Reprisal: Anogeia Razed

Months after the abduction, General Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, having returned as overall commander of Fortress Crete, ordered brutal reprisals. Starting on August 13, 1944, and continuing until September 5, German forces systematically destroyed the village of Anogeia, which had briefly sheltered the abduction party and was considered a resistance center. Müller’s order cited the Kreipe abduction among other justifications; troops executed around 25 remaining villagers, forcibly displaced the women and children, and then looted, burned, and dynamited all 940 houses and other buildings, leaving the village in ruins.