Oradour

Objective research on factual information regarding German military related warcrimes.
Cott Tiger
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Post by Cott Tiger »

Paddy,

As you stated yourself on the very first page of this thread:
Of course I don't have any evidence. If I had any evidence to back up what are widely-held suspicions, then so would other people and it would have been made public by now.
Hence, unless you have any new information, your above rebuttal of the charges against the SS at Oradour are merely speculative and unsubstantiated.

You provide no substantive evidence that there was any stored explosives in the church, no substantive evidence that the FTP lit the fire in the church, no substantive evidence that Waffen-SS soldiers risked their own lives and tried to rescue to the women and children, or no substantive evidence that armed FTP were firing from the locked church at German troops.

The known facts are that most of the men were murdered by the Germans out of hand and that hundreds of women and children were locked up in a church and were subsequently burnt to death, while in the presence and the custody of Waffen-SS troops.

Regards,

André
Up The Tigers!
Paddy Keating

Post by Paddy Keating »

You can probably spell 'hypothesis' but do you know what it means? You can't prove the hypothesis I presented wrong, though.

:D

PK
Cott Tiger
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Post by Cott Tiger »

Paddy Keating wrote:You can probably spell 'hypothesis' but do you know what it means? You can't prove the hypothesis I presented wrong, though.

:D

PK
Paddy,

True, but then again, nor can I disprove the hypothesis that “pigs might fly”. :wink:

All the best,

André
Up The Tigers!
phylo_roadking
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Post by phylo_roadking »

Well, they CAN be "airborne" but it tends to be in the strictly vertical sense and makes a hell of a mess on landing, like Douglas Adams' whale and bowl of petunias....
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
Paddy Keating

Post by Paddy Keating »

Keep trying...
Last edited by Paddy Keating on Tue Dec 11, 2007 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
gerhard2
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Post by gerhard2 »

Hi:
In a much earlier posting when asked I replied as I was not there I can only offer my opinion. Which is, due to exaggereations and the need to blame someone it will be a long time, if ever, to get the truth.
Here is a translation :
The Story of Oradour-sur-Glane
Sworn Affidavit of Eberhard Matthes
Quoted below is a sworn affidavit made by retired German Army Lieutenant Eberhard Matthes, signed 16 November 1980, which makes some startling claims about what really happened at Oradour-sur-Glane on 10 June 1944 when 642 men, women and children were massacred and every building in the town was set on fire by Waffen-SS soldiers of the 3rd Company of Der Führer Regiment, Das Reich Division.
This affidavit was quoted in the original German by Herbert Taege in a book entitled "Wo ist Kain? - Enthüllungen and Dokumente zum Komplex Tulle und Oradour," published in 1981. Otto Weidinger quoted the affidavit from Taege's book in a small booklet, entitled "Tulle and Oradour - eine deutsch-französische Tragödie," which he published in 1985. Weidinger's book was translated into English by Colin B. Newberry. The following text of the affidavit is from the English version of Weidinger's book:
"In addition to numerous private and official visits, in November and December of 1963 I was at the French training area of La Courtine in my official capacity as an officer of the Bundeswehr, and in the summer of 1964 I spent some time with my family in southwest France (Massif Central).
As a former participant in the war and regional chairman of the association of repatriated soldiers I was interested in all matters that had to do with reprisals and the shooting of hostages and so on, and consequently I visited Oradour-sur-Glane on both occasions.
Upon my first visit in December 1963, in German Bundeswehr uniform and in a Bundeswehr jeep with a driver, my experiences were as follows:
1) The part of the village that had been destroyed in 1944 had been turned into a kind of open-air museum with a kiosk selling drinks, cigarettes, etc. as well as brochures telling of the happenings in Oradour in June 1944, the latter at an astonishingly low price.
2) Immediately after my arrival the jeep was surrounded by children and also by, for the most part, elderly inhabitants and we were warmly welcomed.
3) When these older inhabitants - in 1963 they would have been between 50 and 60 years old - saw me reading one of the brochures, some of them said I should not believe everything I read. A lot of what had occurred had been different to what the brochures said. I was naturally somewhat perplexed and said that it was bad enough if German soldiers had fired upon women and children in the church that they had set fire to or whilst they were attempting to escape from it.
The answer to this was quite clear and unequivocal: the church had not been set fire to by the Germans in the first place. On the contrary, SS soldiers had risked their own lives to save several women and children from the burning church. Two women in the group around me even said that they themselves had been rescued by German soldiers, otherwise they would not be standing there that day.
4) In the meantime the mayor had arrived, who introduced himself and welcomed me very warmly: I was the first German soldier in uniform to visit Oradour since the war. He was very pleased about this. Politically he was a left-winger, but France and the FRG were allies and friends. One had to accept the past and learn the right lessons from it. And in the war wrong had been done everywhere. I immediately confronted him with what I had heard beforehand from the inhabitants, to which he replied that the Maquis had also done a lot of wrong to German soldiers at that time, for which reason none of the accused Germans in the Oradour trial had been condemned to death and almost all of those who were imprisoned had been released.
5) I can remember one episode very clearly. Near the ruins of the church there was, among other things, an old child's pram with a sign saying this pram had burnt out with a child in it during the massacre. I believe it was the mayor himself who, upon seeing it, smiled and said that the remains of a pram had indeed been found on that spot, but now that Oradour had become a kind of place of pilgrimage, and the village also profited from the visitors financially, such things had to be renewed every few years.
6) Understandably I had now become very much interested in the Oradour incident. I had an opportunity of talking to French officers, with whom we had a very open and comradly relationship and without any reservations. One high-ranking French officer answered my questions as follows:
'One of the major reasons for the actions of the Germans in Oradour in June 1944 was no doubt the fact that the advancing Germans had found a burning or already burnt-out German ambulance right in front of the village. All six persons in the ambulance must have been burnt alive. The driver and the person beside him were tied to the steering wheel. This was undoubtedly a deed perpetrated by the Maquis. Entwined with this was the mysterious and agonizing killing, in the same area and at about the same time, of a high-ranking German officer who had fallen into the hands of the Maquis. In the same situation French troops would also have had to take reprisals, possibly involving the shooting of hostages, as provided for in the laws and customs for war on land from 1939 through 1945. For these reasons there are many French soldiers and officers who do not visit Oradour in an official role. And for the same reasons (as far as the officer knew) no official military ceremonies are held in Oradour.'
7) Upon my second - private - visit to Oradour in the summer of 1964 I found further confirmation of what I had been told in that the owner of the kiosk or attendant (also an elderly man), from whom we bought something to drink, answered as follows to my remarks about the brochures: There were a number of witnesses who knew exactly how everything had actually happened in 1944. They had either not been heard at all during the trial, however, or they had to limit themselves to irrelevant details. The accused Germans had also received prison sentences and been released soon afterwards, instead of being sentenced to death, because otherwise some of the witnesses would no doubt have 'spilled the beans' and told what really had happened.
The explosion in the church was actually set off by a civilian. This individual is even believed to have shot a civilian while escaping from the church via the vestry, after setting a fuse. Speculation is that a member of the Maquis, perhaps not even a Frenchman, committed the deed in so that the Germans would be blamed. This would presumably cause even more civilians to join the resistance. Instead, the deaths at Tulle and Oradour ended Maquis activity in the Dordogne through the German withdrawal in August."

The following quote is from "Tulle and Oradour - a Franco-German Tragedy" by Otto Weidinger
On 13 April 1981 retired Lieutenant Eberhard Matthes added to his sworn affidavit of 16 November 1980 by stating that in December 1963 the women who had claimed to have been rescued from the burning church by soldiers in German uniform had also told him, among other things, that the firing outside the church had not begun until the church interior had started to burn following an explosion. From this one can conclude that the explosion in the church may have been the real reason for shooting of the male population. When elderly women in Oradour say such things to an officer of the German Bundeswehr, the whole Oradour complex appears in a new light. The responsibity for burning down the church with the women and children trapped inside it is thus removed from Diekmann's shoulders.
The destruction of the church of Oradour can be blamed neither on the regiment DF, nor on Das Reich Division, nor any other German command.
The fact that two French civilians had drawn Diekmann's attention to this village in particular also poses the question of whether he was purposely drawn in the direction of Oradour for the purpose of provoking harsh measures by the Germans against the civilian population, but not in anticipation of such rigorous actions as actually occurred.
From the questioning of then Obersturmführer Gerlach the following facts are clear:
1) Oradour-sur-Glane was in the hands of the Maquisards,
2) the majority of the population was on the side of the Maquisards,
3) women also appeared as active members of the Maquis, dressed in leather jackets with steel helmets.
4) the village was the command centre of a high-ranking Maquis staff body,
5) confusion of Oradour-sur-Glane with another place of the same name could not have been possible.
During a conversation between the author and the then Maquis chief in the Dordogne-Jugie (called 'Gao') in Paris in 1969, the latter freely admitted that weapons and ammunition had of course been stashed in all houses in Oradour at that time; it had been their job to supply weapons and ammunition to the towns and villages in the Dordogne.
Gerhard
John P. Moore
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Post by John P. Moore »

Possibly the version that Gerhard has so kindly posted could be confirmed by the documents that the French government has restricted. If the documents were favorable to the version of the innocent villagers theory, why wouldn't they be released?

John
michael kenny
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Post by michael kenny »

an account from one survivor.

At about 2pm on the 10th of June 1944, German soldiers burst into my home and ordered me to go to the fairground together with my husband, son, two daughters and granddaughter.

A number from the town were already assembled and men and women were flocking in from all directions. They were followed by the schoolchildren, who arrived separately. The Germans divided us into two groups, women and children on one side and men on the other. The first group that I was in was taken under armed guard to the church. It consisted of all the women from the town, especially mothers, who entered the House of God carrying their babies in their arms, or pushing them in their prams. All the schoolchildren were there as well. We must have numbered several hundred.

Crammed inside the church, we waited in growing anxiety to see what would happen next. Around 4.00 p.m. a few soldiers, about 20 years of age brought into the nave, close to the choir, a large box, from which hung strings, which trailed to the ground. When the trailing strings were lit, the device suddenly exploded with a loud bang and gave off a thick black suffocating smoke. Women and children, half-choking and screaming in terror, rushed to those parts of the church where the air was still breathable. It was thus that the door to the sacristy was broken down under the irresistible pressure of a terrified crowd. I followed them and sat down on a step. My daughter joined me. The Germans saw that people had escaped into the room and cold-bloodedly shot down everyone who was hiding there. My daughter was killed where she stood by a shot fired from outside. I owe my life to my closing my eyes and feigning death.

Firing burst out in the church (from the entrance door), and then straw, firewood, and chairs were thrown in a heap onto the bodies lying on the flagstones. I had escaped the slaughter unwounded and took advantage of a cloud of smoke to hide behind the altar. In that part of the church there were three windows. I went to the middle one, the biggest and with the aid of the stool used to light the candles, tried to reach it. I don't know how, but my strength was multiplied. I heaved myself up to it as best I could and threw myself out of the opening that was offered to me by the already shattered window. I fell about 10 feet.

When I looked up I saw that I had been followed by a woman, who was holding out her baby to me from the window. She fell down next to me, but the Germans alerted by the child's cries fired at us. The woman and the child were killed. I myself was wounded as I made my way to a nearby garden. I hid amongst some rows of peas and waited in terror for help to arrive. That was not until the following day at about 5:00 PM".
Cott Tiger
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Post by Cott Tiger »

Gerhard,
Here is a translation :
The Story of Oradour-sur-Glane
Sworn Affidavit of Eberhard Matthes………
This information, which also forms the backbone of Marc Rikmenspoel’s rebuttal, simply does not hold up to analysis or scrutiny. Some retired German officer, speaks to an unnamed old man in a kiosk, who has been told by some other unnamed people that the Germans didn’t kill the women and children in the church – and yet we meant to accept this as bonafide substantive historical evidence.

Who are these remarkable witnesses? What are their names? Can they be verified as Oradour citizens at the time of the massacre? Can this mans story be verified in any way, shape or form?

Even the French Officer that Matthes tells us of is unnamed. Who is he? What research and study did this officer conduct, what evidence did he accumulate, to substantiate his version of events at Oradour.

It is clearly unsubstantiated speculation. There is no verifiable evidence whatsoever, that there were any armaments in the church or that a civilian set off the explosion.

Regards,

André
Up The Tigers!
Paddy Keating

Post by Paddy Keating »

I wonder what kind of ordnance the box allegedly brought into the church was. I can't think of anything the armourers of an infantry battalion might have had to hand answering that description. One thing I can think of is that victims of circumstance in wars are as prone as anyone else under stressful conditions to err in their recollection of events. Villagers in an area where, even today, the families of former FTP partisans exude a baleful, threatening attitude to anyone asking about the events of June 1944 might have found it easier to attribute the ignition of an explosive or incendiary device in the church to German soldiers rather than violent communist terrorists. Going against the local FTP, who were violent communists, even after the war, was very risky. If the Germans had planned to burn the church down with the people inside in a grim repetition of a scene played out hundreds of times in the USSR, it is more likely that they would have deployed the flamethrowers issued as standard assault equipment to panzer-grenadier battalions, backed up with hand grenades and small arms. Half a dozen men with these weapons around a small country church crammed with people would have a far more lethal and immediate effect than some jury-rigged box emitting clouds of smoke. I mean, why not stuff rags under the doors and around the windows, break a few panes and feed vehicle exhaust fumes into the church while they were at it? Perhaps the ignition of this box with fuses dangling from it did happen but perhaps the box or boxes were from a parachutage of plastic explosives from Britain and the man or men lighting the fuses were wellknown communist hardmen from the locale? Who knows?

PK
phylo_roadking
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Post by phylo_roadking »

One slight problem regarding
Who are these remarkable witnesses? What are their names? Can they be verified as Oradour citizens at the time of the massacre? Can this mans story be verified in any way, shape or form?...

It is clearly unsubstantiated speculation. There is no verifiable evidence whatsoever, that there were any armaments in the church or that a civilian set off the explosion.
...and you quoted the problem yourself...
The Story of Oradour-sur-Glane
Sworn Affidavit of Eberhard Matthes………
Affadavits sworn before court-appointed or recognised officers have, in the majority of European law codes, full admissibility as eveidence in court, FAR more than in UK courts where they usually have to be backed with a court appearance to confirm the identity of the witness and the veracity of the content. A "sworn affadavit" in most European countries has the same legal weight as evidence under oath or a staement under caution in the UK. A European court wouldn't blow this off quite as lightly as YOU do....and I do doubt that it would or would ever have come to court in the UK ;-) It would of course come under the SAME degree of scrutiny as evidence given in court, but legally MUST be accepted in preference to a mere..."account".
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
Hans Weber
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Post by Hans Weber »

Hello

As to how the explosives would possibly be brought into action:

"After a while, I was called into the village again by a messenger to see the commander and found him approximately 30 m distant from the church. I first asked him the question what he wanted to do now. Enough had happened. The village was burning at this time. I remember that in the proximity to the church was standing the parsonage, it was also burning. However I said then to the commander that he should at least let the women run. I believe I said to him that he should chase the women into the forest. The only remark Dieckmann (sic) made was: That it was out of the question. Whereupon he asked the question: Do you have explosives with you? I answered: “No”. Thereupon, an Unterscharführer behind me who was the equipment manager for arms and ammunition, answered: “Yes Sturmbannführer I still have something on the wagon”. He said that he had a batch of 2 or 4 kilos of explosive with him. I turned around and only said to the Unterführer: “Idiot”. Dieckmann (sic) however ordered him to get the explosives and asked me whether I had any idea of blasting. Although I had a pioneer-education as an old infantryman, I declared: “No”. On this question of Dieckmann (sic), an Unterschaführer, who wanted to have an explosive-certificate, came forward. He got the command to install the explosives in the church and to ignite them. I did not see where this charge was installed since I did not go along. On the other hand Dieckmann (sic) accompanied the Unterführer. I assume that the charge was put within the building. When the explosion was carried out, the Unterführer was most severely injured. I saw him hurled outside through the church-door covered in blood. I am not familiar with the name of this Unterführer, however he died of his injury. After the explosion, the whole ground staggered and a deafening noise was to be heard from the church. The walls themselves remained standing. I noticed that Dieckmann (sic) meanwhile collected some teams with MG's (Machine Guns) and hurried to the church-door. This business was to me so jarring that I turned away and moved away a northerly direction. I was accompanied by a messenger of my company-troop. We both went into a house at the village-edge, not yet burned and sat down. I was there for approximately one hour. About then Dieckmann (sic) appeared and gave me the command to collect the company. During this hour, conflagration reigned in Oradour, during which we heard explosions from time to time that were interconnected with a rattle, like a firework. I assume that ammunition that had been stored in the houses went up."

This is the Kahn statement, as Wolfkin already has pointed out.
http://www.oradour.info/appendix/kahnsta1.htm
I point it out again, because I'm under the impression that it largely went unnoticed. I also assume that the Dortumund files are actually at the basis of the ominous archives in Germany that was the subject of the very first post in this thread. Not a military archive, but a tribunal one. Its pros and cons in terms of value to the discussion are imho very well evalutated on the website in question.

As to the flame throwers seemingly issued as standard fare to the Panzergrenadier Bn in the SS, reality in 1944 was quite different. Looking at my original sources, I can't find any evidence for this in 2.SS PD. From an allowance of 86, it only had 6 on May 20th 1944. In case of LAH, I have positive proof that the whole division only fielded 8 flamethrowers during the same period. As this is a most dangerous weapon for the employer, you would not find it issued to inexperienced troops, thus it is unlikely anybody else but the Pioniere were trained on this weapon and nobody else kept it. How things can backfire if untrained personel are using specialist equipement is vividly illustrated in the above statment by Kahn.

Cheers
Hans
Cott Tiger
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Post by Cott Tiger »

Phylo,

So, let’s cut to the chase. Do you think Matthes evidence, allegedly obtained nearly 20 years previously from an unnamed old man in a kiosk who had in turn obtained his information from an unnamed person stands up as verifiable, reliable and substantive evidence?

I suggest to you, yet again, this is weak, unverifiable, unsubstantiated evidence and its barely worth the paper its written on. Any court, historian or researcher worth their salt would tell you as much. These are simple historical research standards, and I am shocked you appear to wish to add weight to such flimsy speculative evidence.

Regards,

André
Up The Tigers!
phylo_roadking
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Post by phylo_roadking »

I'm not adding weight to them at all and certainly not as historical evidence. What I'm saying is do not readily dismiss them, and that's NOT the same thing - for most European court systems have fixed procedures for dealing with sworn affadavits that differ from the UK, and would give such a sworn affadavit more credence than you might realise.
Any court... would tell you as much.
Only in the UK, for our legal procedures differ on the value of sworn-out-of-court testimony. Not all the world is England. Elsewhere it would be given far more weight than here, for its accepted as out of court but under oath.
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
Cott Tiger
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Post by Cott Tiger »

Phylo,

I don’t understand your argument. Why shouldn’t we dismiss an account that is based purely on heresy through several unnamed sources from over 40 years ago?

If this evidence is unverifiable, unsubstantiated and unreliable why exactly shouldn’t it be dismissed?

What worth does it have to historical study and research?

If the alleged “elderly” geezer in the kiosk selling pop to our tourist German friend Mr. Matthes in the 1960's had a name and was traceable and then in turn, his source of the information had a name and was traceable and could be verified as being in the vicinity of Oradour at the time, then, and only then could we begin to take this evidence seriously. We don't have that information, nothing even close. All we have is a bloke who knew a bloke who knew a bloke. No names. Nothing.

As for your argument that it is or isn’t admissible in a court of law, I simply don’t know if that is the case or not. However, what I do know is that even a half-wit lawyer could rip that affidavit’s credibility to shreds in matter of seconds. Like I have said, from a factual, evidential point of view it’s hardly worth the paper it’s written on.

Why are constantly seeking to draw ambiguity to this point Phylo. What worth do you see in this evidence?

Regards,

Andre
Up The Tigers!
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