by Helen Watts
According to the museum at the Memorial and Visitor Centre at Oradour-sur-Glane, the blame for the massacre is laid firmly at the door of General Heinz Lammerding, Commander of the Das Reich division. Indeed it is his name that appears on a plaque in the cemetery which bears the inscription:
‘Crime committed by the 2nd SS Division Das Reich under orders of General Lammerding.’
Furious about the increase in Resistance attacks and under pressure to move the troops rapidly north to Normandy to defend against the Allied invasion, Lammerding had, on 5th June 1944, issued an anti-terrorist memorandum in which he outlined the repressive measures to be taken against civilians in areas in which the Resistance was operating. In response to this and to a Resistance attack on a garrison at Tulle, near Limoges, Lammerding had ordered the hanging of ninety-nine male hostages from the village.
The abduction and kidnap of the SS commander Major Helmut Kämpfe (upon whom the character Major Thomas Klausner is based) led Lammerding to issue a further Order of the Day, dated 10th June, called ‘The Position with Regard to Guerrilla Bands and Tactics for Combating Them’. This order outlined the punitive measures to be taken against anyone who threatened the established order of the German occupation. There was to be a ‘brutal crackdown in the zone’.
However, whether or not that specifically ordered the massacre which took place in Oradour-sur-Glane is the subject of much debate.
According to the Police Superintendent Massièras in his testimony at the Bordeaux trials in 1953, the Germans were keen to take reprisals for the murders of Kämpfe and the driver of Karl Gerlach (Gerlach becomes Heinz Goth in our story) and ‘wanted to terrify the French people.’ He suggests that Oradour-sur-Glane was an ideal target for a reprisal as, ‘they could not do so in a town of 10,000 inhabitants [like Saint Junien] but they could do so in a village’.
Other historians agree that Oradour-sur-Glane was specifically chosen as a target by the Nazis because of its size, and they also point to the fact that it was defenceless and easy to encircle. Certainly, the village was only a few kilometres from the place where Kämpfe was ambushed, and according to Karl Gerlach, his abduction and narrow escape from execution also took place in the vicinity of Oradour.
So there were clear reasons to search the area, and maybe even to demand hostages in order to negotiate with the Resistance, but there is no solid evidence linking Oradour-sur-Glane to any Resistance activity, and no documented proof that Lammerding specifically ordered the massacre of innocent civilians here. Even if Major Adolf Diekmann did have orders to search the village and take hostages, it is quite possible that he was not ordered to do any more than that. This is why many historians and commentators on the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane point the finger of blame primarily at this man.
Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann was described by his superiors as a ‘very brave, go-getter’ who was ‘very deliberate in the leadership of his Battalion’. He could be short-tempered and brusque with his men and there are even suggestions that he was a drinker (although this is not backed up by the official assessment of his character which was made and documented by his superior, Sylvester Stadler, just a few days before the massacre, on 1st June 1944).
Diekmann is reported to have been enraged about recent Resistance attacks, and his own battalion had been one of their targets while crossing the Dordogne on their march north. Diekmann and his fellow SS commanders were also furious about the abduction and kidnap on 9th June of the SS commander Major Helmut Kämpfe, a man whom he is reported to have known well, and to have fought alongside.
So when he was given orders from his regiment to go into Oradour and search for Kampfe and to take hostages, it is quite likely that Diekmann relished the opportunity to take revenge. According to massacre survivor Robert Hébras in his book The Slaughter of our Village, Diekmann took matters into his own hands in Oradour, going way beyond his orders in his lust for retribution:
‘The decision had been taken to carry out a punitive operation, it appears, by the senior staff of the Das Reich division. Its organisation and execution were entrusted to Diekmann … I am also persuaded that Diekmann went beyond the initial order, as could be proved by the sadism with which he exterminated the women and children.’
We cannot be sure whether Diekmann knew that Major Kämpfe had been murdered by the time he entered Oradour, but it does seem that the meeting he had in Saint Junien, just a couple of hours before the first troops arrived in the village, was crucial in some way. If Diekmann received news about Major Kämpfe from his informants at that meeting, it could have influenced his decision not to take hostages, as ordered, but to seek revenge instead.
Certainly, when Diekmann returned to the headquarters of the Der Führer Regiment in Limoges at the end of the day on 10th June, we hear that his commanding officer, Stadler, was ‘shaken to the core’ by his report. Not only did Stadler consider Diekmann’s actions to be a huge overreaction to events, he was also quick to insist that Diekmann would have to face a court martial. ‘I cannot allow the regiment to be charged with something like this!’ Stadler is reported to have said.
However, Diekmann did not live long enough to face a court martial. He was killed just nineteen days after the massacre on the battlefield in Normandy, so we can never know the real reasons behind his appalling actions.
In the days, weeks and months after it happened, the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane shocked the whole of France, and in 1953 in Bordeaux, it led to one of the most significant series of post-war trials of German officers.
Although many of the accused, including Diekmann, were dead or missing, eight German SS soldiers were present at the trial, alongside fourteen soldiers from the Alsace who had taken part in the massacre. Forty-four men were also tried in absentia (in their absence).
Diekmann’s death on the Normandy battlefield in 1944 made him an easy scapegoat for the atrocities. Since he was not present to defend himself to the French courts, it was simple to blame him for everything as the commander of the exercise.
General Lammerding was also absent. By then he was living in Düsseldorf, in an area which fell under British authority. Before they would agree to allow the French courts to summon Lammerding to trial, the British authorities demanded strong proof of guilt. They were keen to ensure that the trial was genuinely about bringing justice and was not simply a way of seeking revenge. In Lammerding’s case, the French courts could not convince the British authorities that there was sufficient evidence to prove his involvement in the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane, and so their request to extradite him was declined. Lammerding did, however, send a letter to the courts in which he confirmed that he had been informed by Commander Sylvester Stadler that Adolf Diekmann had exceeded his orders at Oradour, and that he would have faced an enquiry, had he not been killed before it took place.
In the end, all the 46 accused, including Lammerding, who were not present at the trial were sentenced to death ‘in absentia’. The rest were given prison sentences of between eight and twelve years, with the German defendants being given longer sentences than the Alsatians.
The verdicts created uproar. Many thought they were far too lenient while others, who argued that the SS were reacting to attacks by the Resistance and that they were carrying out Diekmann’s orders, claimed that they were far too severe.
Amazingly, the latter won the day as, following a series of protests which led to an amnesty, all twenty-one men were soon released. This decision was met with outrage by the survivors of Oradour-sur-Glane who felt that their village was being punished and sacrificed for a second time.
The people of Oradour-sur-Glane may yet get some justice. At the end of 2011, the German police raided the homes of six men, all aged between 85 and 86 years old and all known to have belonged to the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of Der Führer in the SS Das Reich division, which carried out the atrocities at Oradour-sur-Glane on 10th June 1944. No names have been released but it has been suggested that these me
n did not stand trial at Bordeaux in 1953.
During the raids, the police searched for wartime documents, photographs, diaries and any other evidence which might prove the role that these men played in the massacre. All of the men arrested were low-ranking officers and two have denied taking part in the murders, while the other four have declared themselves unfit to be questioned.
However, investigations continue and if sufficient evidence is found, the accused could be put on trial for murder or accessory to murder.
For now, the men who killed so many innocent men, women and children at Oradour-sur-Glane may have escaped punishment, but their actions – and the lessons learned from them – will never be forgotten. The stories of the survivors, of people like Roger Godfrin, Marguerite Rouffanche and Robert Hébras, serve to teach us about the very worst and the very best of human nature.
The original village of Oradour-sur-Glane was never rebuilt. Left as they were, the ruins were seen as far more powerful – a symbol of France’s suffering during the war. However, in 1946, two years after the country was liberated from German occupation, the National Assembly authorised the construction of a new town, adjacent to the old. Completed in 1953, when the first few families moved in, the new Oradour provided a fresh start, a new beginning, and yet no one who lived there could – or wanted to – forget the past. The new town would remain a place of mourning for many years to come and there were never any public festivals or celebrations held there, only memorial events for the old town.
It was not until the early 1960s that the residents felt able to begin building a new social life for the town, starting with the construction of a recreation hall which could be used for youth activities and events. Gradually, new blood began to move in and, as the years went by, the town became less restrained by its past. That great healer, time, had led the people of Oradour to a place where they could finally begin to look more positively to the future.
I leave you with the words of survivor Robert Hébras, who still lives close to Oradour-sur-Glane in Saint Junien. Although in his late eighties, Hébras continues to conduct tours of the ruins and, in 2011, helped to make a documentary feature film about the tragedy, called Une Vie Avec Oradour (A Life With Oradour). In an interview Hébras gave in April 2002, he spoke about finding that balance between remembering the past and being able to move on:
‘It takes time. It takes time. Time has to pass, as one says… I understand very well that people from my generation may not like (if one can put it that way) to remember defeat. But on the contrary, I think they should tell their children and their grandchildren what happened. These generations want to know, understand. But we shouldn’t point the finger of blame … no army in the world has only good or all bad sides. We must forgive, but perhaps it is necessary to forget some things to get over it.’
Author’s
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people for their help and support with the production of this book.
For reading my manuscript, giving me their honest opinion and offering so many words of encouragement: My mum and dad – Irene and David Watts, John and Carolyn Gallagher, my nephew Adam Gallagher, Keith and Merle Yeomans, Kate Whyman, teachers Joy Redrup and Stephanie Cerrone, and Stratford-upon-Avon School’s librarian.
Helen Fry, for first taking me to Oradour-sur-Glane and starting me on this journey, and for her hospitality, fantastic farm cooking and supply of French wine on our subsequent visits there. Thanks also to David, Tom and Anna Fry for entertaining the tribe that came with me on those weekends in France.
Michael Williams, for creating the informative website www.oradour.info and for his passion for detail.
Author Tony Bradman, for helping me to find a fabulous publisher and editor, and for the writing workshop which inspired me to ‘have a go’.
The staff at the Centre de la Mémoire in Oradour-sur-Glane, for providing such a powerfully moving, respectful and informative on-site exhibition.
Robert Hébras, survivor of the massacre, for continuing to keep alive the memory of those lost, not least through the published account The slaughter of our village which he co-wrote with André Desourteaux and which was such a valuable source of detail.
Kate Paice at Bloomsbury, for her advice and ideas, for her incredibly sensitive and brilliant editing, and for giving me the opportunity to turn my vision into reality.
My children, Jack and Georgia, for putting up with so many ‘quick’ dinners and un-ironed clothes while I worked on this book.
And finally my husband, Jon, for being my sounding board and for his constant and unquestioning support, from the moment I decided to write this book right up to the moment when I typed the final full stop.
Author’s Note
The following story is based on true events. However, the names of the characters and many of the locations have been changed, as have certain physical characteristics and other descriptive details. Some of the events and characters are also composites of several individual events or persons, and some events and characters are completely fictional.
Copyright © 2013 A & C Black
This electronic edition published in May 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing
Text copyright © 2013 Helen Watts
First published 2013 by
A & C Black
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square,
London, WC1B 3DP
www.bloomsbury.com
The right of Helen Watts to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
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eISBN 978-1-4081-8202-4 (e-book)
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