REPRISALS & MASSACRES

Following on from D Day the German Army, in the shape of the SS, took reprisals and massacred a number of civilians as retaliation against the Free French Resistance,

On the 9^th June 1944, the town of Tulle, in the Limousin region of central France, was chosen. A large number of male civilians were rounded up by the 2^nd SS Division Das Reich division of the Waffen SS. Of these, 97 were randomly selected and then hanged from lamp posts and balconies in the town. Additionally, another 321 captives were sent to forced labour camps in Germany.

On the 10^th June, that same division 2^nd SS Panzer Division “Das Reich” under the command of Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann 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 papers 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. The village was almost totally razed and 642 inhabitants murdered in a matter of hours.

This was not unusual behaviour for the German Army at the time.

Lidice is a village in the Czech Republic just north-west of Prague. It is built on the site of a previous village of the same name, as part of the Nazi created Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. On direct orders from Heinrich Himmler (having received orders from Berlin) Lidice was completely destroyed by German forces in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in the late spring of 1942. On June 10, 1942, 192 men over 16 years of age from the village were murdered on the spot. The rest of the population were sent to Nazi concentration camps where many women and nearly all the children were killed.

The day before, on the 9^th June, the decision was made to "make up for his death". Karl Hermann Frank, Secretary of State for the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, reported from Berlin that the Führer had commanded the following concerning any village found to have harboured Heydrich's killers:

1. Execute all adult men

2. Transport all women to a concentration camp

3. Gather the children suitable for Germanisation, then place them in SS families in the Reich and bring the rest of the children up in other ways

Burn down the village and level it entirely.
This was done apparently with great efficiency.

There is little one can say about the smiling men in this film. The, then, German propaganda film unit must have had its reasons for filming the atrocity. This is only a 56 second segment of it. I cannot imagine what the rest of it is like

Here is an historical account of what led up to and what occurred at Lidice. Some of this is not pleasant viewing. Follow the links there are 11+ parts.