Rüsselsheim massacre The Rüsselsheim massacre was a war crime which involved the lynching and killing of six American airmen by townspeople of Rüsselsheim during World War II . The incident happened on August 26 , 1944 two days after nine USAAF crew members of a B - 24 Liberator was shot down by heavy anti - aircraft fire over Hanover , parachuted to the ground , captured , and held by German Luftwaffe personnel . Unable to transfer the downed pilots to the POW facility due to the train tracks being heavily damaged by RAF bombing the night before , the crew was forced to march through an already devastated town of Rüsselsheim to catch another train . The townspeople , already angered by previous night raid , started attacking the unarmed crew members with rocks , hammers , sticks , and shovels which resulted in the deaths of six airmen . Context . During World War II , Rüsselsheim , an industrial town that housed many key targets , including the Opel plant , was bombed several times by the Royal Air Force ( RAF ) . The RAF followed a policy of " area bombing " of cities at night while the USAAF relied on " precision bombing " by day . On the afternoon of August 24 , 1944 , an American B - 24 bomber named " Wham ! Bam ! Thank You Ma ' am " , commanded by 2nd Lt . Norman J . Rogers Jr , was shot down while taking part in an attack on Hannover and the crew parachuted down near Hutterup . One lookout altered both the local fire brigade and the military detachment at the nearby airfield and dispatched to find the downed pilots . One of the nine airmen , Staff Sgt . Forrest W . Brininstool , had serious flak injuries to his abdomen . After landing on the farm , he was given first aid by an elderly couple and in return , Brininstool gave them his silk parachute , a valuable item for peasants . Within a few hours , most of the crew were captured by German personnel and taken into an interrogation room in the town hall in Greven . After that , most of the crew - members , including Rogers , were taken to an air base near the town where they slept for the night . Brininstool was taken to a medical clinic where he was operated on for shrapnel wounds then was shipped out to a hospital in Münster to undergo a second operation . The next morning , Brininstool still remained behind in the hospital while the others were loaded onto a train for a trip south to the Dulag Luft in Oberursel , north of Frankfurt . At every stop along the way , after German civilians noticed the Americans on the train , crowds would form at the windows , shouting in anger at the " terror fliers " and shaking their fists , spitting on the windows . On the night of August 25 , the British RAF sent 116 Lancaster s into Russelsheim in order to attack the Opel Plant on a bombing mission , dropping 674 2 , 000 - lb bombs and more than 400 , 000 incendiaries on the city , destroying the plant and damaging the railtracks , more by far any previous air raid in World War II . Towards the end of the bombing raid , a German air raid warden , Joseph Hartgen , in Russelsheim mobilized residents to put out the fires in their homes . The Death March . In the morning of August 26 , most of the crew - members were still proceeding to their original destination . However , the train line was heavily damaged by the RAF in the previous night so the crew - members was forced off the train and walk to Russelsheim to catch another train . The march was escorted by two German soldiers . As the crew marched towards an already - devastated town of Rüsselsheim , the townspeople , assuming the fliers were Canadians taking part in the previous night raid , quickly formed and immediately turned into an uncontrollable angry mob . Two women , Margerte Witzler and Katerine Reinherdt , shouted out , " There are the terror flyers . Tear them to pieces ! Beat them to death ! They have destroyed our houses ! " One of the crew - members replied back in German , " It wasn ' t us ! We didn ' t bomb Russelsheim ! " Nevertheless , one women threw a brick at the crew and that precipitated a riot during which the townsfolk attacked the crew with rocks , hammers , sticks and shovels . Three Opel workers arrive with iron bars and starting beating the men to death to the cries of the crowd . The mob was joined by a German air raid warden , Joseph Heathen , who was armed with a pistol . He would proved to be the crew ' s worst nightmare . The German soldiers who guarded the crew - members made no attempts to prevent the beatings . After the airmen collapsed from the beatings , Hartgen lined them up in the curb and shot six in their heads but ran out of ammunition leaving two of the airmen , William M . Adams and Sidney Eugene Brown , alive . The mob then put the airmen on a cart and took them to a cemetery . Those who moaned were further beaten with a 2x4 objects . During the attack , an air raid siren came on and the mob ran for cover . Two of the crew - members , William M . Adams and Sidney Eugene Brown , managed to crawl from the bloody cart and fled toward the Rhine and avoided capture for four days . However , they were discovered by a policemen and brought to their original destination , the camp in Oberursel where they remained until after the war in Europe ended . Aftermath . After the war in Europe ended in 1945 , when Rüsselsheim was under occupation by the U . S . Army , the killings came to light and the bodies were located on 28 June 1945 . In the first war trials of Germany prior to the Nuremberg trial s , eleven residents of Rüsselsheim , including Joseph Hartgen , were put on trial in late July 1945 in Darmstadt , a town devastated by a British night attack the previous September that had killed 8 , 500 residents and left 70 , 000 homeless . The defense argued that they had been incited to commit the crime by Goebbel s propaganda , which encouraged the German people to take reprisals against the downed Allied pilots , and that they were not to bear the guilt for their actions . Lt . Colonel Leon Jaworski , who would achieve national fame three decades later as the special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal , insisted on the individual responsibility of the defendants for the murder , saying that , " They were all grown men and women . If they are called on to commit the murder and they do , they are just as responsible as any other murderers . " It is clear that the acts of violence against the surrendered American soldiers by residents of Rüsselsheim constitutes a violation of the laws of war . In Article 2 of the 1929 Geneva Convention on the Prisoners of War , it was provided that : " Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile Power , but not of the individuals or corps who have captured them . They must at all times be humanely treated and protected , particularly against acts of violence , insults and public curiosity . Measures of reprisal against them are prohibited . " Also , Article 23 of the 1907 Hague Convention " IV - The Laws and Customs of War on Land " states that : " In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions , it is especially forbidden . . . ( c ) To kill or wound an enemy who , having laid down his arms , or having no longer means of defence , has surrendered at discretion " . Germany was the signatory to these both conventions . It was specified that German civilians were bound to observe the laws of war since international law were binding upon belligerents under all circumstances and conditions . The trial lasted six days , with eyewitness testimony to the cold - bloodied assassinations by Joseph Hartgen , and chilling accounts of the bludgeoning of the airmen . On August 2 , Joseph Hartgen , Johannes Siepel , Phillip Gutlich , Friedrich Wust , Johannes Opper , Margerte Witzler , and Katerine Reinherdt were found guilty and sentenced to death . The remainder of the defendants were given varying prison terms while one was acquitted by the Commission . The judge , however , committed Witzer and Reinherdt to 30 years in prison when Jean Witzer , Margerte ' s husband and Katherine ' s brother - in - law , pointed out that the only offenses the two women committed against the pilots was screaming . On November 10 , 1945 , Hartgen and four others were hanged at the prison in Bruchsal . A sixth , a German soldier , was convicted and executed in 1946 .