Letter from the TKP to the KKE regarding the historical documents on the 200 communists in Kaisariani

TKP leader Kemal Okuyan in Kaisariani, May 2025

On the occasion of the release of the unique photographs depicting the execution of the 200 heroic communists by the Nazis, on 1 May 1944 in Kaisariani, Athens, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) sent a fraternal letter to the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).  

 

The letter — a memorial of proletarian internationalism — reads: 

To the leadership of the KKE

Dear comrades,

KKE: The photographs depicting the last moments of the 200 of Kaisariani reveal the moral greatness of the communists

Eighty-two years after the mass execution of 200 Greek communist fighters by the Nazis at the Athens' Kaisariani Shooting Range, photographs said to depict the victims’ final moments have surfaced for the first time. The images were discovered in an album listed in an online eBay auction by a seller based in Belgium. 

 

According to available information, the album appears to have belonged to a German officer who served in a unit stationed in Malakasa, in the outskirts of Athens, during the Occupation.

 

Napoleon Soukatzidis and the 200 heroic Communists of Kaisariani

Still from the film "The Last Note" (2017)

 By Nikos Mottas

It was in the early hours of 1 May 1944 in occupied Athens when one of the most heroic pages of the Greek resistance was written. In retaliation for the killing of a German General, the Nazis proceeded to the mass execution of 200 communists at the eastern district of the Kaisariani. All of them were former political prisoners and exiles, members and sympathizers of the Communist Party (KKE).

A few days ago, on 27 April 1944, partisans of the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) had ambushed and killed German General Franz Krech and three Nazi officers in Laconia, Peloponnese.