The kidnap of the German General Heinrich Kreipe.
In January 1944, Cairo East section of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) hatched a daring plot to kidnap the commander of the 22nd Infantry Division based on Crete, General-Leutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm Muller. Müller was executed for war crimes, age 49, on 20-05-1947.
The plot was led by Major Patrick Leigh Fermor, along with his second-in-command, Captain William Stanley Moss, later author of Ill Met by Moonlight, a book made into a film of the same name, and two Greek SOE agents, all of whom arrived by sea.
General Major Heinrich Kreipe succeeded Friedrich Wilhelm Muller on March 01-03-1944, but SOE elected to continue with the kidnap mission. Joining with Cretan partisans, the SOE agents studied Kreipe’s daily work habits and his travel route from his quarters at Knossos to the divisional headquarters at Ano Arkhanais.
On the evening of 26-04-1944, Major Patrick Leigh Fermor 
and Captain Ivan William Stanley “Billy” Moss, dressed as German military policemen 
, stopped Kreipe’s staff car on a hairpin turn under the guise of a routine traffic control point. After pulling the General out of the car and throwing him into the back seat, the agents drove him to an isolated spot, where he was taken on a gruelling cross-country trek over the mountains to the southern shore of the island. 
On 14-05-1944, the SOE agents and their captive German General were picked up by a British motor launch off a desolate beach near Rodakino and spirited away to Mersa Matruh, Egypt. Leigh Fermor and Moss both received the Distinguished Service Order 
for the operation.
Kreipe was taken to London for interrogation before being transferred to prisoner-of-war camp near Calgary in Canada. He was later returned to the UK and imprisoned at Island Farm, Special Camp 11 near Bridgend. He was twice treated for diabetes at hospital Camp 99 at Shugborough Park in Staffordshire. 
On 10-10-1947, he was transferred from Camp 99 to Hamburg via Southampton aboard the El Nil. Heinrich Kreipe was honourably discharged from the military in 1947 and retired to Hanover.
On 07-05-1972, the abduction team, minus Moss, who had died tragically, age 44, on 09-08-1965 
, held a reunion in Greece at which Heinrich Kreipe was also present. During the banquet, Patrick Leigh Fermor, in fluent Greek and German, said: ‘After 28 years, General, we apologize to you for what happened and hope you have no hard feelings.’ The white-haired general, sitting with his wife, nodded and said, ‘None; otherwise I would not be here.’ 
Later Kreipe and his captors appeared on the Greek This Is Your Life programme. When asked how he was treated by his abductors, Kreipe said firmly, ‘Ritterlich’ chivalrously.’
Karl Heinrich Georg Ferdinand Kreipe died in Hanover on 14-06-1976 at the age of 81, Patrick ‘Paddy’ Leigh Fermor 
was knighted in 2004 and in his last years he suffered from tunnel vision and wore hearing aids, he remained physically fit up to his death, age 96 on 10-06-2011 and dined at table on the last evening of his life.
