syscom3
Pacific Historian
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 women and children — were murdered by a German Waffen-SS company.
As an Allied attack on Europe loomed, the local French Resistance increased its activities in order to occupy the 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 moment. 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."
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 was looted. Meanwhile, the men were forced into 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.
Having finished with the men, the soldiers then entered the church and put an incendiary device in place. 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 small girl survived. She managed to slide out of a small window in 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.
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.
As an Allied attack on Europe loomed, the local French Resistance increased its activities in order to occupy the 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 moment. 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."
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 was looted. Meanwhile, the men were forced into 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.
Having finished with the men, the soldiers then entered the church and put an incendiary device in place. 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 small girl survived. She managed to slide out of a small window in 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.
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.
