ORADOUR-SUR-GLANE

'Oradour-sur-Glane' was a village in the Limousin ''région'' of France that was destroyed on 10 June 1944, when 642 of its inhabitants — including men, women and children — were murdered by a German Waffen-SS company.

Contents

Background

The massacre of Oradour

Diekmann's conduct

German attitude to the Resistance

Post-war outcomes

Today

See also

External links

Background

As an Allied attack on Europe loomed, the local French Resistance increased its activities in order to disrupt local German forces and hinder communications.
2nd SS Panzer Division ''Das Reich'' was ordered to make its way across the country to the fighting in Normandy. Along the way it came under constant attack and sabotage from the French Resistance.
Early on the morning of June 10, 1944, ''Sturmbannführer'' Adolf Diekmann, commanding the I. battalion of the 4th ''Waffen''-SS ("''Der Führer''") panzer-grenadier regiment, informed ''Sturmbannführer'' Otto Weidinger at regimental headquarters that he had been approached by two French civilians who claimed that a high German official was being held by the French Resistance guerrillas, the ''maquis'', in Oradour. He was to be executed and publicly burned amidst celebrations that day. The two French civilians also stated that the whole population was working with the ''maquis'' and that high ranking leaders were there at the time. At about the same time the ''SD'' in Limoges reported that local informers had revealed the location of a ''maquis'' headquarters in Oradour. The captured German was believed to be ''Sturmbannführer'' Helmut Kämpfe, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer reconnaissance battalion, who had been captured by the ''maquis'' the day before. Kämpfe was never found and is listed in SS records as "Missing in southern France in action against terrorists."

The massacre of Oradour

On June 10 Diekmann's battalion sealed off the town of Oradour-sur-Glane and ordered all the townspeople to assemble in a public fairground near the village centre, ostensibly to have their papers examined. All the women and children were taken to the church while the village itself was looted. Meanwhile, the men were led to six barns and sheds where machine-gun nests were already in place. According to the account of a survivor, the soldiers began shooting at them, aiming for their legs so that they would die more slowly. Once the victims were no longer able to move, the soldiers covered their bodies with kindling and set the barns on fire. Only five men escaped; 190 men died.
The soldiers then proceeded to the church and put an incendiary device in place there. After it was ignited, the surviving women and children tried to flee from the doors and windows but were met with machine-gun fire. 247 women and 205 children died in the mayhem. Only one woman survived, 47-year-old local housewife Marguerite Rouffanche. She had managed to slide out of a small window at the back of the church, and hid in the bushes overnight until the Germans had moved on. Another small group of about twenty villagers had fled Oradour as soon as the soldiers appeared. That night, the remainder of the village was razed. A few days later survivors were allowed to bury the dead. 642 inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane had been brutally murdered in a matter of hours.

Diekmann's conduct

''Sturmbannführer'' Diekmann had received orders upon entering Oradour from his regimental commander, ''Standartenführer'' Sylvester Stadler, only to have the mayor of Oradour name 30 people who could serve as hostages in exchange for ''Sturmbannführer'' Kämpfe; however, Diekmann instead ordered the population exterminated and the village burned to the ground.
Protests followed from ''Generalfeldmarschall'' Erwin Rommel; General Gleiniger, German commander in Limoges; and the Vichy government. ''Standartenführer'' Stadler felt Diekmann had far exceeded his orders and began a judicial investigation; however, Diekmann was killed in action a few days later during the Battle of Normandy, and a large portion of the third company, which had committed the massacre, was annihilated a few days later.

German attitude to the Resistance

The Wehrmacht regarded members of resistance movements as guerilla terrorists who would strike quickly before merging back into civilian life. As such, reprisals were indiscriminately violent. Oradour, indeed, was not the only collective punishment reprisal action committed by German troops: other well-documented examples include the Soviet village of Kortelisy (in what is now Ukraine), the Czechoslovakian villages of Ležáky and Lidice (in what is now the Czech Republic), the Dutch village of Putten, and the Italian villages of Sant'Anna di Stazzema and Marzabotto. Furthermore, the German troops executed hostages (random or selected in suspect groups) throughout France as a deterrent.

Post-war outcomes

On January 12, 1953, a trial began before a military tribunal in Bordeaux against the surviving 65 of the approx. 200 soldiers. Only 21 of them were present (many living in West Germany and the German Democratic Republic would not be extradited). 7 were Germans, while the other 14 were Alsatians, i.e. French nationals of German ethnicity who had been regarded as members of the "Reich" by the Nazis. All but one of them claimed to have been drafted into the Waffen-SS against their will (the so-called malgré-nous).
The trial caused a huge protest in Alsace, forcing the French authorities to split the process into two separate ones according to the nationality of the defendants. On February 11, 20 defendants were found guilty. Continuing uproar (including calls for autonomy) in Alsace pressed the French parliament to pass an amnesty law for all ''malgré-nous'' on February 19, and the convicted Alsatians were released shortly afterwards. This in turn caused bitter protest in the Limousin region.
By 1958 all the German defendants had been released as well. General Heinz Lammerding of the ''Das Reich'' division, who had given the orders for the measures against the Resistance, died in 1971 after a successful entrepreneurial career, never having been indicted.
The last trial against a former Waffen-SS member took place in 1983. Shortly before, former SS-Obersturmführer Heinz Barth had been tracked down in the GDR. Barth participated in the Oradour massacre as a platoon leader in the regiment ''Der Führer'', commanding 45 soldiers. He was amongst other war criminals charged with having given orders to shoot 20 men in a garage. Barth was sentenced to life imprisonment by the 1st senate of the city court Berlin. He was released from prison in the re-unified Germany in 1997, and died in August 2007.
After the war, General Charles de Gaulle decided that the village would never be rebuilt. Instead, it would remain as a memorial to the cruelty of Nazi occupation. In 1999, President Jacques Chirac dedicated a visitors' centre, the centre de la mémoire, in Oradour-sur-Glane and named the site a ''Village Martyr''.
The tragic story of Oradour was featured in 1974 in the acclaimed British documentary television series, ''The World at War'', which was narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier. The first and final episodes (1 and 26), entitled "A New Germany" and "Remember" respectively, show helicopter views of the destroyed village, interspersed with pictures of the victims that appear on their graves. Somber music of Haydn's St Nicholas Mass is used during this poignant sequence in the documentary. It also shows the sign in Oradour that reads "Remember" and uses this atrocity as a symbol of all the suffering of the entire war.
Episodes 1 and 26 both started with the words:
And at the end of episode 26, while another aerial shot of the village ruins plus photos of various massacre victims was being shown to the accompaniment of dramatic music, Olivier said:

Today

Oradour-sur-Glane is now a commune of the Haute-Vienne ''département''. Population 2,025. The new village was built after WWII, away from the ruins of the former village.

See also

★ French Resistance

★ The Maquis

★ Waffen-SS

★ SS Division ''Das Reich''

★ Heinz Barth

External links

★ Study of 1944 reprisals at Oradour-sur-Glane

★ Oradour-sur-Glane Memorial Center

★ "Souvenir" - a movie based on the events at Oradour-sur-Glane

★ Le Vieux Fusil - another movie based on these events

★ Account containing witness testimony