Kesariani shooting range

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Kesariani shooting range ( Greek σκοπευτήριο της Καισαριανής Skopeftirio tis Kesarianis ) served the German occupation forces in Greece from 1941 to 1944 as a place of execution for 600  executions (fusilations). In the 1980s, it was partially redesigned into a memorial.

Shooting range

After a wooded and rocky area near Kallithea had been used as a military training area, especially as an artillery firing range, until 1922 , but after the catastrophe in Asia Minor this was needed for the construction of housing for refugees, a firing range was set up in the area of ​​the municipality of Kesariani . About 710,000 m² were transferred to the Pan-Greek Rifle Society (P. S. E.), later to the "Union of Supporters of the Hunting Rifle" (O. F. K. O.) with the condition that the area could also be used for military purposes.

Execution site

The Wehrmacht conquered mainland Greece in April 1941 (→ Balkan campaign ) and held it until October 1944. Wehrmacht soldiers shot Greek resistance fighters at the shooting range. In 1942 13 people were shot, in 1943 a further 147 and in 1944 a further 440. At times there were shootings almost daily; the prisoners from the Chaidari concentration camp were often transported through Athens and then shot.

Among other things, the execution of 200 communist prisoners from the Chaidari concentration camp on May 1, 1944 and the execution of eight young resistance fighters on September 5, 1943, including the only 14-year-old Andreas Likourinos, became known .

25 members of the occupying powers - 20 Italians and five Germans - were also shot there.

memorial

Partial view of the memorial

After the war, the area was still used as a shooting range. In 1984 an area of ​​110,000 m² was designated as a historical monument by the Ministry of Culture. The municipality of Kesariani then announced a nationwide architectural competition to design the site in an aesthetically pleasing and historically appropriate manner.

The site known as the "Altar of Freedom" was - after a number of disputes and with considerable effort - gradually transformed into a site of historical memory combined with hope for the future. A modern park now includes the “Place of the 200 Patriots”, a memorial for the national resistance and various social and cultural facilities and entertainment facilities (health center for children, counseling center for the disabled, kindergarten, neoclassical building, open-air cinema).

During a state visit in June 1987, the German Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker chose the memorial as a place to honor the victims of the German occupation, and - as a representative of numerous National Socialist war crimes - also named the names of a few other Greek towns where massacres took place.

"This memorial is inextricably linked to the history of your and my people ... No one, especially no German, can stand here without being deeply touched by the message of this place."

- Richard von Weizsäcker on June 24, 1987

On January 26, 2015, Alexis Tsipras was sworn in as the new Greek Prime Minister. The first official act he laid down at the memorial was flowers, recalling what he had said earlier in the election campaign that Greece had reparation claims against Germany .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ www.gedenkorte-europa.eu
  2. ↑ a b Hagen Fleischer : The long shadow of the war and the Greek calendar of German diplomacy . In: Understanding Hellas: German-Greek Cultural Transfer in the 20th Century . Ed .: Chryssoula Kambas , Cologne 2010, p. 205
  3. ↑ www.occupation-memories.org
  4. ↑ see also Hagen Fleischer: "If you remember, we can forget"
  5. ↑ Ta Nea of ​​January 26, 2015 (Greek)
  6. ↑ sueddeutsche.de February 4, 2015: Has the German debt been paid?

Coordinates: 37 ° 57 '56.65 "  N , 23 ° 45' 35.57"  O