German anti-partisan operations in World War II

During the Second World War, resistance movements that bore any resemblance to irregular warfare were frequently dealt with by the German occupying forces under the auspices of anti-partisan warfare. In many cases, the Nazis euphemistically used the term "anti-partisan operations" to obfuscate ethnic cleansing and ideological warfare operations against perceived enemies; this included Jews, Communist officials (so-called Jewish Bolsheviks), Red Army stragglers, and others. This was especially the case on the Eastern Front, where anti-partisan operations often resulted in the massacres of innocent civilians. While the worst atrocities in terms of scale occurred in the Eastern theater of the war, the Nazis employed "anti-partisan" tactics in Western Europe as well.

Historian Alex J. Kay estimates that around one million civilians may have died as a result of German anti-partisan warfare—excluding actual partisans—among the 13 to 14 million people murdered by the Nazis during World War II.

A. Dirk Moses notes that the German security warfare was an extreme version of strategies and tactics pursued by other colonial powers against anti-colonial resistance. "All resistance was regarded as illegitimate, and civilians were targeted preemptively and often collectively to forestall future resistance", while the laws of war were suspended on the basis that the enemy was barbarian.

The task entrusted to us is to guarantee security, law and order... This task demands of us that we eliminate ruthlessly every center of resistance and impose in the most drastic way the just death penalty upon the enemies of the German people.

— Heinrich Himmler, December 1941