“What would have happened if I had been born 20 years earlier?” Hagen Fleischer wondered when he first saw the photographs of the 200 men executed in the Kaisariani shooting range on May Day 1944. Would he still be studying the faces of the condemned through the same black-and-white images, as he does today – or might he have stood on the other side, among the firing squad? “The thought gnaws at me,” he reflects. “On the clock of history, what are 20 years?” Over decades of research, Fleischer – emeritus professor of history at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (EKPA) – has never shied away from difficult subjects or from confronting the past. Through his scholarship and teaching, he helped shape a new generation of historians in Greece now studying World War II and the Occupation. We meet him at his home in Kapandriti, northeast of Athens, on the occasion of the Ministry of Culture’s acquisition of rare photographic documents from the Kaisariani executions – images on which he has not spoken publicly until now.
‘Necessary evil’
He points to the “dignity” in the bearing of the condemned, their “resolute stride” as they walk toward certain death. He also underscores the significance of the photographs themselves. “We can now see an event that previously existed only in narratives and testimonies,” he says. As a historian, he admits to mixed feelings about the online acquisition of such materials and the dealers who “profit” from historical memory. Yet he also recognizes it as a “necessary evil.” “Otherwise, they might have been lost,” he adds.
Before leading us into his study, he shows us the garden and the scars left by the wildfire of August 2024. “This pine tree would be my age today,” says the 82-year-old, pointing to a charred trunk. That day, they were fortunate: The house survived, and his extensive archive – his “paper treasure,” as his wife calls it – remained intact.
Fleischer settles into a sofa with leather armrests and embroidered cushions. He wears a gray turtleneck beneath his cardigan, and his face is newly bare – he shaved off the beard he had worn for decades just days earlier. On the edge of his desk lies a draft speech for the presentation of a recently published book by Annita Panaretou, recounting the story of eight hostages executed by the Nazis at the Kaisariani shooting range in June 1942. One of them, Michalis Akylas – a naval officer later transferred to the Air Force – became, posthumously, a relative of Fleischer by marriage.
In the summer of 1941, a German-Greek dictionary was printed for Wehrmacht soldiers. ‘It contained the most essential words for a German soldier – “shoe,” “polish” – but alongside them were “shoot” and “hostage”’
The glossary
Fleischer offers a telling example of the Wehrmacht’s cynical approach to executions. In the summer of 1941, he notes, a German-Greek dictionary was printed for Wehrmacht soldiers. “It contained the most essential words for a German soldier – ‘shoe,’ ‘polish’ – but alongside them were ‘shoot’ and ‘hostage,’” he says.
On May 1, 1944, 200 Greeks were taken to Kaisariani – most of them communist political prisoners of the Metaxas regime, handed over to the Nazis three years earlier. They were executed in retaliation for the killing of German Lieutenant General Franz Krech in an ambush by ELAS partisans in Molaoi, Laconia. “Suhnequote – ‘atonement quota’ – that’s what they called it,” Fleischer notes. “Atonement is almost a religious term – they saw it as a kind of sacrilege to raise a hand against Germans.”
The ‘apology’
The historian pulls one of his own books from the shelf beside us – “The Wars of Memory: The Second World War in Public History.” As he flips through it, his hand pauses on a page featuring a photograph from the June 1987 visit of then German president Richard von Weizsacker to the Kaisariani shooting range. It was the first visit by a German president to Greece in 31 years, and Fleischer understood its powerful symbolism. He had earlier suggested that Weizsacker lay a wreath in Kalavryta in the Peloponnese – where in December 1943 the Nazis massacred the town’s entire male population over the age of 12 in a reprisal for the killing of German soldiers – but was told that a second trip outside Athens was not feasible, as the president would also visit the island of Samos. Fleischer then proposed Kaisariani instead.
Although the German ambassador strongly supported the idea, it initially met resistance from the German Foreign Ministry and from conservative circles in Greece connected to the embassy. “‘Only communists were killed there,’ they argued – which is inaccurate,” Fleischer recalls. There were also concerns about how the visit would be received locally and the possibility of protests. Fleischer intervened, speaking directly with the then mayor of Kaisariani, Panagiotis Makris, and the visit ultimately went ahead without incident.
“No one – especially no German – can stand here without being deeply moved by the message of this place,” Weizsacker said in his speech. “Many sacrificed their lives, like those buried here, among them 19 young people up to the age of 14. I bow to their memory.”
For Fleischer, it was a significant moment. Yet something, he says, was missing: The word “apology” was never spoken. On the German side, it would remain taboo until 2014, when then president Joachim Gauck visited the martyred village of Ligiades in northwestern Greece. There, in September 1943, a unit of the elite 1st Mountain Division Edelweiss executed 83 residents of all ages – from a 2-month-old to a centenarian. Fleischer again played a role in that visit, helping ensure that this time the word “forgiveness” would be spoken at the highest level. He recalls that shortly before the speech, the interpreter consulted him to confirm the translation. “I asked her whether the word ‘forgiveness’ or ‘apology’ appeared in the text. She said yes. ‘Then it will be good,’ I told her.”
‘German-Greek,’ a badge of honor
“German-Greek” – it’s what the poet Kostas Varnalis called Hagen Fleischer.
Born in 1944 in Austria, Fleischer met his future wife, Eleni Lambropoulou, in 1968 among anti-dictatorship circles in Berlin. It was after meeting her that he decided to shift his research focus from the German occupation of Denmark to that of Greece. “Marry the girl, but don’t ruin your future,” he recalls his dissertation supervisor warning him. When he later explained his decision to fellow doctoral candidates in Berlin, their reaction surprised him: “Were we there, too?” they asked – a phrasing that still strikes him today.
At the time, a kind of “memory-erasing” approach prevailed in Germany. Historical accounts of World War II tended to treat Greece only briefly, often glossing over the atrocities committed by occupying forces. After completing his doctorate, Fleischer moved permanently to Greece in 1977. He went on to teach at EKPA and the University of Crete, and became a Greek citizen in 1985.
He had wondered how the locals would receive a German speaking about the Occupation. In the end, everything went smoothly, he says – except that the tsikoudia flowed a little too freely for his liking
He recalls giving a lecture decades ago in Anogeia, a village razed by German forces in August 1944 as a brutal reprisal for the community’s role in the resistance and the kidnapping of General Heinrich Kreipe. He had wondered how the locals would receive a German speaking about the occupation. In the end, everything went smoothly, he says – except that the tsikoudia flowed a little too freely for his liking.
Asked about the reactions he has faced over the years, Fleischer recounts episodes from the 1980s, when some in Germany viewed him as a provocateur – someone stirring up painful memories and raising “divisive” questions about Greek-German relations.
The hostility resurfaced in 2012, after an Austrian publication ran a lengthy interview with him under the headline, “Friends pay their debts,” referring to the forced occupation loan. “Of the 911 online comments, about 80% were negative – many of them insulting or vengeful. ‘If we come back to Greece, we’ll deal with you, traitor,’ they wrote. The journalist told me the worst comments weren’t even published,” he recalls.
In Greece, he says, the reactions have been milder and rarely focused on his origins. “The criticism I faced here was more about my presumed political stance,” he notes, adding that Varnalis’ “badge of honor” still accompanies him today. As a “German-Greek,” he says, his aim has always been for his first homeland to stand in moral balance with his second.