Paddy recounts the kidnap of General Kreipe – last two minutes of episode six and most of episode seven. The story of the resistance is inspiring.
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
Part Four:
Part Five:
Part Six – Paddy starts the Kreipe story about two minutes from the end
Part Seven – most of this is about Paddy and the kidnap
Patrick Leigh Fermor 
The ” Combat Action reconstruction ” parts of these films are misleading , as the Germans shown are consistently dressed throughout as Fallshirmjager – Paratroopers .
Very soon after the original battle for Crete began these were outnumbered by Ringel’s mountain infantry Division , and other Line German Infantry troops , the surviving Paratroops forming merely a single battlegroup under Ringel’s command ,which was pulled out of the fighting as early as could be managed , to preserve what was left of the force ..
The later occupation period troops were also not Paratroopers .
Though never used again in a Mass parachute attack , the Fallshirmjager went on , after re-recruiting , to have a very hard war as an elite unit , in Russia , in Normandy , at Anzio and at Monte Cassino , and in the final battle for Berlin .
The OSS claim to have re-armed , re-provisioned and re-started the Cretan resistance is a typical American modernday boastful rewrite of WW2 history .
The British SOE had deliberately tried to keep the Kapetaneios like Bandouvas ( Satanas ) from starting premature open fighting with the occupiers , as in any stand-up fight the Resistance must come off worse , and the mass of Cretan population suffer .
All this US initiative provoked was an unimportant skirmish costing the Germans 200 dead and wounded , but which unleashed a firestorm of death and destruction on the Cretan people .
Bandouvas had to be evacuated out to Egypt by British HDML motor boat .
The US claim would be more impressive had the US backed Churchill’s plan to drive the Germans out of the Aegean islands in 1944 – operating alone , the British failed , and the opportunity to push beyond into the Balkans was lost , leaving the area to be taken by the Soviets .
Also remember that the CIA ( sucessor to OSS ) — and quite possibly including THIS CIA officer — was the organisation responsible for enslaving the Greek people once again in the late 1960s , by fostering the Greek military dictatorship , the Junta , which took power in a military coup ,and which lasted until 1974 .
Doubtless we shall see a new Film version of the Kreipe abduction in due course , starring American Hollywood actors as the heroic protagonists of course .
Etsi einai n Zoi .
Pretty powerful stuff Christos! I would forgive the filmakers the costumes. I think it was pretty low budget. They probably used what they could get hold of.
Looking at various related sites again today , I saw that the German infantry division 22 , the main force in the cretan garrison , was listed as an air landing division .
That is to say a Division trained to be deployed by air , with a modified outfit of hardware ( because the Ju52 trimotor’s useful payload limit was only about two tons ) to be flown in and landed by planes rather than taken by train / truck / on foot , a unit for very rapid deployment .
Probably that denomination is being confused with Parachute troops – easy enough mistake to make , conflating the two different types of unit , if you dont know .
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Well done for posting this – hope the producers don’t chase you re copyright. The taking heads and period film was very interesting – less so the reconstructions – I’d have thought it wouldn’t have been hard to use replica Wehrmacht uniforms/ helmets. The Fallschirmjager were withdrawn immediately after the battle of Crete.
Paul – these are on You Tube. I am just linking. If there is a copyright issue the movie will be removed from You Tube and my links will fail to work. There is no copyright issue here. I try to respect that as much as possible, but it can be a grey area with the internet.
Tom
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Thanks for sharing. It is difficult to see this as a German but absolutely necessary.
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