This new book is only the second book in English to deal exclusively with the “Oradour Massacre” when 642 inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane were rounded up and murdered by a division of the Waffen-SS. The entire population was assembled in the village square. At about three o’clock the women and children were separated from the men.
The Germans accused the menfolk of storing arms and ammunition in the village. The men were then taken away in groups of between 30 and 70, and shoved into the six largest buildings in the village, including barns, garages, blacksmiths, etc. Of the 190 men thus incarcerated, only six got out alive. All the others were machine-gunned and then the buildings were set on fire. The women and children were locked up in the church. Two German soldiers carried in a box of gas grenades and then ran out.
The grenades exploded, and the smoke enveloped the entire church. During the ensuing mayhem, German soldiers burst in through the doors again and sprayed machine-gun fire into the crowds of people. When all appeared to be dead, they set fire to the church. The entire village was then burned, until very little remained except the charred ruins which stand there today.
The massacre was carried out by a detachment of the third company of the 1st Battalion of the No. 4 Panzergrenadier Regiment (“Der Führer”) of the Das Reich Division of the Waffen-SS. Most of the detachment which sacked Oradour were themselves Frenchmen, from Alsace and Lorraine. When Rommel was told of the Oradour massacre he said that the Division should be punished, and offered to preside over a court-martial.
http://vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/1/3/Brandon276.html