The Cretan resistance was a resistance movement against the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy by the residents of the Greek island of Crete during World War II. Part of the larger Greek resistance, it lasted from 20 May 1941, when the German Wehrmacht invaded the island in the Battle of Crete, until the spring of 1945 when they surrendered to the British. For the first time during World War II, attacking German forces faced in Crete a substantial resistance from the local population. In the Battle of Crete, Cretan civilians picked off paratroopers or attacked them with knives, axes, scythes or even bare hands. As a result, many casualties were inflicted upon the invading German paratroopers during the battle.
A German soldier in front of a sign erected after the razing of Kandanos. The sign reads: "Kandanos was destroyed in retaliation for the bestial ambush murder of a paratrooper platoon and a half-platoon of military engineers by armed men and women."
Massacre of civilians in Kondomari by German paratroopers in 1941.
W. Stanley Moss in Crete.
Spithouris Manolis, attacked the armoured car with his rifle alone and survived the cannon shell strike to his belly during the Damasta sabotage.
The Greek resistance, involved armed and unarmed groups from across the political spectrum that resisted the Axis occupation of Greece in the period 1941–1944, during World War II. The largest group was the Communist-dominated EAM-ELAS. The Greek Resistance is considered one of the strongest resistance movements in Nazi-occupied Europe, with partisans, men and women known as andartes and andartisses, controlling much of the countryside prior to the German withdrawal from Greece in late 1944.
Athens University students parading on Greek National Indpendence Day (25 March) 1942, in defiance of the German and Italian occupation forces; the parade was eventually dispersed by Axis troops.
German soldiers raising the German War Flag over the Acropolis of Athens. The symbol of the country's occupation, it would be taken down in one of the first acts of the Greek Resistance.
Aris Velouchiotis, chief captain of ELAS
Napoleon Zervas, leader of the military wing of the EDES, with fellow officers