Chortiatis massacre

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Memorial for the massacre in the village of Chortiatis. Photo taken on September 3, 2008, one day after the commemoration, with wreath-laying including a wreath by the German Consul General of Thessaloniki.

The Chortiatis massacre was a German war crime against the civilian population of the northern Greek town of Chortiatis near Thessaloniki towards the end of Greece's occupation by the Axis powers on September 2, 1944 during World War II .

Course of events

After two Greek civil servants and three German occupation soldiers were captured by an ambush by the Greek People's Liberation Army ELAS , the German occupation authorities carried out a reprisal against the civilian population of Chortiatis. Under the command of the Wehrmacht Sergeant Fritz Schubert, the Schubert Jagdkommando named after him (Greek term Schuberei ), recruited from Greek collaborators, killed 149 people from the civilian population of Chortiatis. Some of the victims were burned alive.

In the trial of Fritz Schubert - referred to as the monster of Crete by the communist newspaper Rizospastis - in July 1947, the defendant blamed Greek security battalions led by Poulos for the Asvestochori massacre. During the trial it turned out that on July 26, 1944, 15 residents of Asvestochori had been killed by the Schubert hunting force. The trial against Fritz Schubert ended on August 5, 1947 with a death sentence against the accused. In early 1948 further trials were started against members of the Schubert Jagdkommando for various assaults including the Chortiatis incident. In one of these trials before the special court in Thessaloniki, the witness Panagiotis Sarvanis described the events in Chortiatis as follows:

“Schubert's men took me with others and locked me in the bakery. They shot at us, then covered us with grass and set them on fire. "

- Panagiotis Sarvanis, witness before the Special Court of Thessaloniki in the trial against members of the Schubert Hunting Squad on January 13, 1948.

The massacre off Asvestochori at the end of the 1980s became politically explosive in the context of an international commission of historians' investigations into the alleged involvement or complicity of the former UN Secretary General and Austrian Federal President Kurt Waldheim . He was an officer of the Wehrmacht on the staff of the Saloniki-Aegean commander at the time of the massacre.

See also

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  1. ↑ Dordanas, Stratos N .: Reprisals of the German Authorities of Occupation in Macedonia 1941-1944. Dissertation. Faculty of History and Archeology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 2002. P. 721.
  2. ^ A b c Keeley, Edmund: Some Wine for Remembrance. White Pine Press, Buffalo NY 2001, ISBN 1-893996-15-8 .
  3. ↑ Dordanas, Stratos N .: Reprisals of the German Authorities of Occupation in Macedonia 1941-1944. Dissertation. Faculty of History and Archeology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 2002. P. 703 ff.
  4. ↑ a b Newspaper article in the Greek newspaper Eleftheria of July 29, 1947. p. 3.
  5. ↑ Newspaper article in the Greek newspaper Rizospastis of July 29, 1947. p. 3.
  6. ↑ Newspaper article in the Greek newspaper Eleftheria of July 30, 1947. p. 3.
  7. ↑ Newspaper article in the Greek newspaper Eleftheria of August 6, 1947. pp. 1 and 3.
  8. ↑ Newspaper article in the Greek newspaper Eleftheria from January 14, 1948.
  9. ↑ Dordanas, Stratos N .: Reprisals of the German Authorities of Occupation in Macedonia 1941-1944. Dissertation. Faculty of History and Archeology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 2002. S. 724 and 725. translation from the Greek Christaras A .
  10. ^ A b International Commission of Historians: The Waldheim Report. Submitted February 8, 1988 to Federal Chancellor Dr. Franz Vranitzky. Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen 1993, ISBN 87-7289-206-4 . P. 185 ff.