On December 10, 1943, German soldiers were ordered to kill all male residents of Calabrita. 438 men, boys, and elderly people were killed, and only 13 men survived by hiding under the bodies.

 　　On December 13, 1943, the 117th Jäger Division of the German Armed Forces executed nearly all the men in the town of Kalavrita, Greece, which was under Axis occupation. German SS soldiers shot and killed civilians in Kalavrita. In October 1943, the Greek Resistance had killed 78 German soldiers. In retaliation, on December 10, 1943, German soldiers were ordered to kill all male residents of Calabrita. A total of 438 men, including boys and the elderly, were killed, with only 13 male survivors who hid under the bodies to escape. The German military's retaliatory massacre in Calabrita resulted in the deaths of 693 civilians.

　　German military reprisals were a primary means of suppressing resistance. When German soldiers were killed or military facilities destroyed, Wehrmacht and SS units imposed disproportionate reprisals on local communities to deter resistance activities. German reprisal measures reduced the level of resistance, leading to an increase in acts of betrayal by local residents who sought to protect themselves from reprisals by betraying resistance fighters.

　　During World War II, Greece was occupied by Axis forces from April 1941 to October 1944. Armed and unarmed Greek groups organized resistance movements. To exhaust the resistance in Calabria and lower civilian morale, the German occupation forces organized and carried out military operations in the mountainous regions of Calabria. The largest of these was the Calabria Operation in December 1943, during which the German Army's 117th Jäger Division surrounded Greek resistance guerrilla fighters.