The Rüsselsheim massacre was a war crime that 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 a Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber of the United States Army Air Forces was shot down by heavy anti-aircraft fire over Hanover. Nine crew members of the aircraft parachuted to the ground, where they were captured and held by German Luftwaffe personnel. Unable to transfer the downed aircrewmen to a prisoner-of-war camp due to the train tracks being heavily damaged by bombing the night before, the Americans were forced to march through the devastated town of Rüsselsheim to catch another train. The townspeople, already angered by the previous night's raid, started attacking the unarm