THE KALAVRYTA MASSACRE, GREECE 1943

The German Army's Revenge

The following article, written by Efthymios Tsiliopoulos, was published in the Athens News weekly newspaper on Friday, 14 December 2007. It is part of a series chronicling the history of Greece under the overall title 'This Week in History'.

We have visited Kalavryta several times. In addition to being a memorial to the horrifying events described below, it is now a centre for skiing on the northwest side of the Helmos Mountains in the north of the Peloponnese. A single-track rack railway, popular with tourists, climbs steeply through limestone gorges to Kalavryta, 2,500 ft above the seaside town of Diakofto.

We were aware of the 1943 massacre within Kalavryta itself, but the article gives a fuller account of the atrocities committed in many a peaceful village in the surrounding mountains. In addition to such criminal raids, 67,000 of Greece's 75,000 Jews were systematically murdered in Auschwitz Birkenau and over half a million Greeks died of starvation. Similar atrocities occurred wherever the Germans invaded and occupied countries throughout mainland Europe.

The article carries with it a number of underlying messages. 'Lest we forget' is one of them. 'The EU is a miracle worth preserving at any price' is another. 'How can we now be so intimidated by a tiny band of lunatics trying (and usually failing) to commit mass murder in the name of blind superstition?' is yet another. Finally, we still need to understand how ordinary people, like the German soldiers, perhaps with Christian beliefs of their own, can commit such cowardly crimes. Nazi belt buckles were inscribed with the words 'Gott mit uns' (God with us). Given a uniform, given orders, given an excuse, given an insane doctrine, given greed (looting is a key feature of all such events), all this could perhaps happen again, even in Europe.

Earlier IN 2007, we visited the Bosnian cities of Mostar and Sarajevo.

Barry & Margaret Williamson

December 2007

This is the article (our comments are in italics):

"On 14 December 1943, German troops of the 117th Jager (Hunter) Division burned two of the most famous monasteries in the Peloponnese, the monastery of Agia Lavra and the monastery of Mega Spilaion. It was the culmination of "Unternehmen Kalawrita" (Operation Kalavryta), a trek of murder, arson and pillaging undertaken by troops of the Wehrmacht, the regular German army, that left many villages totally destroyed and 696 Greeks dead.

The monastery of Agia Lavra is 7 kilometres from Kalavryta. It was founded in the 10th century by Athanasios Athonitis and became the legendary spot where the Greek revolutionary war captains began the Greek Revolution of 1821 (following centuries of Turkish occupation).

The monastery of Mega Spilaion, founded in 362 AD, is considered to be the oldest monastery in Greece and is located within the bosom of a giant hollow in the rock of Helmos Mountain, at a height of almost 1,000 metres. It is a huge (8-storey), castle-like building perched on the cliff of an enormous rock. Inside there is an encaustic icon of the Virgin Mary, reputed to have been made by the Evangelist Luke (Loukas).

On 17 October 1943, ELAS (National Popular Liberation Army) guerrillas captured 81 German soldiers near Kalavryta from I Battalion 749 Jager Regiment of the 117th Jager Division. The men were not first-rate troops but should have been able to shoot their way out of the ambush that took place on a mountain track near the villages of Kerpini and Rogoi. ELAS executed most of them on December 7. Two German prisoners survived the execution and raised the alarm the following day, 8 December 1943.

The Germans reacted by launching Operation Kalavryta with over three thousand troops converging on Kalavryta from Patras, Aigion and Tripolis, and later from Corinth and Pyrgos. Their first objective was to draw ELAS into battle, and secondly, to find and free the German prisoners. The German command learned of the execution of the prisoners on December 8 from the survivors. General Karl von Le Suire (see image above) gave immediate orders for savage reprisals.

The German forces from Aigion, under Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) Ebersberger, entered Kalavryta on December 9. The day before they had entered the village of Rogoi, which they burned to the ground and where they executed 65 men and children. Another group entered the village of Kerpini, torching it and executing 38. They then burned the villages of Ano and Kato Zahlorou, killing 19, after which they reached the monastery of Mega Spilaion, where they killed 16 people on the spot, including monks, visitors and servants. Some were shot, others were tossed off the cliff to meet their tragic fate hundreds of metres below.

In Kalavryta, all the German forces converged. The German troops bivouacked in the town until December 13. At dawn on that day, Ebersberger assembled the people of Kalavryta, telling them to bring blankets and food for one day. The citizens thought they would be deported and obeyed. The Germans then separated all males aged 14 and over, and locked the women and children in the town school. The men were led to a field outside the village, on the hill of Kapi. The Germans then torched the village, after looting it. They stole everything from the houses, shops, the two banks and the public fund. They even grabbed the animals from the farms.

From the hill, the men could see their homes burning. Suddenly, a green flare was fired into the sky, signalling the Germans to take their positions. There were about a dozen machine guns located around the hill. When a red flare was shot, the gunners opened fire. The slaughter lasted about 2 minutes, after which anyone thought to be still alive was given the "coup de grace."

Of about 500 men and youths, only 13 survived the massacre. The clock on the bell tower of the Central Cathedral Church stopped as the church was burning - at the time of the slaughter - and still reads 2.34 pm.

The women and children trapped in the schoolhouse broke out before they were burned alive (this was helped by the 'moral courage' of an Austrian soldier, according to the Lonely Planet Guide Book); however, one elderly woman was trampled to death in the escape.

On the way back to their base, on December 14, the German detachment stopped at the monastery of Agia Lavra and after looting it of anything valuable, burned it and executed 6 men, most of them monks. But their work was not over because later on in the day they again passed the monastery of Mega Spilaion, where they had executed the monks days before, and deciding that that was not enough, they torched this sacred site, as well.

Their encrypted radio message to 117 Jager Division headquarters (No 1595/43) relates the extent of the destruction they left behind: "(1) The following villages were totally destroyed: Rogoi, Kerpini, Stasi Kerpinis, Ano Zahlorou, Kato Zahlorou, Souvardo, Vrhni, Kalavryta, Monasteries of Mega Spilaio and Agia Lavra, Agia Kyriaki, Avles, Visoka, Fteri, Plataniotissa, Pyrgaki, Valtsa, Melissia, Oblou Monastery, Lapanagoi, Mazi, Mazeika, Pagrati, Morohova, Derveni, Valtos, Planiterou, Kalyvia. (2) 696 Greeks executed ..."