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 s