Oradour-sur-Glane
Encyclopedia
Oradour-sur-Glane is a commune
in the Haute-Vienne
department in the Limousin
region
in west-central France
.
The original village 45°55′44"N 001°02′24"E was destroyed on 10 June 1944, when 642 of its inhabitants, including women and children, were massacre
d by a German
Waffen-SS
company. A new village was built after the war on a nearby site and the original has been maintained as a memorial.
town of Valence-d'Agen
, north of Toulouse
, waiting to be resupplied with new equipment and freshly trained troops. After the D-Day
invasion of Normandy, the division was ordered to make its way across the country to stop the Allied advance. One of the division's units was the 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment ("Der Führer"). Its staff included Standartenführer Sylvester Stadler
as regimental commander, Sturmbannführer
Adolf Diekmann as commander of the regiment's 1st Battalion and Sturmbannführer Otto Weidinger
, who was designated Stadler's successor as regimental commander and was with the regiment for familiarisation purposes. Command of "Der Führer" passed from Stadler to Weidinger on 14 June.
Early on the morning of 10 June 1944, Diekmann informed Weidinger at regimental headquarters that he had been approached by two members of the Milice
, the French secret police that collaborated with the German Gestapo
, who claimed that a Waffen SS officer was being held by the Resistance in Oradour-sur-Vayres, a nearby village. The captured German was alleged to be Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe
, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion (another unit of the "Das Reich" division), who may have been captured by the Maquis
the day before.
examined. In addition to the residents of the village, the SS also apprehended six people who did not live there but had the misfortune to be riding their bikes through the village when the Germans arrived.
All the women and children were locked in the church while the village was looted. Meanwhile, the men were led to six barns and sheds 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 fuel and set the barns on fire. Only six men escaped; one of them was later seen walking down a road heading for the cemetery and was shot dead. In all, 190 men perished.
The soldiers proceeded to the church and placed an incendiary device there. After it was ignited, women and children tried to escape through the doors and windows of the church, but they were met with machine-gun fire. A total of 247 women and 205 children died in the carnage. Only two women and one child survived; one was 47-year-old Marguerite Rouffanche. She slid out by a rear sacristy window, followed by a young woman and child; the Germans' attention was aroused and the three were shot. Marguerite Rouffanche was wounded and her companions were killed. She crawled to some pea bushes behind the church, where she remained hidden overnight until she was rescued the following morning. Another group of about twenty villagers had fled Oradour-sur-Glane as soon as the soldiers had appeared. That night, the village was partially razed.
A few days later, survivors were allowed to bury the dead. No less than 642 inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane had been murdered in a matter of hours. Adolf Diekmann claimed that the episode was a just retaliation for partisan activity in nearby Tulle
and the kidnapping of Helmut Kämpfe
.
heard the case against the surviving 65 of the approximately 200 German soldiers who had been involved. Only 21 of them were present. (Many were living in East Germany, which would not allow them to be extradited.) Seven of them were Germans, but 14 were Alsatian
s, French nationals of German ethnicity who had been regarded by the Nazis as members of the "Reich
". All but one of them claimed to have been drafted into the Waffen-SS against his will, the so-called malgré-nous
(a term which means "in spite of us").
The trial caused a huge protest in Alsace
, forcing the French authorities to split the tribunal into two separate proceedings, according to the nationality of the defendants. On 11 February, 20 defendants were found guilty. Continuing uproar (including calls for autonomy) in Alsace pressed the French parliament to pass an amnesty law for all malgré-nous on 19 February, and the convicted Alsatians were released shortly afterwards. This, in turn, caused bitter protests in the Limousin
region.
By 1958, all of the German defendants had been released as well. General Heinz Lammerding
of the Das Reich division, who had given the orders for the measures against the Resistance, died in 1971 after a successful entrepreneurial career. At the time of the trial, he lived in Düsseldorf
, which was located inside the British
occupation zone of West Germany
, and the French
government never obtained his extradition from the British authorities.
The last trial against a former Waffen-SS member took place in 1983. Shortly before, former SS-Obersturmführer Heinz Barth
had been tracked down in the German Democratic Republic GDR. Barth had participated in the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre
as a platoon leader in the "Der Führer" regiment, in charge of 45 soldiers. He was one of several war criminals charged with having given orders to shoot 20 men in a garage. Barth was sentenced to life imprisonment by the First Senate of the City Court of Berlin
. He was released from prison in the reunified Germany in 1997, and he died in August 2007.
After the war, General Charles de Gaulle
decided that the village would never be rebuilt. Instead, it would remain a memorial to the cruelty of the Nazi occupation. In 1999, French President Jacques Chirac
dedicated a memorial museum, the Centre de la mémoire d'Oradour, near the entrance to the Village Martyr, ("martyred village").
Protests followed from Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel
; General Gleiniger, German commander in Limoges
; and the Vichy government
. Standartenführer Stadler felt Diekmann had far exceeded his orders and began a judicial investigation. Diekmann, 29 years-old, was killed in action shortly afterward during the Battle of Normandy
, and a large number of the third company, which had committed the massacre, were themselves killed in action within a few days, and the investigation was suspended.
reprisal action committed by the Waffen SS: other well-documented examples include the French
towns of Tulle
, Ascq
, Maillé
, Robert-Espagne
, and Clermont-en-Argonne
; the Soviet
village of Kortelisy
(in what is now Ukraine
); Lithuanian village of Pirčiupiai; the Czechoslovakia
n villages of Ležáky
and Lidice
(in what is now the Czech Republic
); the Greek
towns of Kalavryta
and Distomo
; the Dutch town of Putten
; Serbia
n towns of Kragujevac
and Kraljevo
; Norwegian
village of Telavåg
; and the Italian
villages of Sant'Anna di Stazzema
and Marzabotto
. Furthermore, the Waffen SS executed hostages (random or selected in suspect groups) throughout France as a deterrent to resistance.
, which was narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier
. The first and final episodes (1 and 26), entitled "A New Germany" and "Remember" respectively, show helicopter views of the destroyed village, interspersed with pictures of the victims that appear on their graves.
Episodes 1 and 26 both started with the words:
And at the end of episode 26, while another aerial shot of the village ruins plus photos of various massacre victims were being shown to the accompaniment of dramatic and moving music, which is taken from the St Nicholas Mass by Haydn, Olivier said:
This is also referenced in the new 2010 series, World War II WWII in Color with new color technologies in episode, "OVERLORD" that aired on January 7, 2010.
, National Poet for Wales
commemorates the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane in two poems from her 2009 collection A Recipe for Water, 'Oradour-sur-Glane' and 'Singer'.
video, "The Escapist," Mike Skinner is briefly seen walking through the destroyed village of Oradour-sur-Glane.
A photo of a wrecked car in the village (used in this article) became the basis for the cover of Russian album "Tochka opory" (Точка Опоры) of the group "Skafandr
" and Vasya V. from group "Kirpichi
".
Communes of France
The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...
in the Haute-Vienne
Haute-Vienne
Haute-Vienne is a French department named after the Vienne River. It is one of three departments that together constitute the French region of Limousin.The chief and largest city is Limoges...
department in the Limousin
Limousin (région)
Limousin is one of the 27 regions of France. It is composed of three départements: Corrèze, Creuse and the Haute-Vienne.Situated largely in the Massif Central, as of January 1st 2008, the Limousin comprised 740,743 inhabitants on nearly 17 000 km2, making it the second least populated region of...
region
Régions of France
France is divided into 27 administrative regions , 22 of which are in Metropolitan France, and five of which are overseas. Corsica is a territorial collectivity , but is considered a region in mainstream usage, and is even shown as such on the INSEE website...
in west-central France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
The original village 45°55′44"N 001°02′24"E was destroyed on 10 June 1944, when 642 of its inhabitants, including women and children, were massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
d by a German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
company. A new village was built after the war on a nearby site and the original has been maintained as a memorial.
World War II
In February 1944, 2nd SS Panzer Division ("Das Reich") was stationed in the Southern FrenchSouthern France
Southern France , colloquially known as le Midi is defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean, and Italy...
town of Valence-d'Agen
Valence, Tarn-et-Garonne
Valence, also known as Valence-d'Agen, is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in southern France.-Geography:Valence is located from Agen, from Montauban, from Cahors, 90 km from Toulouse and from Bordeaux....
, north of Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
, waiting to be resupplied with new equipment and freshly trained troops. After the D-Day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
invasion of Normandy, the division was ordered to make its way across the country to stop the Allied advance. One of the division's units was the 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment ("Der Führer"). Its staff included Standartenführer Sylvester Stadler
Sylvester Stadler
Sylvester Stadler was a SS-Brigadeführer and Generalmajor of the Waffen-SS, a commander of the 2nd SS Division Das Reich, 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen and a winner of the Knight's Cross with Oakleaves and Swords...
as regimental commander, Sturmbannführer
Sturmbannführer
Sturmbannführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party equivalent to major, used both in the Sturmabteilung and the Schutzstaffel...
Adolf Diekmann as commander of the regiment's 1st Battalion and Sturmbannführer Otto Weidinger
Otto Weidinger
Otto Weidinger was a member of the German Waffen-SS and a commander of SS-PzGrenRgt 4 "Der Führer" during World War II and was involved in the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane in France in June 1944. He held the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer...
, who was designated Stadler's successor as regimental commander and was with the regiment for familiarisation purposes. Command of "Der Führer" passed from Stadler to Weidinger on 14 June.
Early on the morning of 10 June 1944, Diekmann informed Weidinger at regimental headquarters that he had been approached by two members of the Milice
Milice
The Milice française , generally called simply Milice, was a paramilitary force created on January 30, 1943 by the Vichy Regime, with German aid, to help fight the French Resistance. The Milice's formal leader was Prime Minister Pierre Laval, though its chief of operations, and actual leader, was...
, the French secret police that collaborated with the German Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, who claimed that a Waffen SS officer was being held by the Resistance in Oradour-sur-Vayres, a nearby village. The captured German was alleged to be Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe
Helmut Kämpfe
Helmut Kämpfe was a Sturmbannführer , in the Waffen SS during World War II. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, which was awarded to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership by Nazi Germany during World War II...
, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion (another unit of the "Das Reich" division), who may have been captured by the Maquis
Maquis du Limousin
The Maquis du Limousin was one of the largest Maquis groups of French resistance fighters.The region of Limousin was an active area of resistance since 1940. Edmond Michelet distributed tracts calling to continue the war in all Brive-la-Gaillarde's mailboxes on June 17, 1940. It is considered to be...
the day before.
Massacre
On 10 June, Diekmann's battalion sealed off the town of Oradour-sur-Glane, having confused it with nearby Oradour-sur-Vayres and ordered all the townspeople – and anyone who happened to be in or near the town – to assemble in the village square, ostensibly, to have their identity papersFrench national identity card
The national identity card of France is an official non-compulsory identity document consisting of a laminated plastic card bearing a photograph, name and address....
examined. In addition to the residents of the village, the SS also apprehended six people who did not live there but had the misfortune to be riding their bikes through the village when the Germans arrived.
All the women and children were locked in the church while the village was looted. Meanwhile, the men were led to six barns and sheds 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 fuel and set the barns on fire. Only six men escaped; one of them was later seen walking down a road heading for the cemetery and was shot dead. In all, 190 men perished.
The soldiers proceeded to the church and placed an incendiary device there. After it was ignited, women and children tried to escape through the doors and windows of the church, but they were met with machine-gun fire. A total of 247 women and 205 children died in the carnage. Only two women and one child survived; one was 47-year-old Marguerite Rouffanche. She slid out by a rear sacristy window, followed by a young woman and child; the Germans' attention was aroused and the three were shot. Marguerite Rouffanche was wounded and her companions were killed. She crawled to some pea bushes behind the church, where she remained hidden overnight until she was rescued the following morning. Another group of about twenty villagers had fled Oradour-sur-Glane as soon as the soldiers had appeared. That night, the village was partially razed.
A few days later, survivors were allowed to bury the dead. No less than 642 inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane had been murdered in a matter of hours. Adolf Diekmann claimed that the episode was a just retaliation for partisan activity in nearby Tulle
Tulle
Tulle is a commune and capital of the Corrèze department in the Limousin region in central France. It is also the episcopal see of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulle...
and the kidnapping of Helmut Kämpfe
Helmut Kämpfe
Helmut Kämpfe was a Sturmbannführer , in the Waffen SS during World War II. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, which was awarded to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership by Nazi Germany during World War II...
.
Aftermath
On 12 January 1953, a military tribunal in BordeauxBordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
heard the case against the surviving 65 of the approximately 200 German soldiers who had been involved. Only 21 of them were present. (Many were living in East Germany, which would not allow them to be extradited.) Seven of them were Germans, but 14 were Alsatian
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
s, French nationals of German ethnicity who had been regarded by the Nazis as members of the "Reich
Reich
Reich is a German word cognate with the English rich, but also used to designate an empire, realm, or nation. The qualitative connotation from the German is " sovereign state." It is the word traditionally used for a variety of sovereign entities, including Germany in many periods of its history...
". All but one of them claimed to have been drafted into the Waffen-SS against his will, the so-called malgré-nous
Malgré-nous
The term Malgré-nous refers to men of the Alsace-Lorraine region who were forcibly conscripted into the German Wehrmacht or in the Waffen SS, during the Second World War....
(a term which means "in spite of us").
The trial caused a huge protest in Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, forcing the French authorities to split the tribunal into two separate proceedings, according to the nationality of the defendants. On 11 February, 20 defendants were found guilty. Continuing uproar (including calls for autonomy) in Alsace pressed the French parliament to pass an amnesty law for all malgré-nous on 19 February, and the convicted Alsatians were released shortly afterwards. This, in turn, caused bitter protests in the Limousin
Limousin (région)
Limousin is one of the 27 regions of France. It is composed of three départements: Corrèze, Creuse and the Haute-Vienne.Situated largely in the Massif Central, as of January 1st 2008, the Limousin comprised 740,743 inhabitants on nearly 17 000 km2, making it the second least populated region of...
region.
By 1958, all of the German defendants had been released as well. General Heinz Lammerding
Heinz Lammerding
Heinz Lammerding was aBrigadeführer in the Waffen-SS and a commander of 2...
of the Das Reich division, who had given the orders for the measures against the Resistance, died in 1971 after a successful entrepreneurial career. At the time of the trial, he lived in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
, which was located inside the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
occupation zone of West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, and the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
government never obtained his extradition from the British authorities.
The last trial against a former Waffen-SS member took place in 1983. Shortly before, former SS-Obersturmführer Heinz Barth
Heinz Barth
Heinz Barth was anObersturmführer in the Waffen-SS and war criminal....
had been tracked down in the German Democratic Republic GDR. Barth had participated in the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
as a platoon leader in the "Der Führer" regiment, in charge of 45 soldiers. He was one of several war criminals charged with having given orders to shoot 20 men in a garage. Barth was sentenced to life imprisonment by the First Senate of the City Court of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. He was released from prison in the reunified Germany in 1997, and he died in August 2007.
After the war, General Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
decided that the village would never be rebuilt. Instead, it would remain a memorial to the cruelty of the Nazi occupation. In 1999, French President Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
dedicated a memorial museum, the Centre de la mémoire d'Oradour, near the entrance to the Village Martyr, ("martyred village").
Modern days
The new village of Oradour-sur-Glane, (with a 2006 population of 2,188), was built after the war, at the northwest of the site of the massacre, where ruined remnants of the former village still stand as a memorial to the dead and a representative of similar sites and events. Its museum includes items recovered from the burned-out buildings: watches stopped at the time their owners were burned alive, glasses melted from the intense heat, and various personal items and money.Diekmann's conduct
Upon entering Oradour-sur-Glane, Sturmbannführer Diekmann had received orders from his regimental commander, Standartenführer Stadler, to only have the mayor of the town name thirty people who could serve as hostages in exchange for Sturmbannführer Kämpfe; however, Diekmann instead ordered the population exterminated and the village burned to the ground.Protests followed from Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel
Erwin Rommel
Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel , popularly known as the Desert Fox , was a German Field Marshal of World War II. He won the respect of both his own troops and the enemies he fought....
; General Gleiniger, German commander in Limoges
Limoges
Limoges |Limousin]] dialect of Occitan) is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin région in west-central France....
; and the Vichy government
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
. Standartenführer Stadler felt Diekmann had far exceeded his orders and began a judicial investigation. Diekmann, 29 years-old, was killed in action shortly afterward during the Battle of Normandy
Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the operation that launched the invasion of German-occupied western Europe during World War II by Allied forces. The operation commenced on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings...
, and a large number of the third company, which had committed the massacre, were themselves killed in action within a few days, and the investigation was suspended.
German attitudes to resistance
The massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane involved men, women and children, some as young as one week, and some as old as ninety. Oradour-sur-Glane was not the only collective punishmentCollective punishment
Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people as a result of the behavior of one or more other individuals or groups. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions...
reprisal action committed by the Waffen SS: other well-documented examples include the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
towns of Tulle
Tulle
Tulle is a commune and capital of the Corrèze department in the Limousin region in central France. It is also the episcopal see of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulle...
, Ascq
Ascq
Ascq is a former village in the Nord department in northern France on the Marque river. Today, it is part of the city of Villeneuve-d'Ascq. Ascq is unfortunately known for the Ascq massacre of 1 April 1944, where the Nazis massacred 86 men.-Heraldry:...
, Maillé
Maillé, Indre-et-Loire
Maillé is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France.-History:On 25 August 1944, Nazi German soldiers killed 124 people and razed the village...
, Robert-Espagne
Robert-Espagne
Robert-Espagne is a commune in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.On 29 August 1944, the 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division of the German Wehrmacht massacred 86 inhabitants of this and the three neighboring villages of Beurey-sur-Saulx, Couvonges and Mognéville....
, and Clermont-en-Argonne
Clermont-en-Argonne
Clermont-en-Argonne is a commune in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.The former towns of Auzéville-en-Argonne, Jubécourt, and Parois were joined to Clermont-en-Argonne in 1973.-Geography:...
; the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
village of Kortelisy
Kortelisy
Kortelisy is a village in Ukraine which was completely destroyed on September 23, 1942 by Germany during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II...
(in what is now Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
); Lithuanian village of Pirčiupiai; the Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
n villages of Ležáky
Ležáky
Ležáky was a village in Czechoslovakia. In 1942 it was razed to the ground by Nazis during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.Ležáky was a settlement inhabited by poor stone-cutters and little cottagers...
and Lidice
Lidice
Lidice is a village in the Czech Republic just northwest of Prague. It is built on the site of a previous village of the same name which, as part of the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, was on orders from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, completely destroyed by German forces in reprisal...
(in what is now the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
); the Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
towns of Kalavryta
Massacre of Kalavryta
The Holocaust of Kalavryta , or the Massacre of Kalavryta , refers to the extermination of the male population and the subsequent total destruction of the town of Kalavryta, in Greece, by German occupying forces during World War II on 13 December 1943...
and Distomo
Distomo massacre
The Distomo massacre was a Nazi war crime perpetrated by members of the Waffen-SS in the village of Distomo, Greece, during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II.-History:...
; the Dutch town of Putten
Putten
Putten is a municipality and a town in Gelderland province in the middle of the Netherlands. In 2007 it had a population of 23,024.Putten is surrounded by a great variety of landscapes. To the east of Putten lies the Veluwe, the biggest national park of the Netherlands...
; Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n towns of Kragujevac
Kragujevac
Kragujevac is the fourth largest city in Serbia, the main city of the Šumadija region and the administrative centre of Šumadija District. It is situated on the banks of the Lepenica River...
and Kraljevo
Kraljevo
Kraljevo is a city and municipality in central Serbia, built beside the river Ibar, 7 km west of its confluence with the Western Morava. It is located in the midst of an upland valley, between the mountains of Kotlenik in the north, and Stolovi in the south.In 2011 the city has population of...
; Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
village of Telavåg
Telavåg
Telavåg is a small village in the municipality of Sund, located 39 km south west of Bergen, Norway, with a population of about 600.-Telavåg tragedy:...
; and the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
villages of Sant'Anna di Stazzema
Sant'Anna di Stazzema
Sant'Anna di Stazzema is a village in Tuscany in central Italy. Administratively, it is a frazione of the comune of Stazzema, in the province of Lucca....
and Marzabotto
Marzabotto massacre
The Marzabotto massacre was a World War II mass murder of at least 770 civilians by Germans, which took place in the territory around the small village of Marzabotto, in the mountainous area south of Bologna...
. Furthermore, the Waffen SS executed hostages (random or selected in suspect groups) throughout France as a deterrent to resistance.
Demographic evolution
| 1806 | 1820 | 1876 | 1901 | 1911 | 1921 | 1936 | 1946 | 1954 | 1962 | 1968 | 1975 | 1982 | 1990 | 1999 | 2006 | 2008 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,222 | 1,585 | 1,903 | 1,966 | 2,019 | 1,789 | 1,574 | 1,145 | 1,450 | 1,540 | 1,671 | 1,759 | 1,941 | 1,998 | 2,024 | 2,118 | 2,222 |
In television
The tragic story of Oradour-sur-Glane was featured in 1974 in the acclaimed British documentary television series, The World at WarThe World at War (TV series)
The World at War is a 26-episode British television documentary series chronicling the events of World War II. It was produced by Jeremy Isaacs, narrated by Laurence Olivier and has a score composed by Carl Davis...
, which was narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
. The first and final episodes (1 and 26), entitled "A New Germany" and "Remember" respectively, show helicopter views of the destroyed village, interspersed with pictures of the victims that appear on their graves.
Episodes 1 and 26 both started with the words:
Down this road, on a summer day in 1944. . . The soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community which had lived for a thousand years. . . was dead.
This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road . . . and they were driven. . . into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then. . . they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle.
They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, in China, in a World at War...
And at the end of episode 26, while another aerial shot of the village ruins plus photos of various massacre victims were being shown to the accompaniment of dramatic and moving music, which is taken from the St Nicholas Mass by Haydn, Olivier said:
At the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, the day the soldiers came, they killed more than six hundred men, women . . . and children. Remember.
This is also referenced in the new 2010 series, World War II WWII in Color with new color technologies in episode, "OVERLORD" that aired on January 7, 2010.
In literature
The poet Gillian ClarkeGillian Clarke
Gillian Clarke is a Welsh poet, playwright, editor, broadcaster, lecturer and translator from Welsh.-Life:Clarke was born in Cardiff and brought up in Cardiff and Penarth, though for part of the Second World War she was in Pembrokeshire...
, National Poet for Wales
National Poet for Wales
The post of National Poet of Wales was established in May 2005 by Academi – the Welsh National Literature Promotion Agency and Society for Writers. The post is supported by the Arts Council of Wales’ Lottery fund....
commemorates the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane in two poems from her 2009 collection A Recipe for Water, 'Oradour-sur-Glane' and 'Singer'.
In music
In The StreetsThe Streets
The Streets were a British rap/garage project from Birmingham, United Kingdom, led by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mike Skinner and has included a myriad of other contributors most notably drummer Johnny Drum Machine, vocalist Kevin Mark Trail and the Italian-American beatmaker Leroy.The...
video, "The Escapist," Mike Skinner is briefly seen walking through the destroyed village of Oradour-sur-Glane.
A photo of a wrecked car in the village (used in this article) became the basis for the cover of Russian album "Tochka opory" (Точка Опоры) of the group "Skafandr
Skafandr
Skafandr is a popular Russian band playing in the self-defined "metal-dub" style. Skafandr was formed in 1998 by Eugeniy Rybnikov, Yuriy Vitel, and Kirill Soloviyov in Saint Petersburg...
" and Vasya V. from group "Kirpichi
Kirpichi
Kirpichi is one of the most influential alternative groups in Russia, which formed in 1995 as "Bricks Are Heavy".-Early years and rise to fame:...
".
See also
- French ResistanceFrench ResistanceThe French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
- The MaquisMaquis (World War II)The Maquis were the predominantly rural guerrilla bands of the French Resistance. Initially they were composed of men who had escaped into the mountains to avoid conscription into Vichy France's Service du travail obligatoire to provide forced labour for Germany...
- Waffen-SSWaffen-SSThe Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
- SS Division Das Reich
- Heinz BarthHeinz BarthHeinz Barth was anObersturmführer in the Waffen-SS and war criminal....
- LidiceLidiceLidice is a village in the Czech Republic just northwest of Prague. It is built on the site of a previous village of the same name which, as part of the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, was on orders from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, completely destroyed by German forces in reprisal...
- MarzabottoMarzabottoMarzabotto is a small town and comune in Italian region Emilia-Romagna, part of the province of Bologna. It is located 27 km SSW of Bologna by rail, and lies in the valley of the Reno...
- Maillé massacreMaillé massacreThe Maillé Massacre refers to the murder on 25 August 1944 of 124 of the 500 residents of the commune of Maillé in the department of the Indre-et-Loire. Following an ambush a few days before and in reprisals against activities of the French Resistance, Second Lieutenant Gustav Schlüter and his men...
- Communes of the Haute-Vienne department
- AscqAscqAscq is a former village in the Nord department in northern France on the Marque river. Today, it is part of the city of Villeneuve-d'Ascq. Ascq is unfortunately known for the Ascq massacre of 1 April 1944, where the Nazis massacred 86 men.-Heraldry:...
- Maquis du VercorsMaquis du Vercors-In fiction:The maquis du Vercors is depicted and veterans act in Pierre Schoendoerffer's Above the Clouds 2002 feature film, and in the third season of the British TV programme Wish Me Luck, which first aired in 1990.-See also:...
- Tulle murdersTulle murdersThe Tulle Murders refer to the actions committed by the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich in June 1944, at the end of World War II. After a successful FTP offensive on 7 and 8 June 1944, the arrival of Das Reich forces forced the guerillas to evacuate the city...
External links
- Study of 1944 reprisals at Oradour-sur-Glane
- Oradour-sur-Glane Memorial Center
- comprehensive site with photos, a virtual tour, accounts of the massacre and notes from a recent visit
- "Souvenir" - a movie based on the events at Oradour-sur-Glane
- Le Vieux Fusil - another movie based on these events
- Account containing witness testimony
- Another series of black-and-white pictures, made using an old film camera