The soldiers arrived claiming to search for weapons; four hours later, 642 people were dead and an entire village had ceased to exist.

The Destruction of Oradour: When the SS Erased a French Village

642 civilians murdered in four hours — and one Nazi's impossible secret

Four days after D-Day, SS troops massacred 642 civilians in a French village they'd targeted by mistake.

The afternoon sun hung warm over Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10, 1944, four days after Allied forces had stormed Normandy's beaches. In this sleepy Limousin village, 120 miles from the fighting, farmers tended cattle and children fidgeted through Saturday classes. At 2:15 p.m., a column of half-tracks and trucks rumbled into the main square. The soldiers wore the distinctive camouflage of the 2nd SS Panzer Division 'Das Reich' — hardened veterans transferring north to meet the invasion.

Major Adolf Diekmann ordered the town crier to announce a general assembly. Within an hour, every man, woman, and child had been herded to the fairground. The soldiers claimed they were searching for hidden weapons and Resistance fighters. There was no Resistance cell in Oradour-sur-Glane. The SS had confused it with nearby Oradour-sur-Vayres.

What followed was methodical extermination. The men were marched into six barns and garages. At 4:00 p.m., machine guns opened fire, aiming low to shatter legs and prevent escape. The wounded were covered in hay and straw, then set ablaze. Those who tried to crawl away were shot.

The women and children — 247 of them — were locked inside the Church of Saint-Ma…

💡 Among the SS perpetrators were 13 French citizens from Alsace, forcibly conscripted into German service — their controversial amnesty nearly caused a political crisis between Alsace and the rest of France.