On 7 August 1944, Feldwebel Josef Olenhauer and a few men of the German garrison based in Yeni Gave went up to the village of Anogeia in search of forced labour workers. Olenhauer ordered his men to round up selected males with the aim of forcing them to march towards Rethymno. The villagers refused to conform, hence fifty were taken hostage in retribution. While on its way to Rethymno, the column was ambushed by local ELAS guerrillas, who attacked the German detachment at a location called Sfakaki, freeing the hostages and killing all the Germans. Despite the success of the move, the villagers of Anogeia feared that reprisals from the Germans were imminent and therefore took to the mountains joining the local andartes.
Ambush
On the following day, August 8, a resistance group commanded by the British Special Operations Executive officer Captain BillStanley Moss MC consisting of eight Cretans from Anogeia organized into EOK and six escaped Russian prisoners of war, marched to the main road connecting Rethymno and Heraklion. Moss had previously created a small strike force of escaped Russian POWs working with the andartes, planning to attack enemy transport on the Heraklion-Rethymno road. However, in the light of events in Anogeia, he instead set out to waylay the inevitable response before the German troops left their transport and deployed, so that Anogeia might be saved. He chose an ambush site by a bridge in the Damastos location, one kilometer west of the village of Damasta and mined it with Hawkins grenades, preparing for the German reaction. After destroying various passing vehicles, among which was a lorry carrying military mail to Chania, the German force on its way to target Anogeia finally appeared. It consisted of a truck of infantrymen backed up by an armoured car. Moss and his group attacked the German troops. Moss crawled up to the back of the armoured car and dropped a grenade into the hatch. In total 35 Germans and 10 Italians were killed, as well as one Russian partisan, and 12 Axis prisoners taken in the clash that followed. Cretan partisan Manolis Spithouris was seriously wounded in the abdomen. Nevertheless, he was rescued in "extremely brave action" by Kostas Kephaloyannis and treated by fellow andartes, as well as Moss and Georgios Tyrakis, managing to survive. Moss argued on his return to Cairo that Kephaloyannis should be decorated for his action. The operation is described in detail in Moss's book A War of Shadows and commemorated at Damasta and the Historical Museum of Crete.
Aftermath
The expediency of the ambush in Damasta has been strongly disputed. General Müller had replaced General Bruno Bräuer, as commander of Fortress Crete on 1 July 1944. Bräuer had not instigated reprisals after the Kidnap of General Kreipe as no one had been killed, and the result of the abduction had been a loss of face for the Germans rather than of personnel. This contrasted with General Müller and the almost instant execution of 50 Cretans after the SBS raid in May/June 1942 and the destruction of Viannos by Müller in September 1943 in reprisal for andartes's attacks in the Kato Simi area. Whilst Moss had hoped that the ambush might have saved Anogeia, Müller, now the German commander in Crete, had further strategic reasons for reprisals and terror across Crete in order to assist the German planned evacuation from much of the island to Chania as well as not wishing to let Anogeia go unpunished for years of resistance. Anogeia dwellers had been actively involved in, and given refuge to, the resistance for many years, had killed the Sergeant Commander Olenhauer and the garrison from Yeni-Gave and had also provided shelter to the abductors of General Heinrich Kreipe. His order of the day to destroy Anogeia was specific and retrospective. His order reads:- As a result of Müller's order, about 30 residents of Anogeia were executed, the village was systematically pillaged for more than 20 days and eventually razed to the ground. On August 21, the Germans executed 30 men from the village of Damasta after accusing them as accomplices for not having given warning about the ambush and swept their village away. Müller was convicted for this and other war crimes. He was sentenced to death on 9 December 1946 and executed by firing squad20 May 1947.
Memorial Monument
The monument was designed by two architects from Heraklion, Nikos Scoutelis and Flavio Zanon, and built in 1994 with funds given by the families of the village of Damasta. The monument includes an extract from a poem written by Odysseus Elytis, the Greek poet and winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Literature. The poem, called To Axion Esti is a long poem in which the speaker explores the essence of his being as well as the identity of his country, Greece, and people. The translation of the part of the poem engraved on the monument is: THEY STRIKE WITH A HEAVY AXE THEY PIERCE IT WITH A HARDENED SCALPEL THEY CARVE MY STONE WITH A BITTER CHISEL AND THE MORE TIME ERODES MATTER THE CLEARER THE ORACLE COMES OUT OF MY FACE: FEAR THE WRATH OF THE DEAD AND THE STATUES OF THE ROCKS!
