The Malmady Massacre: War Crimes, the SS, and a Lesson in Historical Revision

The Schutzstaffel (SS) was the ideological vanguard and independent armed forces of the Nazi Party. The men who filled its ranks were passionate ideologues and among Adolf Hitler’s most ardent disciples. As a result they were tasked with imposing Nazi racial policy onto the peoples of occupied Europe and to make Hitler’s dream of Lebensraum (living space) a reality. While not under the direct command of the German Wehrmacht, the Waffen SS and the army frequently cooperated. In 1939, as the German blitzkrieg roared over Poland, so called Einsatzgruppen or SS death squads followed in the army’s wake, mur