Date in year · 1944 · The 1940s

August 12, 1944

On August 12, 1944, waffen-SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema. Kathy Acker, Philip Jackson, James Heckman would arrive in the same year.

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1944

1940s

Around 1944

The year in brief

1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1944th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 944th year of the 2nd millennium, the 44th year of the 20th century, and the 5th year of the 1940s decade.

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What happened

On August 12, 1944

  1. 1944 Waffen-SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.

    Military branch of the SS (1933–1945)

    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.

  2. 1944 Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people are killed indiscriminately or in mass executions.

    German state from 1933 to 1945

    Nazi Germany, officially the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and the German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945, after 12 years, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin, ending World War II in Europe.

  3. 1944 Alençon is liberated by General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.

    Prefecture and commune in Normandy, France

    Alençon is a commune in Normandy, France, and the capital of the Orne department. It is situated between Paris and Rennes and a little over 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of Le Mans. Alençon belongs to the intercommunality of Alençon.

Elsewhere that year

Other moments from 1944

The class of 1944

Others born in 1944

Kathy Acker 1944– American author and poet (died 1997)
Philip Jackson 1944– Scottish sculptor and photographer
James Heckman 1944– American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
Bernie Worrell 1944– American keyboard player and songwriter (died 2016)
Monty Alexander 1944– Jamaican jazz pianist
Phillip Allen Sharp 1944– American molecular biologist; 1993 Nobel Prize laureate (Physiology or Medicine)

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