Waffen-SS in the context of Paramilitary

A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostages, unnecessarily destroying civilian property, deception by perfidy, wartime sexual violence, pillaging, and for any individual that is part of the command structure who orders any attempt to committing mass killings (including genocide or ethnic cleansing), the granting of no quarter despite surrender, the conscription of children in the military, and flouting the legal distinctions of proportionality and military necessity.

The formal concept of war crimes emerged from countries fighting and the codification of the customary international law that applied to warfare between sovereign states, such as the Lieber Code (1863) of the Union Army in the American Civil War and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 for international war. In the aftermath of World War II, the war-crime trials of the leaders of the Axis powers established the Nuremberg principles, such as that international criminal law defines what is a war crime. In 1899, the Geneva Conventions legally defined new war crimes and established that states could exercise universal jurisdiction over war criminals. In the late 20th century and early 21st century, international courts extrapolated and defined additional categories of war crimes applicable to a civil war.

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often referred by its shortened name as the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War, especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army. In February 1946, the Red Army (which embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces alongside the Soviet Navy) was renamed the "Soviet Army". Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union it was split between the post-Soviet states, with its bulk becoming the Russian Ground Forces, commonly considered to be the successor of the Soviet Army.

The Red Army provided the largest ground force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II, and its invasion of Manchuria assisted the unconditional surrender of Japan. During its operations on the Eastern Front, it accounted for 75–80% of the casualties that the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS suffered during the war, and ultimately captured the German capital, Berlin.

The victim theory (German: Opferthese), encapsulated in the slogan "Austria – the Nazis' first victim" (Österreich – das erste Opfer der Nazis), was the 1949–1988 Austrian ideological basis formed by Austrians themselves under Allied occupation and the independent Second Austrian Republic. According to the founders of the Second Austrian Republic, the 1938 Anschluss was an act of military aggression by the Third Reich. Austrian statehood had been interrupted and therefore the newly revived Austria of 1945 could not be considered responsible for the Nazis' crimes in any way. The "victim theory" that had formed by 1949 insisted that all of the Austrians, including those who strongly supported Adolf Hitler, had been unwilling victims of the Nazi regime and were therefore not responsible for its crimes.

The "victim theory" became a fundamental myth in Austrian society which allowed previously bitter political opponents – e.g. the Social Democrats and the conservative Catholics – to unite and bring former Nazis back into social and political life. For almost half a century, the Austrian state denied the existence of any continuity between it and the political regime that had existed in Austria from 1938 to 1945, actively kept up the myth of Austrian self-sacrificing statehood, and cultivated an image of national unity. Postwar denazification was quickly wound up; veterans of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS took an honorable place in society. The struggle for justice by the actual victims of Nazism – primarily Jews – was deprecated as an attempt to obtain illicit enrichment at the expense of the rest of the Austrian nation.

The Malmedy massacre was a German war crime committed by soldiers of the Waffen-SS on 17 December 1944 at the Baugnez crossroads near the city of Malmedy, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945). Soldiers of Kampfgruppe Peiper summarily killed eighty-four U.S. Army prisoners of war (POWs) who had surrendered after a brief battle. The Waffen-SS soldiers had grouped the U.S. POWs in a farmer's field, where they used machine guns to shoot and kill the grouped POWs; many of the prisoners of war who survived the gunfire of the massacre were executed with a gunshot to the head.

Besides the summary execution of the eighty-four U.S. POWs at the farmer's field, the term "Malmedy massacre" also includes other Waffen-SS massacres of civilians and POWs in Belgian villages and towns in the time after their first massacre of U.S. POWs at Malmedy; these Waffen-SS war crimes were the subjects of the Malmedy massacre trial (May–July 1946), which was a part of the Dachau trials (1945–1947).

The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (German: [ˈoːbɐkɔˌmando deːɐ̯ ˈveːɐ̯ˌmaxt] ; abbreviated OKW [oː kaːˈve] Armed Forces High Command) was the supreme military command and control staff of Nazi Germany during World War II, that was directly subordinated to Adolf Hitler. Created in 1938, the OKW replaced the Reich Ministry of War and had nominal oversight over the individual high commands of the country's armed forces: the army (Heer), navy (Kriegsmarine) and air force (Luftwaffe). With the start of World War II, tactical control of the Waffen-SS was also exercised by it. There was no direct chain of command between the OKW and the other High Commands.

Rivalry with the different services' commands, mainly with the Army High Command (OKH), prevented the OKW from becoming a unified German General Staff in an effective chain of command, though it did help coordinate operations among the three services. During the war, the OKW acquired more and more operational powers. By 1942, the OKW had responsibility for all theatres except for the Eastern Front. However, Hitler manipulated the system in order to prevent any one command from taking a dominant role in decision making. This "divide and conquer" method helped put most military decisions in Hitler's own hands, which at times included even those affecting engagements at the battalion level, a practice which, due to bureaucratic delays and Hitler's worsening indecision as the war progressed, would eventually contribute to Germany's defeat.

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (German: [ˈhaɪnʁɪç ˈluːɪtpɔlt ˈhɪmlɐ] ; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician and military leader. He was the 4th Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful figures in Nazi Germany. He was also one of the main architects of the Holocaust.

After serving in a reserve battalion during World War I without seeing combat, Himmler went on to join the Nazi Party in 1923. In 1925, he joined the SS, which was initially a small paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party that served as a bodyguard unit for Adolf Hitler. Himmler rose steadily through the SS's ranks to become Reichsführer-SS by 1929. Under Himmler's leadership, the SS grew from a 290-man battalion into one of the most powerful institutions in Nazi Germany. Over the course of his career, Himmler acquired a reputation for good organisational skills and for selecting highly competent subordinates, such as Reinhard Heydrich. From 1943 onwards, he was both Chief of the Kriminalpolizei (Criminal Police) and Minister of the Interior, which gave him oversight of all police and security forces (including the Gestapo). He also controlled the Waffen-SS, a branch of the SS that served in combat alongside the Wehrmacht (Germany's armed forces) in World War II.

The government of Nazi Germany was a totalitarian dictatorship governed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party according to the Führerprinzip. Nazi Germany was established in January 1933 with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, followed by suspension of basic rights with the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act which gave Hitler's regime the power to pass and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or German president, and de facto ended with Germany's surrender in World War II on 8 May 1945 and de jure ended with the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945.

As the successor to the government of the Weimar Republic, it inherited the governmental structure and institutions of the previous state. Although the Weimar Constitution technically remained in effect until the German surrender, there were no actual restraints on the exercise of state power. In addition to the already extant Weimar government, the Nazi leadership created a large number of different organizations for the purpose of helping them govern and remain in power. They pursued a policy of rearmament and strengthened the Wehrmacht, established an extensive national security apparatus and created the Waffen-SS, the combat branch of the Schutzstaffel (SS).

The Indian Legion (German: Indische Legion), officially the Free India Legion (German: Legion Freies Indien) or 950th (Indian) Infantry Regiment (German: Infanterie-Regiment 950 (indisches)), was a military unit raised during the Second World War initially as part of the German Army and later the Waffen-SS from August 1944. Intended to serve as a liberation force for British-ruled India, it was made up of Indian prisoners of war and expatriates in Europe. Owing to its origins in the Indian independence movement, it was known also as the "Tiger Legion", and the "Azad Hind Fauj". As part of the Waffen-SS it was known as the Indian Volunteer Legion of the Waffen-SS (German: Indische Freiwilligen Legion der Waffen-SS). The transfer to the Waffen-SS was never fully executed and many members of the division refused to wear the new uniforms and insignia.

Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose initiated the legion's formation, as part of his efforts to win India's independence by waging war against Britain, when he came to Berlin in 1941 seeking German aid. The initial recruits in 1941 were volunteers from the Indian students resident in Germany at the time, and a handful of the Indian prisoners of war who had been captured during the North African campaign. It later drew a larger number of Indian prisoners of war as volunteers.

The 250th Infantry Division (German: 250. Infanterie-Division), better known as the Blue Division (Spanish: División Azul, Blaue Division), was a unit of volunteers from Francoist Spain operating from 1941 to 1943 within the German Army (Heer) on the Eastern Front during World War II. It was officially designated the Spanish Volunteer Division (División Española de Voluntarios) by the Spanish Army.

Francisco Franco had secured power in Spain after the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), during which the Nationalists received support from Nazi Germany. Franco's authoritarian regime remained officially non-belligerent in World War II but sympathised with the Axis powers. After lobbying by the Spanish Foreign Minister Ramón Serrano Suñer and by senior figures within the Spanish Army following the 22 June 1941 launch of Operation Barbarossa, Franco agreed that Spanish people would be permitted to enlist privately in the German Army and undertook to provide tacit support. An infantry division was raised from Falangist and Spanish Army cadres and was sent for training in Germany. The unit fought on the Eastern Front, in the 1941–1944 siege of Leningrad, notably in the Battle of Krasny Bor. They eventually withdrew from the front after Allied political pressure on Spain in October 1943 and returned to Spain shortly afterwards. Several thousand non-returners were incorporated into the 121st Infantry Division, the short-lived Blue Legion, and eventually into the Waffen-SS.

The Battle of Prokhorovka was fought on 12 July 1943 near Prokhorovka, 87 kilometres (54 mi) southeast of Kursk, in the Soviet Union, during the Second World War. Taking place on the Eastern Front, the engagement was part of the wider Battle of Kursk and occurred when the 5th Guards Tank Army of the Soviet Red Army attacked the II SS-Panzer Corps of the German Waffen-SS in one of the largest tank battles in history.

In April 1943, the German leadership began preparing for Operation Citadel, with the objective of enveloping and destroying the Soviet forces in the Kursk salient by attacking and breaking through the base of the salient from north and south simultaneously. The German offensive was delayed several times because of the vacillation of the leadership (Hitler repeatedly delayed launching the attack so that more Tiger tanks could be delivered to the front, hoping that a technical advantage would help him win the offensive) and the addition of more forces and new equipment. The Soviet high command, Stavka, had learned of the German intentions and so used the delay to prepare a series of defensive belts along the routes of the planned German offensive. The Soviet leadership also massed several armies deep behind their defences as the Stavka Reserve. The army group, the Steppe Front, was to launch counteroffensives once the German strength had dissipated. The 5th Guards Tank Army was the primary armoured formation of the Steppe Front.

The Malmedy massacre trial (U.S. vs. Valentin Bersin, et al.) was held in May–July 1946 in the former Dachau concentration camp to try the German Waffen-SS soldiers accused of the Malmedy massacre of 17 December 1944. The highest-ranking defendant was the former Waffen-SS general Sepp Dietrich.

The Dachau trials, also known as the Dachau Military Tribunal, handled the prosecution of almost every war criminal captured in the U.S. military zones in Allied-occupied Germany and in Allied-occupied Austria, and the prosecutions of military personnel and civilian persons who committed war crimes against the American military and American citizens. The war-crime trials were held within the compound of the former Dachau concentration camp by military tribunals authorized by the Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Third Army.

The Nazi war criminals were held and tried at the Dachau concentration camp since the camp had buildings adequate to housing the many personnel required for and involved in the legal proceedings of a war-crimes trial, and since the Dachau prison camp had many jail cells in which to hold the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS officers and soldiers accused of war crimes. The American Military Tribunal for the war-crime trials at Dachau featured the JAG attorney William Denson as the chief prosecutor, and the attorney Lt. Col. Douglas T. Bates Jr., an artillery officer, as the chief defense counsel.

During World War II, the Waffen-SS recruited or conscripted significant numbers of non-Germans. Of a peak strength of 950,000 in 1944, the Waffen-SS consisted of some 400,000 "Reich Germans" and 310,000 ethnic Germans from outside Germany's pre-1939 borders (mostly from German-occupied Europe), the remaining 240,000 being non-Germans. Thus, at their numerical peak, non-Germans comprised 25% of all Waffen-SS troops. The units were under the control of the SS Führungshauptamt (SS Command Main Office) led by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Upon mobilisation, the units' tactical control was given to the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces).

The Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS (lit. 'Command Staff Reich Leader-SS') was a paramilitary organisation within the SS of Nazi Germany under the personal control of Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS. Established in 1941, prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, it consisted of the Waffen-SS security forces deployed in German-occupied territories. The units perpetrated mass murder against Jews and other civilians.

The SS Führungshauptamt (English: SS Leadership Main Office or SS Management Head Office) (SS-FHA) was the operational headquarters of the SS during the later years of the Nazi era in Germany.

The office's tasks included the administration of the SS-Junker Schools, of medical services, of logistics, and of rates of pay. It was also the administrative and operational headquarters for the Waffen-SS, responsible for its organisation and equipment and for the order of battle of SS combat units.

Otto Günsche (24 September 1917 – 2 October 2003) was a German mid-ranking officer in the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was a member of the SS Division Leibstandarte before he became Adolf Hitler's personal adjutant. Günsche was taken prisoner by soldiers of the Red Army in Berlin on 2 May 1945. He was held in various labour camps and prisons by the Soviet Union until 2 May 1956 and provided key testimony regarding Hitler's death.

A panzer corps (German: Panzerkorps) was an armoured corps type in Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht during World War II. The name was introduced in 1941, when the motorised corps (Armeekorps (mot) or AK(mot)) were renamed to panzer corps. Panzer corps were created throughout the war, and existed in the Army, the Waffen-SS and even the Luftwaffe. Those renamed from ordinary motorised corps retained their numbering.

The Gran Sasso raid on 12 September 1943 freed Benito Mussolini from imprisonment in a hotel on the Gran Sasso d'Italia massif. The World War II operation was codenamed "Operation Oak" (Unternehmen Eiche) by the German military. The raid by German paratroopers and Waffen-SS commandos was personally ordered by Adolf Hitler, approved by General Kurt Student, and planned and executed by Major Harald Mors.

Operation Oak was marketed as a stunning military feat by Nazi propagandists, aiming to provide a morale boost at a low point in the war for Germany. In fact, the Germans controlled the territory around the hotel and were never in great danger.