• 1942 – World War II: The Lidice massacre is perpetrated as a reprisal for the assassination of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich.
• 1944 – World War II: Six hundred forty-two men, women and children massacred at Oradour-sur-Glane, France.
• 1944 – World War II: In Distomo, Boeotia, Greece, 218 men, women and children are massacred by German troops.

Distomo massacre


German troops in front of buildings set ablaze in Distomo, during the massacre.

Location: Distomo, Kingdom of Greece (under German-occupation)
Date: 10 June 1944
Deaths: 228 civilians
Perpetrators: Karl Schümers, Fritz Lautenbach
4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division

The Distomo massacre (Greek: {DU doesn't recognize Greek characters}; German: Massaker von Distomo or the Distomo-Massaker) was a Nazi war crime which was perpetrated by members of the Waffen-SS in the village of Distomo, Greece, in 1944, during the German occupation of Greece during World War II.

{snip}

The massacre

On 10 June 1944, for over two hours, Waffen-SS troops of the 2nd company, I/7 battalion, 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division under the command of the 26-year-old SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Lautenbach went door to door and massacred Greek civilians as part of "savage reprisals" for a partisan attack upon the unit's convoy.

A Greek housewife living in Distomo in a postwar affidavit known only as Nitsa N. stated on the afternoon of 10 June, she saw the Waffen-SS drive into the village and they immediately shot down everyone they saw on the streets. She reported that one of the SS kicked in the door to her house and shot down her husband and her children in the kitchen. Other accounts mentioned that 2nd company engaged extensively in rape, looting, and mutilation. A Greek schoolgirl known as Sofia D. reported that she was with her father and brother working the fields outside of the village when they saw smoke rising up to blacken the sky. Sofia D. reported that her father told the children to stay in the field while he headed back for their mother. While heading away from Distomo, Sofia and her brother encountered Waffen-SS men on a truck headed towards the village and both were shot down as they attempted to run away.

A total of 228 men, women and children were killed in Distomo, a small village near Delphi. According to survivors, SS forces "bayoneted babies in their cribs, stabbed pregnant women, and beheaded the village priest." However, another source ("Life, The First Decade", Time Inc., 1979, p. 138. LCCN 79-88091) refers to "the 1,000 citizens slaughtered by the Germans". An appalled Red Cross team from Athens which arrived at the ruins of Distomo a few days later reported seeing mutilated bodies hanging from the trees all along the road to Distomo.

Following the massacre, a Secret Field Police agent, Georg Koch, accompanying the German forces informed the authorities that, contrary to Lautenbach's official report, the German troops had come under attack several miles from Distomo and had not been fired upon "with mortars, machine-guns and rifles from the direction of Distomo". Following a complaint from the collaborationist Hellenic State regime of Ioannis Rallis to Hermann Neubacher of the Auswärtiges Amt, an investigation was opened. As a diplomat, Neubacher was concerned at maintaining the increasing shaky Rallis government whose authority was collapsing by 1944. An inquiry was convened. As Lautenbach was operating under the command of the Army Group E at the time of the massacre, the inquiry was conducted by Wehrmacht officers, not SS officers. Lautenbach admitted that he had gone beyond standing orders, but the tribunal found in his favour, holding that he had been motivated, not by negligence or ignorance, but by a sense of responsibility towards his men.

{snip}