Kaisariani executions

The Kaisariani executions were the execution of 200 Greek communists on 1 May 1944 by the Nazi occupation authorities in the Kaisariani shooting range, Greece, as reprisal for the killing of a German general by Greek Resistance forces.

Background
Greece had been under the dictatorial and fiercely anti-communist Metaxas Regime since 1936. Members of the Communist Party of Greece were persecuted and put in prison, chiefly in the Akronauplia and Corfu prisons, or sent to internal exile in small islands. With the German invasion of Greece and the start of the Axis Occupation of Greece in April 1941, the communist prisoners were handed over to German control. Following the Italian surrender in September 1943, most of the communist prisoners, formerly held in the Italian-run Larissa concentration camp, were moved to Haidari concentration camp in the northwestern suburbs of Athens.

Executions
On 27 April 1944, ELAS partisans ambushed and killed German General Franz Krech and three other German officers at Molaoi in Laconia. As a retaliation, the German occupation authorities announced via proclamation the execution of 200 communists on 1 May, as well as the execution of all males found by the German troops outside their villages on the Sparti–Molaoi road. In addition, the German proclamation reported that "under the impression of this crime, Greek volunteers on their own initiative killed further 100 communists".

On 30 April, the news of the impending executions spread in the Haidari camp. Camp commandant Fischer called the workshop foremen, all former Akronauplia inmates, and asked which of the other prisoners could replace them, ostensibly as they would be moved to a different camp the next day, along with the inmates of the Chalkis prison. Interpreting this "move" as a cover for their execution, all Akronauplia prisoners said their goodbyes to their comrades, and an impromptu farewell party was held in cell block 3 of the camp. On the next morning, the Chalkis inmates were moved from the camp on trucks. Camp commandant Fischer then held a roll call and selected the 200 prisoners to be executed—almost all the former Akronauplia inmates (ca. 170), the former exiles in Anafi and a few who were imprisoned by the Germans. According to eyewitness accounts, the prisoners reacted with defiance, singing the Greek national anthem, the Dance of Zalongo song, and the song of the Akronauplia prisoners, even as the trucks arrived to take them off.

The 200 prisoners were brought to the Kaisariani rifle range, where they were executed in batches of twenty. The corpses were buried in the 3rd Athens Cemetery.

Commemoration
The executions were a seminal event of the Greek Resistance against the Axis forces, and resonate among the Greek Left to this day.

In a move "rich with symbolism", on 26 January 2015, the newly elected Prime Minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras, the country's first leftist head of government, visited the shooting range and laid roses on the memorial to the executions, as his first act after being sworn in.