Oradour Sur Glane, France: Preserved Town after Nazi Massacre June 10, 1944, 4 Days after D-Day
- Overview. - Oradour sur Glane. On 10 June 1944, 4 days after D-Day, the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne in Nazi-occupied France was destroyed when 643 civilians, including non-combatant men, women, and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company as collective punishment for resistance activity in the area. The Germans murdered all people they found in the village at the time, as well as people brought in from the surrounding area. The death toll includes people who were merely passing by in the village at the time of the SS company's arrival.
Men were brought into barns and sheds where they were shot in the legs and doused with gasoline before the barns were set on fire. Women and children were herded into a church that was set on fire; those who tried to escape through the windows were machine-gunned. Extensive looting took place. All in all, 643 individuals are recorded to have been murdered. The death toll includes 17 Spanish citizens, 8 Italians, & 3 Poles. Six people escaped the massacre. The last living survivor, Robert Hébras, known for his activism for reconciliation between France, Germany, and Austria, died on 11 Feb. 2023, aged 97. He was 18 years old at the time of the massacre.
- The village was never rebuilt. A completely new village was built nearby after the war. President Charles de Gaulle ordered that the ruins of the old village be maintained as a permanent memorial and museum.
- Events. In Feb. 1944, the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich was stationed in the Southern French town of Valence-d'Agen, north of Toulouse, waiting to be resupplied with new equipment & fresh troops. Following the Normandy landings in June 1944, the division was ordered north to help stop the Allied advance. One of its units was the 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment "Der Führer." Its staff included regimental commander SS-Standartenführer Sylvester Stadler, SS-Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann commanding the 1st Battalion & SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Weidinger, Stadler's designated successor who was with the regiment. Command passed to Weidinger on 14 June.
Early on the morning of 10 June 1944, Diekmann informed Weidinger that he had been approached by 2 members of the Milice, a paramilitary force of the Vichy Regime. They claimed that a Waffen-SS officer was being held prisoner by the French Resistance in Oradour-sur-Vayres, a nearby village.. - Punishment.....https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre
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