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CRETE -Deutscher Soldaten Friedhof, the German war cemetery overlooking the Maleme airfield, is a crime scene today following a recent outbreak of thefts and defacements. Over half of the cemetery's 4,000 graves are believed to have been tampered with, and local officials have called upon the International Criminal Police Organization (ICP0)-Interpol to aid in determining the culprits and their motive. 

"I've never seen anything like this," said cemetery caretaker Daphnis Zaharopoulos. "Security has always been light here because everyone has always been respectful. Whoever did this took advantage of decades of peace and good will."

Most of the damage to the graves appears to be the result of digging, though remains were only removed from an estimated fifty Waffen-SS officers' graves.  "Clearly this means the thieves were looking for something in particular," Interpol Investigative Officer Walter Kidman said. "Whatever they were after, they must have found it. We have officers combing the island and checking with the international collectors' market.  These hoodlums won't get far." 

Historians and archaeologists have been asked to help determine what might have been valuable enough to encourage such an unusual crime. Being the final resting place for Nazi soldiers killed in the 1941 Battle of Crete, the cemetery wasn't thought to hold anything of significance. "We wouldn't have buried anything important," said Bairbre Jacoumis, who was ten years old when the Nazis invaded the small Mediterranean island. "I remember my father and the other men searching all the bodies, taking all the identification papers and weapons. Those grave-robbers were after something else... Unless their goal was merely desecration."  

Strangely, cemetery caretakers report that much of the graves' disturbed earth is apparently missing.  "It's only a guess right now, but we're looking at as much as several hundred pounds of missing dirt," said one caretaker who wished to remain anonymous.  "What anyone would do with it, let alone how they got it out of here, is beyond me." The most reasonable explanation thus far points to horticultural uses for the earth. "Grave dirt is rich in minerals and nutrients known to accelerate plant growth," said Richard Fowls, head of Botanical Research at New York's Green Thumb Society.

The vandals etched strange marks upon various gravestones and the cemetery's front gate. "We've seen similar markings in Austria, Germany, and France," said Kidman, "sometimes at crime scenes, sometimes as graffiti. We initially believed they were variations of ancient Germanic runes being used as gang signs, but this event changes things. Why would neo-Nazi gangs vandalize the graves of people they admire?"

The hill upon which the cemetery rests was vital for the control of the Chania airport in 1941, which has since been replaced by the smaller Maleme airport. A total of 6,580 Germans were killed in the Battle of Crete, along with almost 2,000 Allied soldiers.

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