before the campaign started, and was now reduced to 300 men and 10 tanks. With the German Army in full retreat, two further Waffen-SS formations entered the battle in France, the SS Panzergrenadier Brigade 49 and the SS Panzergrenadier Brigade 51. Both had been formed in June 1944 from staff and students at the SS-Junkerschule. They were stationed in Denmark to allow the garrison there to move into France, but were brought forward at the beginning of August to the area south and east of Paris. Both Brigades were tasked to hold crossings over the Seine River allowing the army to retreat. Eventually, they were forced back and then withdrew, the surviving troops being incorporated into the 17 SS Götz von Berlichingen. Greece While the bulk of the Waffen-SS was now on the Eastern Front or in Normandy, the 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division was stationed in Greece on internal security duties and anti-partisan operations. On 10 June, they committed the Distomo massacre, when over a period of two hours they went door to door and massacred Greek civilians, reportedly in revenge for a Greek Resistance attack. In total, 218 men, women and children were killed. According to survivors, the SS forces "bayoneted babies in their cribs, stabbed pregnant women, and beheaded the village priest." Italy On the Italian Front, the 16 SS Reichsführer-SS, conducting anti-partisan operations, is remembered more for the atrocities it perpetrated than its fighting ability: it committed the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre in August 1944 and the Marzabotto massacre between September and October 1944. Finland In Finland, the 6 SS Nord had held its lines during the Soviet summer offensive until it was ordered to withdraw from Finland upon the conclusion of an armistice between Finland and the Soviet Union in September 1944. It then formed the rear guard for the three German corps withdrawing from Finland in Operation Birch, and from September to November 1944 marched 1,600 kilometres to Mo i Rana, Norway, where it entrained for the southern end of the country, crossing the Skagerrak to Denmark. Arnhem and Operation Market Garden In early September 1944, the II SS Panzer Corps (9 SS Hohenstaufen and 10 SS Frundberg) were pulled out of the line and sent to the Arnhem area in the Netherlands. Upon arrival, they began the task of refitting, and the majority of the remaining armoured vehicles were loaded onto trains in