The Waffen-SS was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both German-occupied Europe and unoccupied lands. It was disbanded in May 1945.
On 10 June 1944, four days after D-Day, the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne in Nazi-occupied France was destroyed when 643 civilians, including non-combatant men, women, and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company as collective punishment for Resistance activity in the area including the capture and subsequent execution of a close friend of Waffen-SS Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann, Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe, who an informant incorrectly claimed had been burned alive in front of an audience. Kämpfe was a commander in the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich.
Villeneuve-d'Ascq is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. With more than 60,000 inhabitants and 50,000 students, it is one of the main cities of the Métropole Européenne de Lille and the largest in area (27.46 km2) after Lille. It is also one of the main cities of the Hauts-de-France region.
The 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler or SS Division Leibstandarte, abbreviated as LSSAH, began as Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard unit, responsible for guarding the Führer's person, offices, and residences. Initially the size of a regiment, the LSSAH eventually grew into an elite division-sized unit during World War II.
The Marzabotto massacre, or more correctly, the massacre of Monte Sole, was a World War II war crime consisting of the mass murder of at least 770 civilians by Nazi troops, which took place in the territory around the small village of Marzabotto, in the mountainous area south of Bologna. It was the largest massacre of civilians committed by the Waffen SS in western Europe during the war. It is also the deadliest mass shooting in the history of Italy.
The SS Division Hitlerjugend or 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend" was a German armoured division of the Waffen-SS during World War II. The majority of its junior enlisted men were drawn from members of the Hitler Youth, while the senior NCOs and officers were from other Waffen-SS divisions. Most of the enlisted men were teenagers, starting from the ages of 16 or even 15.
Kurt Meyer was an SS commander and convicted war criminal of Nazi Germany. He served in the Waffen-SS and participated in the Battle of France, Operation Barbarossa, and other engagements during World War II. Meyer commanded the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend during the Allied invasion of Normandy, and was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.
Wilhelm Mohnke was a German military officer who was one of the original members of the SchutzstaffelSS-Stabswache Berlin formed in March 1933. Mohnke, who had joined the Nazi Party in September 1931, rose through the ranks to become one of Adolf Hitler's last remaining general officers at the end of World War II in Europe.
Walter Reder was an Austrian SS commander and war criminal during World War II. He served with the SS Division Totenkopf and the SS Division Reichsführer-SS. He and the unit under his command committed the Vinca massacre and Marzabotto massacre in Italy in 1944. After the war, Reder was convicted of war crimes in Italy.
Fritz Witt was a Waffen-SS commander during the Nazi era. During World War II, he served with the SS Division Leibstandarte before taking command of the SS Division Hitlerjugend. He was killed in action in June 1944.
The Ardenne Abbey massacre occurred during the Battle of Normandy at the Ardenne Abbey, a Premonstratensian monastery in Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-Herbe, near Caen, France. In June 1944, 20 Canadian soldiers were massacred in a garden at the abbey by members of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend over the course of several days and weeks. This was part of the Normandy Massacres, a series of scattered killings during which up to 156 Canadian prisoners of war were murdered by soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division during the Battle of Normandy. The perpetrators of the massacre, members of the 12th SS Panzer Division, were known for their fanaticism, the majority having been drawn from the Hitlerjugend or Hitler Youth.
Carl Albrecht Oberg was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He served as Senior SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) in occupied France, from May 1942 to November 1944, during the Second World War, Oberg came to be known as the Butcher of Paris. From May 1942, under orders from Reinhard Heydrich, Oberg ordered the execution of hundreds of hostages and the roundup and deportation of over 40,000 Jews from France to extermination camps, most infamously during the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup with the assistance of the Vichy French police.
The Tulle massacre was the roundup and summary execution of civilians in the French town of Tulle by the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich in June 1944, three days after the D-Day landings in World War II.
Ascq is a former commune on the Marque river in the Nord department in northern France, at seven kilometers from Belgium. Agricultural village until the Industrial Revolution, the former independent commune merged with others to become a district of the new town planned community of Villeneuve-d'Ascq since 1970. The operatic bass Louis-Henri Obin (1820–1895) was born in Ascq.
Ascq station is a railway station serving the former village of Ascq, now part of Villeneuve-d'Ascq city, Nord department, northern France.
Kurt Mälzer was a German general of the Luftwaffe and a war criminal during World War II. In 1943, Mälzer was appointed the military commander of the city of Rome, subordinated to General Eberhard von Mackensen under the overall command of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. Under his authority, Mälzer commanded not only the garrison Wehrmacht troops in Rome itself, but also indirectly the SS security forces in the city.
Walter Hauck was a German SS officer infamous for the atrocities committed under his command during the Second World War.
Two of the three major Axis powers of World War II—Nazi Germany and their Fascist Italian allies—committed war crimes in the Kingdom of Italy.
Occurring amid the Battle of France, the Oignies and Courrières massacre involved mass killings of French civilians in the two nearby town of Oignies and Courrières in Nord-Pas de Calais on 27–28 May 1940. The number of victims is reckoned at between 114 or 124. The unit responsible for the atrocity was the 487th Infantry Regiment of the 267th Infantry Division in the Wehrmacht. The massacre was one of the largest to occur during the Battle of France. Altogether, it is thought a total of 500 French civilians were murdered by German forces in Nord-Pas de Calais in May 1940.
Paul Hermann Feustel was a member of the Nazi Party who served in the SS and the Gestapo during World War II. During the war, he would eventually reach the rank of Hauptsturmführer, and committed numerous atrocities in Czechoslovakia, including the ordering of a massacre after Germany's surrender. Feustel initially managed to avoid detection after the war. However, he was arrested by East German authorities in 1971. Feustel was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, sentenced to death, and executed in 1973.
Nazi Germany, 
12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend 
