The remaining Greek forces and the British commonwealth forces left in mainland Greece were evacuated to the island of Crete. This provided a problem for the axis forces who wanted the southern flank completely secured before Operation Barbarossa. Nearly everyone in the high command wanted to attack Malta but Kurt Student the inspector of the German airborne troops deemed Malta to heavily defended to attack and instead chose Crete because he felt it would be easier to assault from the air. Goering backed this plan because it gave him a chance to rehabilitate his Luftwaffe's reputation after their failure in Britain. The Germans took horrendous losses because Student had not accounted for the harshness of Crete's terrain and the ferocity of the defenders. But, they eventually overcame the rigorous defenses and took Crete.

The consequences of the battle for Crete were twofold, first it introduced to the allies the concept of a massive airborne assault, the western allies had already begun experimenting with airborne units but the Cretan battles showed that they could be effective in large numbers. On the other hand Hitler was appalled by the losses and forbade future airborne operations in large numbers.

New Zealanders played a huge role in the defense of Crete. They were assigned to defend the Maleme airstrip, which was necessary for the Germans to capture if they wanted to be resupplied. The New Zealand units were effective soldiers , to say the least. There is a common anecdote passed around that 60 New Zealand troops serving prison time for minor offences were let out and within an hour had killed over 110 Germans.

Source:

The Second World War by Jonh Keegan

This book devotes a whole chapter to the Battle of Crete and what it meant for airborne warfare.