Greece has acquired a trove of World War II photographs showing the last moments of 200 men executed by German soldiers following the assassination of a Nazi general, the culture minister said Saturday.

The collection includes 262 photographs, 16 documents and four contemporary banknotes. The photographs are believed to have been taken by a German soldier who had also served in Belgium and France.

"The transfer of ownership of the photographic collection... has been completed," Lina Mendoni said in a statement.

The ministry had previously said they showed "the last moments" of 200 communists executed at an Athens shooting range on May 1, 1944.

Twelve of the photographs had appeared on the eBay site Crain's Militaria earlier this month before being taken down.

They had provoked strong emotions in Greece, especially among relatives of the victims.

Ministry officials then traveled to Belgium to meet the collector who put them for sale and verify their authenticity.

Some of the images had received bids worth more than $2,000 before Belgian collector Tim de Craen took them down, France 24 reported.

"I fully understand that these photographs are of a particularly sensitive historical nature," he told Greek newspaper I Kathimerini.

The executions followed the killing of a German general and his staff by communist guerrillas a few days earlier.

Greece was under Nazi occupation from 1941 until 1944.

Most of the executed men had been arrested years earlier during anti-communist raids by the police of Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas.

Until now, the only testimony of the 200 victims' final moments were from handwritten notes they threw out of the trucks taking them to the execution site.

One of the pictures shows the men marching through a field. Others show them standing against a wall at the shooting range.

The most dramatic photograph shows several of them looking defiantly into the camera. Two of them appear to be singing.

"The photographs shocked me," Polymeris Voglis, a university professor in social history in Greece, told France 24. "Although the execution of 200 resistance fighters is a well-known historical event, until now there has been no photographic evidence of it."

"Some of the photographs show the faces of the men, reflecting their determination as they walk proudly towards the firing squad," Voglis told the outlet.


Greece acquired a trove of World War II photographs showing the last moments of 200 men executed by German soldiers. Greece Culture Ministry

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