ABSTRACT
“The area was covered by a horrible stench which arose from the fire and the decay. Everywhere were dead people.” 1 In total, 223 people were killed in Distomo by the soldiers of the 2nd company of the 7th SS-Polizei-Panzergrenadier-Regiment of the 4th SS-Polizei-Panzergrenadier-Division. The Greek village lies in Boetia and belonged to the then German occupation zone. The massacre took place on 10 June 1944, and was part of the German reprisals against the Greek civil population. Within this framework, the action was later declared part of the anti-partisan war, even though in this case the soldiers did not meet any resistance on the part of the villagers. The members of the 2nd company just murdered helpless people, young and old, men and women and even babies. Such situations of extreme violence often lead to questions about reasons and motivations. The extreme use of violence is obviously not functional and cannot be explained simply by rational motives. Seemingly, the thinkable could turn without any problem into the doable. The case of Distomo epitomises what the sociologist Heinrich Popitz described as the removal of limits to the human relation of violence (Entgrenzung der Gewalt). 2
