Kandanos or Kandanos is located in the centre of the prefecture of Chania, on the road connecting Chania in the north with Paleochora in the south. It was bombed from the first days of the German invasion of the megalithic island, because the area was considered of strategic importance for their operations. On 23 May a motorized detachment tried to occupy it, but the locals with improvised weapons managed to repel them. The next day the Germans returned with superior forces and on 25 May they captured the village, while the Cretan fighters scattered to the surrounding mountains.
On 3 June, a force of the 3rd Parachute Battalion under Lieutenant Horst Trebes arrived in the village to retaliate for the deaths of 25 German soldiers during the fighting for the capture of Kandanos (23-25 May). The German paratroopers were carrying out orders from their leader, General Kurt Student, and the day before had begun retaliating in Crete by executing civilians in the village of Kontomari in Chania.
Immediately, the Germans began burning the houses of Kandanou and within a few days had literally razed it to the ground. They killed all the remaining inhabitants, about 180, and banned under penalty of death all visits to the site, as well as its reconstruction. The destruction of Kandanos and the murder of civilians is one of the many crimes committed in Greece by the Germans. To justify their act, they posted signs in Greek and German on the destroyed Candano that read:
For the brutal murder of German paratroopers, alpinists and the Engineer, by a man, a woman, children and priests together and because they dared to resist the Great Reich, Kandanos was destroyed on 3-6-1941 from the ground up, never to be rebuilt again.
After Germany's capitulation, General Kurt Student was arrested by the British and in May 1947 he was tried by a military court for Wehrmacht war crimes in Crete and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. The request of the Greek authorities for his extradition to Greece was rejected by the Allies. Student did not remain in prison for long and was released on health grounds in 1948. He died at the age of 88 in 1978.
Source: sansimera.gr
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