Major General (Generalmajor) Franz Krech (23 June 1889 – 27 April 1944) was the German commander of the 41st Fortress Division of the Wehrmacht during the World War II Axis occupation of Greece.
[3][4][5] A platoon of the 8th (Laconian) Regiment of ELAS, under 2nd Lieutenant[2] Manolis Stathakis,[6][7] ambushed the German major general[8] in the region of Laconia on 27 April 1944.
The day before, German Major General Heinrich Kreipe had been kidnapped by British agents and Greek civilian activists in Crete.
The American OSS and the British SOE, with the collaboration of the Greek National Liberation Front, spread the story, for propaganda reasons (see Operation Hemlock) but also to prevent German reprisals, that Krech had been executed by the Gestapo as a "dissident" and they publicized a forged letter calling on German soldiers to desert.
The orders for reprisals were given by the Higher Military Commander of the Peloponnese, Major General Karl von Le Suire.