WWII Oradour sur Glane massacre photograph from 1950

Oradour sur Glane massacre photograph from 1950

Post war published 4.5 x 7 

On 10 June 1944, four days after D-Day, the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne in Nazi-occupied France was destroyed when 642 civilians, including non-combatant men, women, and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SScompany. The execution was retribution in the form of collective punishment for Resistance activity in the area, including the capture and subsequent execution of Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe, the 3rd Battalion commander of 4th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment, and a close friend of the 1st battalion commander of the same regiment, Waffen-SS SturmbannführerAdolf Diekmann, who an informant incorrectly claimed had been burned alive in front of an audience. Both of them were battalion commanders in the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich.^[3]

The Germans murdered everyone they found in the village at the time, as well as people brought in from the surrounding area.^[4] 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 petroleum 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.^[5][6]

All in all, 642 people are recorded to have been murdered. The death toll includes 17 Spanish citizens, 8 Italians (a woman with 7 of her 9 children), and 3 Poles.^[7][8][6]

Only six people are known to have survived the massacre — five men and one woman.^[9]A seventh survivor was discovered later and murdered. The last living survivor, Robert Hébras, known for his activism for reconciliation between France, Germany, and Austria, died on 11 February 2023, aged 97.^[10][11] 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.

In 1983 SS-Untersturmfuhrer Heinz Barthbecame the first senior commander to face trial for the massacre, claiming before a judge that he was shocked that there were any survivors and that the decision was made to wipe the village from the face of the Earth. But there were survivors that were in attendance to see Barth sentenced to life imprisonment.