WORLD WAR II

Milos was occupied by the German Wehrmacht for four years and three hours, the occupation lasted from May 9, 1941 to May 9, 1945. The extraordinary thing: Milos was one of the last occupied bastions next to a region on Crete (and some other Greek islands) where the Germans stayed in Europe. Milos was considered an important bridgehead for the German Wehrmacht and for Hitler's plans for world conquest. Milos was strategically and geographically important, being midway between the Attic and Cretan mainland. Crete was resupplied via Milos, and Crete was crucial for policing the south-eastern Mediterranean. Towards the end of the war, the remaining German soldiers fought fierce battles with units from the Greek and English armies to defend and recapture the island. "Almost daily air raids", says the diary of a German soldier in March 1945. The English flew air raid after air raid, there was destruction and direct hits, landings, hand-to-hand combat, deaths. German soldiers defected and deserted, but more than five hundred of them got stuck on Milos, barricaded themselves, fought and defended themselves to the last. On May 8, 1945, the German Wehrmacht capitulated, in the Bay of Polonia, opposite Kimolos, the "surrender negotiations" took place. On May 12, the last German soldiers are taken to Piraeus on an English warship. The "War Museum" of Milos commemorates those years. It is located below the island's capital, Plaka. It is set up in the preserved historical rooms, which were expanded by Greek workers in 1943/1944 under the supervision of German occupying soldiers. During the first two years of occupation, the Germans did not build any special fortifications in Milos. On February 18, 1943, fourteen days after the defeat of Stalingrad, Reich Minister of Propaganda Goebbels called for "total war" in Berlin. From then on, the German positions on Milos were expanded and fortified. Massive bunkers and cannon systems were built to protect against a possible Allied landing. 2 Workers from Milos and Kimolos were used as forced labourers. From June 1943 to the summer of 1944, many construction sites were set up on the island under the supervision of German engineers, officers and non-commissioned officers. Shelters, bunkers, radar and searchlight systems, cannon positions, an underground telephone exchange, crew quarters, food and ammunition depots were built. The tunnels in "Flaris" below Plaka, which now houses the Milos War Museum, were also created at this time. It was originally intended as an underground backup hospital, particularly in the event of bombing raids. Begun in the last months of 1943, construction in the rock was completed in mid-1944. At that time, around 4,000 German officers and soldiers were stationed on Milos. From the autumn of 1944, British units flew daily low-level aircraft raids, bombarded and fired on aircraft carriers and warships. There was bitter fighting for the island. The Plaka military hospital therefore had to be relocated to the Flaris underground tunnels at the end of 1944 and remained there until March 1945, two months before the end of the war. Shortly after the end of the war, the former reserve hospital was looted. After that it remained closed for 69 years. Since the spring of 2014, the Milos War Museum has been located in the originally preserved old tunnel construction. Inside rooms. The underground reserve hospital in the “Flaris” tunnel consists of two long corridors for entry and exit, two large rooms for patient beds, a narrower room and three smaller adjoining rooms for storing hospital equipment. The walls of the tunnel, dug into the rock, are lined with concrete blocks made by local Greek workers. The roof of the two main halls was also covered with concrete blocks, which were arranged in an arch to be better protected against bombing raids. Although it has now been around 80 years since construction work was completed, the premises are in excellent condition. The Museum. In May 2014 the "Milos War Museum" was inaugurated. The initiative came from Grigoris Belivanakis. For decades, the journalist, writer and chronicler of the island has collected materials, documents and eyewitness statements on the occupation of Milos. In 2011 he published a comprehensive book on the subject, 3 which so far is only available in Greek. (Grigoris Belivanakis: The Germans on Milos 1941-45. Athens 2011) A German and English translation is strongly recommended. Since 2014, a photo exhibition from the Belivanakis archive has been on display in the rooms of the historical tunnel construction (some photographs from the First World War and primarily those from the Second World War in Milos) as well as material donated to the museum by individuals. Among them are cots, weapons, plans, maps, documents, medical equipment. A box of honor is set up for the fourteen executed Greeks of February 23, 1943. The order of the German commander Hans Kawelmacher is also issued there as a document and can be read verbatim. "To the people of Milos", reads the official letter: "I have..." The list with the fourteen names follows: "...have been summarily shot for stealing and plundering German Wehrmacht property originating from the steamer 'Artemis'". A war crime committed in the spirit of "total war" that went unpunished. The German commander, Hans Kawelmacher, was commander on Milos from 1942 to 1943, after the end of the war he went unpunished. Never again war!" is the slogan that Grigoris Belivanakis (1929-2020), the museum's founder, always emphasized in his lectures and writings.