Manolis Paterakis

Manolis or Emmanouil Paterakis (Greek: Εμμανουήλ (Μανώλης) Πατεράκης)^[1]: 158 was a member of the Cretan resistance during World War II, who lived in the village of Koustogerako in the then-province of Selino. In English language sources, he also appears as Manoli Paterakis.^[2]

Life

Kreipe's abduction team; Paterakis is second from right.

At the outbreak of World War II, Paterakis was a young gendarme on the island of Crete.^[3][4] After the Battle of Crete he evacuated to the Middle East, where he trained with the British Commandos in sabotage.^[5] He was returned to Crete, along with Georgios Tyrakis, as the permanent partners of Patrick Leigh Fermor and W. Stanley Moss on a mission to capture German general Heinrich Kreipe.^[6] They arrested the general and drove him to the mountains, continuing south to a bay codenamed "X75" near Rodakino, from which Kreipe was embarked on a British motor launch destined for Cairo.

As the war continued, the Germans murdered Paterakis's father and his two brothers.^[7] After the war, he found himself without work. Considerably later on, the Germans, ignorant of the part which he had played in taking Kreipe prisoner, employed him as a guard at the Maleme German military cemetery.

External links

• The Chronicle of the National Resistance on YouTube - Documentary from the archive of Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (1985, in Greek)
• Television broadcast from 1972 with participants in the kidnapping (in Greek) on YouTube