German police raid SS massacre suspects + related History Items.

**1938 Observer** · 5th December 2011, 22:19

Updated December 06, 2011 09:19:18

ABC News Australia.

German authorities say they have raided the homes of six men suspected of taking part in the massacre of 642 people, mainly women and children, in a French village in 1944.

The raids, carried out in recent weeks in cities across Germany, were part of a murder probe into the men, believed to have been part of a Waffen-SS unit called "Der Fuehrer".

The men, aged 18 and 19 at the time, have "either denied their participation in the massacre or were not fit for questioning, according to the investigators' first impressions," prosecutors said.

Authorities had hoped the raids would unearth documents, for example diaries, linking the men to the massacre that took place in the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10, 1944.

But prosecutors in the western city of Dusseldorf acknowledged that "until now, no substantial evidence had been uncovered during the raids".

Four days after the Normandy landings that marked the start of the liberation of France and Europe from Nazi occupation, Oradour was destroyed by a detachment of SS troops for reasons that have never been made clear.

They ordered the town's 642 inhabitants, including about 200 children, to assemble in the village square.

Women and children were then herded into the church, which was pumped full of toxic gas and set on fire.

The men were machine-gunned and burned alive in a barn.

The entire village was then torched, never to be rebuilt.

In France, the slaughter has come to symbolise the worst of Nazi barbarity and the village has been left as it was as a memorial.

Around 60 soldiers were brought to trial in France over the massacre in the 1950s and 20 of them convicted, but all were released within a few years.

Since the Nuremberg trials after the war, where several top Nazi henchmen were sentenced to death, German authorities have examined more than 25,000 cases but the vast majority never came to court.

But now, with many of the suspected war criminals in or approaching their 90s, there has been a minor flurry of arrests and court cases in Germany dealing with war-time atrocities.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-0...spects/3714190

**1938 Observer** · 5th December 2011, 22:23

This is the website dedicated to the town described in the above post [news item]

Oradour-sur-Glane 10th June 1944

This website describes the background and events leading up to the Nazi attack upon the martyr town of Oradour-sur-Glane in the Haute-Vienne Department of France, on Saturday the 10th of June 1944. This atrocity was carried out by soldiers of the Der Führer Regiment of the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division, Das Reich. On that day they killed a total of 642 men, women and children without giving any reasons for their actions and to this day there is no universally accepted explanation for the massacre. The narrative In a Ruined State, gives a full description of what happened on the 10th June 1944 and reviews all the current explanations offered by different authors for the destruction of the town. 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

The site is rather informative and is worth the visit.

http://www.oradour.info/

**1938 Observer** · 5th December 2011, 22:26

On 10 June 1944, the idylic French village of Oradour-sur-Glane was completely destroyed and 642 innocent men, women and children were massacred by soldiers in Hitler's elite Waffen-SS army. The ruins of the martyred village have been pr"Lest we forget...Months and years have passed since the drama at Oradour; it must remain alive in the hearts of French people, as the clearest example of Nazi cruelty. Let not the France of the future, ennobled by adversity, purified by the sacrifice of so many of its finest citizens, forget the humble and innocent victims, who for the sole crime of being French, paid the ultimate price. Let us not forget them." Quoted from a book published by the Association of the Families of the Martyrs of Oradour-sur-Glaeserved as a reminder of German barbarity.

ORADOUR SUR GLANE) Towards the end of the Second World War, in a peaceful part of France, there took place a particularly horrible murder of 642 men women and children.
On the 10th of June 1944, a group of soldiers from the Der Fuhrer regiment of the 2nd SS- Panzer Division Das Reich entered and then surrounded the small town of Oradour-sur- Glane, near to the city of Limoges.
At first, they told the Mayor, Jean Desourteaux, that there was to be an identity check and that everyone must go to the Champ de Foire (fairground) whilst this took place. After rounding up all the inhabitants that they could find, the SS then changed their story from that of an identity check, to one of searching for hidden arms and explosives. The soldiers then said that whilst they searched for the arms, the women and children must wait in the church and the men in nearby barns.
The women and children were marched off to the church, the children being encouraged by the soldiers to sing as they went. After they had left, the men were divided into six groups and led off to different barns in the town under armed guard. When the townspeople were all safely shut away the SS began to kill them all.
A large gas bomb, seemingly made out of smoke-screen grenades and intended to asphyxiate the occupants, was placed in the church, but it did not work properly when it went off and so the SS had to use machine guns and hand grenades to disable and kill the women and children.
After they had subdued all the occupant of the church, the soldiers piled wood on the bodies, many of whom were still alive and set it on fire.
Only one person managed to escape alive from the church and that was Madame Rouffanche. She saw her younger daughter who was sitting next to her killed by a bullet as they attempted to find shelter in the vestry. Madame Rouffanche then ran to the alter end of the church where she found a stepladder used to light the candles. Placing the ladder behind the alter she climbed up and threw herself through a window and out onto the ground some 10 feet below. As she picked herself up, a woman holding her baby tried to follow,but they were seen by the soldiers and both woman and child were killed. In spite of being shot and wounded five times, Madame Rouffanche escaped round the back of the church and dug herself into the earth between some rows of peas, where she remained hidden until late the next day. At the same time that the gas bomb exploded in the church, the SS fired their machine guns into the men crowded in the barns. They deliberately fired low, so that many of the men were badly wounded but not killed. The soldiers then piled wood and straw on the bodies and set it alight, many of the men thus burned to death, uable to move because of their injuries. Six men did manage to escape from Madame Laudy's barn but one of them was seen and shot dead, the other five all wounded, got away under cover of darkness.