The 2nd company of the 4th Waffen-SS Polizei Panzergrendier Division was serving in Greece in 1944, made-up of mostly of volksdeutsche (ethnic German) teenagers from Hungary and Romania.

[1] British historian Mark Mazower described the 2nd Company as being made up of a "lethal combination" of ill-trained volksdeutsche teenagers determined to prove their sense of deutschtum (Germanness) with fanatical SS officers.

[1] The regimental commander, SS-Standartenführer Karl Schümers, was an ultra-aggressive man prone to "extremely draconian" methods, as even a sympathetic SS evaluation had put it, whose zeal and aggression had not been curbed by a serious head wound he had taken on the Eastern Front in 1942.

[1] However, Mazower wrote that, though the composition of the division and its cast of commanders made it more likely to commit atrocities, the massacre should be put into context, namely it operated as part of Army Group E and the standing orders of the Wehrmacht in Greece was to use terror as a way to frighten the Greeks into not supporting the andartes (guerrillas).

[3] The main andarte force that fought the Germans during the war was the ELAS (Ellinikós Laïkós Apeleftherotikós Stratós – Greek People's Liberation Army), which was the military arm of the EAM (Ethnikó Apeleftherotikó Métopo – National Liberation Front), which was dominated by cadres of the KKE (Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas – Communist Party of Greece).

[5] Likewise, German officials portrayed the Reich as nobly occupying Greece to protect it from Communists and presented EAM as a demonic force.

[5] The andartes, especially close of the ELAS, were portrayed in both the Wehrmacht and the SS as a "savages" and "criminals" who committed all sorts of crimes and who needed to be hunted down without mercy.

The best known andarte operation of the war, namely the blowing up of the Gorgopotamos viaduct on the night of 25 November 1942, had caused the Germans serious logistical problems as it severed the main railroad linking Thessaloniki to Athens.

[10] A Greek housewife living in Distomo in a postwar affidavit known only as Nitsa N. stated on the afternoon of 10 June, she saw the Waffen-SS drive into the village and they immediately shot down everyone they saw on the streets.

[1] A Greek schoolgirl known as Sofia D. reported that she was with her father and brother working the fields outside of the village when they saw smoke rising up to blacken the sky.

[11] Lautenbach admitted that he had gone beyond standing orders, but the tribunal found in his favour, holding that he had been motivated, not by negligence or ignorance, but by a sense of responsibility towards his men.

[19] The plaintiffs were awarded a villa in Menaggio, near Lake Como, which is owned by a German state nonprofit organization, as part of the restitution.