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 country to the fighting in Normandy. Along the way it came under constant attack and sabotage from the French Resistance. Allegedly, SS soldiers were further angered by finding atrocities committed by some resistance; in particular, a German ambulance in which all the wounded had been killed and the driver and assistants tied to the cab before the vehicle was set on fire. No record of this alleged incident exists in German records.
Early on the morning of June 10 1944 Sturmbannführer Otto Diekmann reported to Sturmbannführer Otto Weidinger that he had been approached by two French civilians who claimed that a high German official was being held by the French Resistance guerrilla, the maquis, in Oradour. That day he was to be executed and publicly burnt amidst celebrations. 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 their local informers had reported a maquis headquarters in Oradour. The high German official was believed to be Sturmbannfuhrer Helmut Kampfe, a personal friend of both Diekmann and Weidinger who had been captured by the maquis the day before. Kampfe was never found and is listed in SS records as "Missing in southern France in action against terrorists".
On June 10 the 1st battalion of the Waffen-SS (Der Führer) regiment, led by Sturmbannführer Otto Dickmann, encircled the town of Oradour-sur-Glane and ordered all the inhabitants to congregate in a public fairground near the village centre, ostensibly to examine people's papers. All the women and children were taken to the church, while the village was looted. Meanwhile, the men were taken to six barns 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; 197 died there.
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. Only one woman survived; another 240 women and 205 children died in the mayhem. 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 the survivors were allowed to bury the dead.
The Germans regarded members of resistance movements as terrorists. They found it difficult to deal with a "faceless", ununiformed enemy, which would not hesitate to attack unarmed German occupation staff (who were easier targets), striking without warning and subsequently vanishing by blending into a civilian crowd. Although less brutal in scope than what occurred on the Eastern Front, the reprisal at Oradour was part of a deliberate German policy intended to break all resistance. Despite such massacres and the death of thousands of innocent lives at the hands of the Germans, resistance movements in various parts of France continued until the end of the war.
Oradour was not the single such 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 village of 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) anywhere in France to deter Resistance fighters from attacking; resistants would hesitate to risk the lives of other individuals in addition to their own.
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Today, Oradour is more or less as the SS left it, preserved in its ruined state as a vivid way of denouncing evil, paying homage to innocent victims and evoking a nation's suffering.
Oradour's own chosen identity was that of innocent victim, but its emotional stance was to prove weaker than political expediency. When 21 of the soldiers involved in the massacre were finally bought to trial in 1953, 14 of them proved to be Frenchmen forced to join the SS after Germany annexed Alsace. Now, with Alsace again part of France, its population mobilized in favor of the accused Alsatians. The political pressure worked: 13 of the men were given light sentences and soon amnestied.
The people of Oradour were outraged. In protest, they returned the Croix de Guerre and the Croix de la Legion d'Honneur given to them years earlier. They also refused to place the ashes of their dead in a crypt built by the government and for 10 years they displayed posters listing the names of the deputies who approved the amnesty. To their dismay, they had learned that national unity weighed more than justice.
Oradour has gradually settled into its new role as tourist site. Even here time is taking its toll. Deterioration of the ruins is threatening the memorial and, in anticipation of the day when it is reduced to dust, Oradour will soon have a Centre de la Memoire. The next stage cannot be far away: when memory turns into history.
Oradour-sur-Glane is located sixteen miles northwest of Limoges on route N147.
