The Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre was an Axis war crime, which was committed in the hill village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema in Tuscany, Italy, in the course of an operation against the Italian resistance movement during the Italian Campaign of World War II. On 12 August 1944, the Waffen-SS, with the help of the Italian paramilitary Black Brigades, murdered about 560 local villagers and refugees, including more than a hundred children, and burned their bodies. These crimes have been defined as voluntary and organized acts of terrorism by the Military Tribunal of La Spezia and the Supreme Court of Cassation, which is the highest Italian court of appeal. It is the deadliest mass shooting in Italy, as of 2026.
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