What if the SS carried out several Oradour type massacres in France in 1944?

My point was that such things very well could have become standard and looked like they were starting to when French partisan activity really flared after D-Day.

With an overall German commander in France who believed in retributive mass killings of civilians to deal with partisans it could have and I believe would have continued for months.

I disagree. I don't think Germany will have equivalent of blowtorch battalion in France. Oradour-like massacres might happen here and there but it will not be standard policy. Germany prefered to ship French to camps or forced labour than kill them on the spot.

Realize why things like the Malmedy massacre didn't become standard in Africa and later the West like it was in the East. Its because the illegal orders to kill POWs which were followed by commanders in the East whereas they were burned in the West and Africa.

Lets say the commander in North Africa didn't burn the Commando Order.

Rommel was one of the 12 recipients of Hitler's infamous, illegal Commando Order issued on 18th October 1942. This order to senior commanders ordered the immediate execution of all Allied Commando troops irrespective of circumstances of combat or capture. On receipt of the order Rommel called his Staff Officers together and invited them to each individually read the order. He then took it and instructed them that under no circumstances was this order ever to be put into effect by men under his command, he then burnt the order in front of them commenting as he did so - "And thus, in such a fashion is infamy dealt with".

Word would get back the Allies their POWs are being executed who in response would start shooting German POWs. Then German troops in response would start executing all Allied POWs in Africa. So, much of what you think of today as the norm for what happened in the East, West and Africa was a product of the actions of the generals willness to kill civilians, turn a blind eye to it or to follow orders to kill POWs.

And why this didn't happen? Because Germ military considered itself civilised institution and as such tried to fight clean war in West (including Africa). No matter how much they denied it latter they considered German Lebensraum dreams as good idea and had no troubles massacring Jews and Slavs.

Different people, different attitudes. People who had no problems shooting Soviet POWs got all touchy when it came to doing same to western POWs.

As I said, even W-SS showed restrained in the West while no such thing happened in the East.
 
And why this didn't happen? Because Germ military considered itself civilised institution and as such tried to fight clean war in West (including Africa). No matter how much they denied it latter they considered German Lebensraum dreams as good idea and had no troubles massacring Jews and Slavs.

Different people, different attitudes. People who had no problems shooting Soviet POWs got all touchy when it came to doing same to western POWs.

Depends on the general you are talking about. Certainly most were the the catagory of believing in killing Jews or Slavs or did it and rationalized that 'I am just following orders', but not all of them. The Allies did have an entire Jewish battalion that was captured in Africa and Hitler ordered them killed and the order was also burned.

jews2.jpg


As I said, even W-SS showed restrained in the West while no such thing happened in the East.

The SS in France showed restraint when dealing with partisans only after it became a very divisive issue between the Army and SS in the West.
 
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Assuming that Hitler assigns his Nero Decree to some true believers and they actually go ahead, blowing up and torching large swathes of Paris as possible I think that could possibly sour relations just as badly, if not more so, as several more masscres like Oradour and Tulle. Whilst horrible the massacres at least are out in the country away from the majority of the population, Paris however is the capital and a national symbol. Just look at how anxious de Gaulle was to recapture it and that it be done, and be seen to be done, by French troops to try and throw off the national shame of occupation. It also didn't hurt that by having his people take over the government offices and centres of power ahead of his competitors that he managed to get his group legitimised as the official French government either.

An even worse knock-on of course is that if large sections of the city are demolished then Le Corbusier could well possibly be turned loose to try something along the lines of his ghastly Plan Voisin. Doesn't even bear thinking about.
 
Assuming that Hitler assigns his Nero Decree to some true believers and they actually go ahead, blowing up and torching large swathes of Paris as possible I think that could possibly sour relations just as badly, if not more so, as several more masscres like Oradour and Tulle. Whilst horrible the massacres at least are out in the country away from the majority of the population, Paris however is the capital and a national symbol. Just look at how anxious de Gaulle was to recapture it and that it be done, and be seen to be done, by French troops to try and throw off the national shame of occupation. It also didn't hurt that by having his people take over the government offices and centres of power ahead of his competitors that he managed to get his group legitimised as the official French government either.

An even worse knock-on of course is that if large sections of the city are demolished then Le Corbusier could well possibly be turned loose to try something along the lines of his ghastly Plan Voisin. Doesn't even bear thinking about.

Ah, yes General Dietrich von Choltitz the "Unlikely Saviour of Paris" could easily have been changed in history for someone else who follows orders.

Not that he was a good guy. He was one of those fair weather generals aktarian talked about who was against killing civilians in the West, but as reciently declassified audio tapes show she was willing to follow orders and kill Jews in the East. Though at least from what he said in his secretly bugged cell room to another German general it seems he wasn't exactly happy doing it.

German officers 'knew of Holocaust'

During the Second World War, British intelligence secretly bugged the cells occupied by some of the most senior German army, navy and air force commanders who had been captured by the Allies. he transcripts have only recently been made available to researchers and show that:

General Dietrich von Choltitz, the German commander who defied Hitler's orders by not allowing Paris to be destroyed, admitted that he had been involved in killing Jews. He became known as the "Unlikely Saviour of Paris" when he defied a direct order of Hitler who demanded that the city should be destroyed rather than fall to the Allies. He was captured and sent to Trent Park.

Speaking of an earlier episode in the war, Choltitz - who had previously been stationed on the Eastern Front - said: "The gravest task I ever undertook, and I did it at the time strictly, was the liquidation of the Jews."

The transcripts also point to closer links between Rommel and the plotters who attempted to kill Hitler in 1944. It was previously known that the conspirators asked Rommel whether he would take over if Hitler were no longer alive to run the Nazi state, but never told him of their plans to bomb the Führer. However, a conversation involving General Heinrich Eberbach, who worked closely with Rommel in 1944, suggests Rommel had been fully told about the plans and kept them to himself.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/international/german-officers-knew-of-holocaust-1-1406430
 
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RousseauX

Donor
As I said, such stuff was happening on onthly basis on eastern front. It's same with Malmedy and Le Paradis massacres. They are shocking because they are departure from the norm while on the eastern front such things were pretty standard.

In other words, what OP suggest, massive and frequent massacres are unlikely because that's not how W-SS operated in France.
The wehrmact executed over 20000 french civilians and suspected resistance members over the course of the occupation in reprisal for partisan attacks, nowhere near the brutality of the eastern front but making it quite plausible for 4-5 extra large scale massacres which is what the OP asked for.
 
The wehrmact executed over 20000 french civilians and suspected resistance members over the course of the occupation in reprisal for partisan attacks, nowhere near the brutality of the eastern front but making it quite plausible for 4-5 extra large scale massacres which is what the OP asked for.

Yes, that is what I meant.

I did not mean Germans start acting on mass in France like they did in say Poland.
 
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Here is a question if someone had replaced General Choltitz who was willing to follow Hitler's orders to burn Paris to the ground could it have been realistically done in the short time frame after the order was given and before the Allies took the city and what level of French civilian deaths might have occurred?

Certainly that would have had a major post war impact on French-German relations for decades.
 
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