World War II: In Sant'Anna di Stazzema, Italy, the Waffen-SS and the Brigate Nere murdered about 560 local villagers and refugees and burned their bodies.

World War II or the Second World War was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

Sant'Anna di Stazzema, officially Sant'Anna, is a village in Tuscany, Italy. Administratively, it is a frazione of the comune of Stazzema, in the province of Lucca.

The Waffen-SS was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both German-occupied Europe and unoccupied lands. With the start of World War II, tactical control was exercised by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, with some units being subordinated to the Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS directly under Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler's control. It was disbanded in May 1945.

The Auxiliary Corps of the Black Shirts' Action Squads, most widely known as the Black Brigades, was one of the Fascist paramilitary groups, organized and run by the Republican Fascist Party operating in the Italian Social Republic, during the final years of World War II, and after the signing of the Italian Armistice in 1943. They were officially led by Alessandro Pavolini, former Minister of Culture of the fascist era during the last years of Fascist Italy.