The SS Panzer Division Das Reich, destroyed the French village of
Oradour-sur-Glane on Saturday 10th June 1944 and today it is preserved In a Ruined State. This website describes the history, background and events
leading up to the Nazi W.W.II. war-crime of the massacre of the inhabitants, of
what is today in France, called the Martyr Village of Oradour-sur-Glane. This
atrocity was carried out in the afternoon of Saturday 10th June 1944 by soldiers of the
Der Führer Regiment of the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division, Das Reich. On
that day, without giving any explanation for their actions, they killed a
total of 643 men, women and children, leaving only a few unintended survivors. They
then destroyed the entire village of Oradour and to this day there is no
universally accepted explanation for the massacre. In order to gain some
lasting impressions from the tragedy, visitors to the ruins today are exhorted in both French
and English to: "Souviens Toi--Remember!"
The narrative, In a Ruined State, gives a full description of
what happened on the 10th June 1944 at Oradour and reviews all the
current explanations offered by different authors for the attack on the
village. In addition there are over 200 photographs in the
Picture
Gallery and much supporting information in the
Appendices, including advice on how to get there and places to stay
during a visit. If short of time, read the
Summary and look at the
Recommended viewing list, but for a
fuller understanding, it is recommended to read all of,
In a Ruined State. Additionally, the
Appendices themselves are worth
reading, as they contain much relevant detail about the background to
the affair, biographical notes and details of what happened afterwards
to those involved.
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Sewing machine posed in the
ruins of Oradour
|
Memorial to the 643 victims
of the massacre at Oradour
|
Oradour Church (main site for the murder
of the women and children) |
The car of Doctor Desourteaux on the
Champ de Foire in Oradour |
Contact the author Michael Williams at ...
michael@oradour.info
|
Note 1: In the
literature, Oradour-sur-Glane is often spelled as, Oradour sur Glane (without
the hyphens) and is frequently referred to simply as, Oradour, see
the Oradours of France.
Note 2: The 10th of June 1944 was also the date for other war-crime killings by
the Waffen-SS in France and elsewhere during W.W.II., see
the 10th of June as a date in W.W.II. history.
Note 3: There is an annual ceremony in Oradour-sur-Glane to mark the anniversary
of the massacre, see
10th June
commemoration ceremony.
Note 4: All spelling and date formatting on this website follows the British
English conventions, see Dates, commonly
misspelled words & accents.
Note 5: The Favicon for this website, which
should be displayed in the address bar of your web browser, shows a cross of
Lorraine superimposed on a standard French flag.
Note 6: This website includes information about a range of persons, places and
organisations involved in the events at Oradour-sur-Glane, including:
a) French survivors who were present on the 10th of June 1944 and listed under
Dramatis Personae including, Robert Hébras,
Mathieu Borie, Clément Broussaudir, Jean-Marcel Darthout, Yvon Roby, Hubert
Desourteaux, Jacques Desourteaux, Jean Desourteaux, Roger Godfrin, the Pinède
children, Pierre-Henri Poutaraud, and Marguerite Rouffanche.
b) German forces personnel involved, were those of the
members of the Der Führer Regiment of the 2nd SS-Panzer Division, Das Reich
and include: Georg René Boos, Heinz Barth, Adolf Diekmann, Karl Gerlach, Otto
Kahn, Helmut Kämpfe, Heinrich Lammerding, Johannes Seefried, Sylvester Stadler, Otto Weidinger
and Heinz Werner.
c) Organisational information, such as, The
Order of Battle of Das Reich in June 1944 is shown, as is an example of the
SS rank structure and notes on
Hugo Sperrle, the Commander-in-Chief
West of the German armed forces and whose orders were used to justify the
attack. In addition there are
notes on language and terms used during the
Nazi period.
d) As well as the various personnel listed above, there are basic notes on:
Len Cotton, an RAF man shot down over France and sheltered in Oradour and
Georges Guingouin a commander of the French Resistance whose capture of
Helmut Kämpfe triggered the attack.
Note 7: All unvisited links are shown in Blue and
change colour to Purple when visited.
Note 8: Site optimised for a desktop PC with a 1280 x 1024 screen
and the text size set to Medium (using Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge or
Microsoft Internet Explorer).
Note 9: Please report any broken
links, or other errors of any kind to:
michael@oradour.info
Note 10: GDPR Policy (General Data Protection
Regulation) ... There are no
cookies, spyware or advertisements of any kind at all on this website, it is
informational only and not interactive, no personal data is held of visitors to
this website. |
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© Michael Williams ...
Friday 10th March 2000 ... this page was last updated on
Friday, 29 November 2024
|