One of the most dramatic episodes and most horrible of the war was held on June 10, 1944 in a small French village without history, Oradoursur-Glane, became in one day a dead city. The SS of the regiment " Der Führer " of division " Das Reich " will make one of the most atrocious war crimes there: all the population, without defense, will be cut down, men, women, children, old men, and the village will be destroyed. Why this massacre? Was it about an error like one could say it? That would not explain the brutality of the act. After the passage of the SS, there will remain only corpses, some with half calcined, the medium of the ruins. Why these reprisals against the civil ones in a relatively calm area? All seems to indicate that it was about a well established plan and not of a hasty initiative. The Germans spoke about the existence of an ammunition dump and also of " Oradour capital maquis... ". These allegations will well quickly be contradicted. Did the Germans confuse Oradour-sur-Glane and Oradour-sur-Vayres? It was the version of the Vichy government. A German report/ratio specified for its part: " The beginning of measurements of reprisals caused a significant relief and favorably influenced moral troop " This document, like others, thus seems to show that it was well a policy deliberated on repression. A thing is certain: nobody will be able to forget the martyrdom of Oradour.
Bernard Michal
Introduction of the book " great enigmas of Resistance "
The lawsuit of Bordeaux
After a request during 8 years of the survivors and sympathizers whom the culprits are punished and the victims ' vengées' the lawsuit awaited a long time of the 21 soldiers having taken part in the massacre of Oradour began in January 1953 front the military tribunal from Bordeaux.
German:
S-Unterscharführer... Wilhelm Blaeschke
SS-Rottenführer... Wilhelm Boehme
SS-Mann... Fritz Pfeufer
SS-Mann... Hermann Frenzel
SS-Mann... Herbert Daab
SS-Mann... Erwin Dagenhardt: il pourra par la suite prouver son absence d'Oradour pendant les massacres
Les ressortissants français (tous d'Alsace et tous excepté Boos, appelés):
SS-Unterscharführer... Georges René Boos: SS-Volunteer, attribué la croix II de fer en Russie
SS-Mann... Paul Graff
SS-Mann... Albert Daul
SS-Mann... Jean-Pierre Elsässer
SS-Mann... Louis Hoehlinger: a gagné la Croix de Guerre tout en servant dans l'armée française en Indo-Chine (actuellement Vietnam)
SS-Mann... Albert Ochs
SS-Mann... Joseph Busch
SS-Mann... Antoine Lohner: a gagné la Croix de Guerre en combattant avec l'armée française contre les Allemands en 1940
SS-Mann... Fernand Giedinger
SS-Mann... Alfred Spaeth: a gagné la médaille coloniale française et l'insigne de parachutage en servant avec l'armée française en Indo-Chine (Vietnam)
SS-Mann... Louis Prestel
SS-Mann... Henri Weber
SS-Mann... Jean Niess
SS-Mann... Camille Grienenberger
