetus. The babies, the elderly, the disabled, the quadriplegics lying on their bed, all met the same fate. Brothers Evangelia, Maria and Stylianos Vervelakis, 8, 10 and 12 years old, were tortured to death in order to reveal where their parents were hiding. A baby and a six-year-old child were slaughtered in the arms of their mother and father. The disabled George Kontakis was killed on his chair with a bayonet. The Verykokaki family mourned 17 of its members.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, Viannos looked like hell on earth: the dead lay on the ground, the villages -after being looted by the Nazis- were burned, and more than 1,000 houses were completely destroyed, while the fields were still emitting thick smoke. The entire crop, that would help the villagers survive the winter, was vanished.

The caption reads: — The caption reads: "The number of the crosses on the door, indicates the number of the executed in this house"

None of the atrocities of the Germans fit into any logic, of any warfare they had with the partisans of the Greek Resistance. Theoretically, by invading the villages, the Germans aimed to weaken the partisans from their supply, to prevent the Italians (who were retreating) from joining the Resistance, to stifle any questioning of their sovereignty and to destroy whatever the Allies could find useful in a possible landing in Crete, which had then leaked as a rumor.

However, all of the above don’t seem to convincingly explain their acts of blind hatred, the massacres of civilians and of vulnerable and minor populations, the ban imposed on women to bury their people in the aftermath of the massacre, nor the drunkenness, dancing, songs and Nazi slogans in which -according to testimonies- some Wehrmacht soldiers were indulged in the burned villages that night, eating the stolen food and mocking the mourning women.

Viannos Massacre Memorial

Viannos Massacre Memorial

A few months later, while Germany was losing the war, General Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller was located by the Red Army in East Prussia. The Soviets extradited him to Greece, and together with Bruno Bräuer,. they were sentenced to death by the Greek Military Court. They stood before the firing squad in May 1947.

The people of Viannos were never compensated for one of the most heinous Nazi crimes during WW2. The Viannos Holocaust was the second bloodiest massacre by the Germans in Greece, after the Massacre of Kalavryta.

Since then, every year the Autumn brings here the deep melancholy of the unbearable pain and mourning for the lost children, parents and brothers, the remembrance, as well as the memories of the refuge of the people who, many of them, were later forced to work in German factories, under strict orders in German language.

In the village of Amiras, there is this large monument dedicated to the dead of the Viannos Massacre, designed by sculptor Yiannis Parmakelis. Each village also has its own monument, for its own dead, while even today slogans are written on the walls: "Anogia, Viannos, Kandanos were burned by the Nazis, fascists have no place on this island".

Viannos Massacre Memorial

Viannos Massacre Memorial

Viannos Massacre Memorial

Viannos Massacre Memorial

Viannos Massacre Memorial

Viannos Massacre Memorial

Viannos Massacre Memorial

Footnotes

Copyright ©: Desolation Road / Panos Diamantis

FootNotes

Copyright ©: Desolation Road / Panos Diamantis

© 2026 Desolation Road

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