A Nazi massacre of 200 Greek prisoners during WW2 left blood flowing through the street, with many of those who survived the firing squad then buried alive.
The horrific executions took place in the Athens suburb of Kaisariani on May 1, 1944, in retaliation for the killing of Nazi general Franz Krech and three of his staff by Communist guerrilla fighters four days earlier.
The Kaisariani massacre is among the most infamous seen during the three-year Axis occupation of Greece between 1941 and 1944.
Though it is a well-documented atrocity, new details of the slaughter have emerged along with previously unseen photographs of victims facing their Nazi executioners.
Harrowing testimony was provided by those who bore witness to the massacre to Antonis Flountzis, a former doctor who published an unearthed book on Greek resistance to Nazi occupation.
He reported that so many were killed that blood flowed through the streets as their bodies were driven away, and that those who witnessed this were shot at as they threw flowers on the streaks of blood left by Nazi vans.
On April 27 1994, partisans from the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS) ambushed and killed German general Franz Krech, along with three of his officers, in Laconia.
In retaliation, Nazi occupation authorities rounded up 200 communists to be executed.
The men were brought to a firing range in the Athens suburb of Kaisariani. Giorgos Sideris, a reserve member of ELAS, told the author that he watched the massacre in horror from a neighbouring hill.
He said he saw men being slaughtered in batches of up to 20: ‘At first, they were not lined up in a row. They were herded like lambs into the area and slaughtered with machine guns.’
A Nazi massacre of 200 Greek prisoners during WW2 left blood flowing through the street
The pictures appear to show the last seconds before 200 Greek Communists were executed on May 1, 1944
These pictures are thought to have been taken by Guenther Heysing, a journalist attached to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels’s unit
But quickly, the Nazis changed tack. Sideris said: ‘This only happened in the first two batches. The German Captain… ordered this method of execution to stop. From then on they were lined up in rows of 15.’
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As the men were killed, their Nazi occupiers forced prisoners to load their dead comrades’ bodies into cars, before being lined up and shot themselves – a sickening process that was repeated ten times until just after 10am, when not a single prisoner was left.
Sideris added that the Nazis were also shouting and shooting at women who were throwing flowers onto the blood that flowed from the cars that took the resistance fighters’ bodies away.
In four vans carrying 50 bodies each, the Nazis were said to have driven the dead men to a nearby cemetery.
There, undertakers were asked to dig 200 graves for those who were killed in the massacre.
But, according to one worker, many of those who were shot were still alive as they were lowered into their graves.
They said: ‘At one point I heard slight groans. But the Germans, with their weapons and their wild voices, were pushing us, beating us and forcing us to work in a hurry to finish the burial quickly.
‘We buried them dressed in individual graves, without knowing their names.’
Ioanna Tsatsou, a Greek writer who would later become the First Lady of the nation, wrote that the local archdiocese was told to send a truck to collect the clothes of those who were executed.
Although the executions were well known, there had been no known photographic documentation of the event until recently
Greece was occupied by Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1944, a period marked by several atrocities against villagers and its Jewish community
These items were used to try and identify those who had perished in the massacre, with relatives frantically searching the warehouse the clothes were stashed in to find clues that may help them determine the fate of their loved ones.
Tsatsou wrote that one mother recognised her son’s jacket and began to weep. She then found some items that belonged to her younger son, before fainting.
Many of the men managed to write their final words on pieces of paper and cloth.
One man carved into his wooden leg: ‘Notify my widowed mother… that I am dying for our Greece.’
Last week, images showing groups of men lining up against wall as they were shepherded to a shooting range by their Nazi occupiers, who brutally killed them seconds later, were released by archivists.
The previously unseen pictures showing the massacre were listed for auction on eBay by a collector of Third Reich memorabilia.
They are said to have originally come from the personal album of German lieutenant Hermann Heuer, Greek media has reported.
Guenther Heysing, a journalist attached to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels’s unit, is ‘highly likely’ to have taken the pictures.
One image shows men being marched into the shooting range, after discarding their overcoats outside.
Some of the pictures show groups of the men marching through a field, and standing against a wall at the shooting range.
The Greek Ministry of Culture said it is ‘highly likely that these are authentic photographs’.
Greece was occupied by Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1944, a period marked by several atrocities against villagers and its Jewish community, who were decimated.
More than 40,000 people are believed to have starved to death in Athens alone.
The Communist-led Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS) was among the most active resistance organisations in occupied Europe.
Many Communists had also been persecuted during anti-Communist raids by the police of Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas.
