It has long been known that during the Second World War II, partisans also shot prisoners in the fight against the German occupying forces. Nevertheless, the report of the shooting of German prisoners by members of the French resistance movement in the summer of 1944 triggered a broad international response, particularly in France and Germany. In his article, Ahlrich Meyer examines the circumstances that led to this shooting. He describes the brutal German actions against the maquis and describes the moral predicament in which the partisans found themselves at the time. He comes to the conclusion that a discourse based on the laws of war is not appropriate for assessing the historical situation at the time.