The kidnapping of Heinrich Kreipe was an operation executed jointly by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and local resistance members in Crete in German-occupied Greece during the Second World War. The operation was launched on 4 February 1944, when SOE officer Patrick Leigh Fermor landed in Crete with the intention of abducting notorious war criminal and commander of 22nd Air Landing Division, Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller. By the time of the arrival of the rest of the abduction team, led by William Stanley Moss, two months later, Müller had been succeeded by Heinrich Kreipe, who was chosen as the new target.
On the night of 26 April, Kreipe's car was ambushed while en route from his residence to his divisional headquarters. Kreipe was tied and forced into the back seat while Leigh Fermor and Moss impersonated him and his driver respectively. Kreipe's notorious impatience at roadblocks enabled the car to pass numerous checkpoints before being abandoned at the hamlet of Heliana. The abductors continued on foot, continuing to evade thousands of Axis soldiers sent to stop them, with the help of guides from the local resistance. On 14 May, the team was picked up by a British motorboat from the Rodakino beach and transported to British-held Egypt.
The success of the operation was put into question several months afterwards. The outcome came to be seen as a symbolic propaganda victory rather than a strategic one. The relatively harmless Kreipe was replaced by Müller who ordered mass reprisals against the civilian population of the island, known as the Holocaust of Kedros. The abduction operation entered popular imagination through the biographical works of several of its participants, most notably Moss's book Ill Met by Moonlight.
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Karl Heinrich Georg Ferdinand Kreipe (5 June 1895 – 14 June 1976) was a German career soldier who served in both World War I and World War II. While leading...
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abductors of General Kreipe stayed at a sheepfold in Amari for a couple of nights during their march southwards.[page needed][page needed] At the time of the...
command of Crete to paratrooper General Bruno Bräuer. However, the idea of capturing a German general evolved into the abduction of Gen. Kreipe. Andrae...
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