Were the SS really bad and terrifying during WWII, or did the Allies just make them look bad to punish them after the war ended?

 Back in June 1944, a little village in France, called Oradour-sur-Glane was completely destroyed by Nazi troops.

Men of the 2nd SS Panzer Division surrounded the village, closing all the roads, so that no one could escape. They marched from house to house, rounding up all 643 people and forcing them into the local barns, where they were shot. Then more than 400 women and children were caged into the church, which was then set on fire. Any person, who tried to jump out the window, was shot on the spot. The only person, who survived this massacre, was a woman called Marguerite Rouffanche. The baby who died was only seven days old.

It could be said that the massacres, which the Allies reported after they had won the war, could have been exaggerated. But it is not true, since the Nazis described these horrible actions in their documents.

For example, in September 1941, near Kyiv, at a ravine called Babi Yar, the special SS killing squads had murdered 33,771 Jews in only two days. They sent the reports about the number of Jews, whom they had killed, to Berlin. Later, in 1944, near Malmady, an SS unit led by Joachim Peiper captured around 80 American prisoners and murdered them in the snow-covered forest. Besides, all death camps, like Auschwitz, were controlled by the SS.

After 1945, SS officers and men, who had survived the war, could write their memoirs, pretending that they had been only participants and not murderers. But during the Nuremberg trials, in 1946, the caught SS men confirmed the terrible stories about the atrocities of the SS by presenting the documents, which the SS had prepared.