alternatehistory.com

The Wehrmacht/Waffen SS during WW2 from 1941 on had a policy where if a German was killed or wounded by partisans or a civilian they would kill 50 to 100 people for EVERY German death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant'Anna_di_Stazzema_massacre

This policy was particularly extreme in Poland and the USSR where the citizens were seen as "subhuman." Thousands of villages were destroyed with their inhabitants as a part of anti partisan warfare resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

My question is did the German policy of reprisals ever actually work in stopping people from aiding the local resistance/partisans or was it just senseless brutality that hindered rather than helped the Wehrmacht and German administration?
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