A critical target during the German invasion, was the Corinth Canal which divided the Peloponnesus from the Greek mainland as Hitler saw it as the gateway to control the Aegean Sea and trap the evacuating Allied forces in Greece if it were captured and kept operational.

Coming to the aid of its struggling ally, Nazi Germany launched an invasion of its own known as Operation Marita, which began on 6 April.

The German forces considered that if the bridge could be captured and held, the planned Allied evacuation to either Crete or Egypt would be delayed if not stopped entirely.

[4] The air assault forces consisted of: German soldiers complement: 800[5] In the morning hours of 26 April 1941, the defending Allied forces at the Canal bridge were submitted to a surprise attack in the form of machine gun fire and a high altitude bombing of the Canal Zone from German dive bombers which were escorted by Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighters.

[6] Despite the resistance of the British troops, a group of 54 paratrooper engineers managed to land near the canal and both battalions of the 2nd Fallschirmjäger Regiment reached their intended positions at the north and south ends of the bridge.

Their arrival was immediately met with Allied machine gun and rifle fire as the German troops had landed several hundred meters away from the bridge in a valley, which forced them to take cover after freeing themselves from their parachute.

Shortly after the paratroopers entered the town, the civil and military authorities surrendered in order to insure the well-being of the civilians.

After capturing Corinth, Hauptmann Schirmer ordered Lieutenant Teussen to act as an advance guard and to press ahead with his platoon towards Nauplia.

[7] In the meantime, the German paratroopers had removed the Allied demolition charges and had piled all of them in the middle of the bridge in order to be disabled later.

War reporter Sonderführer Ernest von der Heyden was also killed in the explosion, his camera was recovered afterwards from one of the Canal banks.

The late arrival of fuel carried by the Italian convoys caused the airborne invasion of Crete to be postponed by two days to 20 May.

[15] The German intervention into the North African campaign further increased the canal's importance as Pireaus became a major center of Axis logistics.