Case Study:

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Oradour-sur-Glane is a commune (district) in the French region of Limousin (15 kilometers west of Limoges, in the département of Haute-Vienne), where a Waffen-SS unit massacred 642 people, most of which were women and children, in one afternoon.

The characteristics of the Oradour tragedy are the following: an arbitrary massacre of a civilian population by a regular military unit, under the responsibility of a legal authority, or by a paramilitary body acting within a territory, beyond the authorities’ control.

 A. Context

On June 6th, 1944, the final phase of World War II began in France. On the Western Front, German forces were concentrated on the North Sea, Channel, Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, practically vacating a substantial part of French territory. This was the case for the Massif Central region and its western side, Limousin.

Only the main towns were permanently occupied. Specialized troops were combing the area, moving into villages and the countryside, using violence there to create a state of terror. Arrests, cases of deportation, summary executions and fires alternated with quieter periods. Two armored divisions, transferred back from the Eastern front in poor condition, were stationed in the region (in the départements of Dordogne and Lot-et-Garonne), where they were being reconstituted with new equipment and personnel. Local military staff used them for operations against the maquis. These operations contributed to the military training of very young recruits, by placing them in “combat situations”.

The local population was waiting to be delivered by the Allies. It was morally and materially weary after years of occupation and deprivation, the absence of prisoners of war, and the requirements of forced labor in Germany, or for the Atlantic Wall, and feared repression following maquis activities.

The announcement of D-Day led to an increase in resistance activities: sabotage of communication infrastructure (railways, roads, telephone lines) and the liberation of certain towns, especially Guéret and Tulle, respectively the préfectures (administrative headquarters) of the Creuse and Corrèze départements. German reinforcements quickly put a stop to these premature liberations, which were followed by violent repression, intended to establish a durable state of terror, as in the case of Tulle.

The commune of Oradour-sur-Glane had 1,574 inhabitants according to the 1937 census, and 1,640 food ration card holders in the first semester of 1944. They were spread out among roughly twenty farming villages. About 300 of them, including the craftsmen and shopkeepers, lived in the town, where the schools, the town hall and church, as well as the marketplace, fairground, train station and post office were situated. From 1939 onward, Oradour-sur-Glane and the neighboring villages housed refugees. First came Spanish republicans driven away by Franco’s forces; next, Alsatians evacuated from combat zones, then people expelled from Moselle – one of the three départements annexed by the Nazis in 1940 – and finally, Jews from France and beyond, fleeing racial persecution.

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