The distruction and killing in Oradour sur Glane France 10 june 1944.

Oradour sur Glane

France 10 june 1944.

The distruction and massacre by the German SS.

When i was on a vacation in France in the area between the citys Limoges and Angouleme i searched for historical places related to the second world war.

In even the smalest village you will find statues which refer to the first or second word war.

What i found in Oradour sur Glane had a great impact on me and it helps me to try to understand the cruelty of the warcrimes and terror by the German SS during World War 2.

What happened there on that tragic day

on the 10 th of june 1944 ?

Oradour sur Glane was just a small village near to the city Limoges from where the people came to enjoy the countryside and spent some time with fishing in the river Glane or walking in nature.

It seems that the war was far away and the German army had no permanent troops or guards in the village.

Untill today we are not sure about the reason why the German SS came to this village but some say that it was a retalliation for some action from the resistance in the area near to Oradour sur Glane.

What we know for sure is the fact that the men, women and children from Oradour sur Glane had no part in this actions and were innocent.

Two German halftrack vehicles type Sd. Kfz. 251,

Halftrack  type Sd. Kfz. 251.

came into the village to bring in the troops from the SS panzer Div. Das Reich.
And with them other trucks and vehicles loaded with German SS troops.
They stopped at different stategic places to seal off the area and block the roads.

A re-enactment picture to show you the
typical SS camouflage uniforms and
other equipment.


After that all citizens are ordered to go to the central market place.
To turn up the speed soldiers pushed the people and screamed schnell !!, schnell !! (quick,quick).
When all the men, women and children were on the marketplace the SS started to sepperate the women and children from the men.

The women and children are chased to the church.

The church before the massacre.

The church in 2009.

The men are chased to 7 different buildings in the village.

About 16:00 hours the SS started to shoot down the men and after that they burned the bodies, but not everybody had died immediate after the shooting...

Meanwhile the women and children in the church heard the shooting and wondered if somebody would survive this massacre...

Then the Germans came in with explosives, placed it in the middle of the church and left. Almost direct a terrible explosion filled the church and surviving women and children tried to escape.

But the Germans started shooting through the windows and doors.

Only one women was able to escape from the church, behind the altar she found a window and jumped three meters down. She was able to hide behind the church and survived.

 642 men,women and children died

only a few survived.

When you walk around through the streets with the burned ruins after visiting the underground memorial you get a deep and impressive view of what happened here. Its like you can smell the remains of burned wood and you can feel the destructive power of terror. If these walls could talk...

Every year about 300.000 people visit this ruins in remembrance of he vistims.

In 1945 after the liberation General de Gaulle decided that everything must stay in place as it was to make the place a national monument and accusation against warcrimes  and terror.

General de Gaulle.

General de Gaulle visiting Oradour sur Glane in 1945,
and made the place a national monument
of remembrance.

The link at the end of this article shows you a clip from the visit of General de Gaulle in 1945 :

http://www.ina.fr/histoire-et-conflits/seconde-guerre-mondiale/video/AFE86003015/le-general-de-gaulle-a-limoges-et-a-oradour-sur-glane.fr.html

Educational projects.

Educational projects.

World War Two

In the classroom.

In combination with a full time job in logistics i am active in two educational projects. The first project is part of my interest in the history of the Second World War and this interest started when i was a kid from about the age of twelve.

After my visit to Normandy in 2007 and after reading a lot of books and viewing lot's of DVD's with films and documentary's i desided that the Normandy beaches would be my speciality in the future.

Its important for the young generation that they know that todays freedom is something special and presious and that others had paid with their lives or suffered injuries by liberating our country from German occupation and nazi terror .

Both pictures from Normandy

France, Omaha Beach.

For young kids i use in the classroom different methodes

to make this clear and understandable.

I refer to the oxygen in the air and their birthday.

Freedom and oxygen.

To explain what freedom is i explain that they need oxygen every day, but its so common that we have accept it as a automatic daily routine.

Only in a filled up classroom with the windows closed and after a long time we are missing the fresh air and enough oxygen.

At that moment we realise that we need it badly.

Its the same with freedom, we don't realise this gift on a daily

basis, but its hurds when you are missing it.

A kids birthday and impotant moments in history.

To explain what the impact is of moments in history and a date like

6 june 1944 (The landing in Normandie on D-Day) i refer

to their birthday.

When you stand up in the morning on your birthday and nobody

realises that its your birthday, no pressents and

nobody say's congratulations it can give you a bad feeling.

Its the same for a WO2 veteran , visiting the country

he has liberated after a long time and nobody

knows what had happened...

In front of the map of our liberation

i thank a WO2 veteran for what he did

for our freedom.

After something about 15 minutes i make a change in my presentation

and i shift from talking to a DVD presentation.

I use fragments from the movie The Longest Day to explain

the situation on the beaches in Normandy, the expectations from the Germans, the impact of weather conditions on the operations and at last the landing itself (suitable for kids).

After the interview in the veteran magazine Checkpoint , where i told about the school project and my interest in WW2 i received a call from somebody who wants to speak with me.

It was the widow from a man who took a leading part in a resistance group in the netherlands.

She is a strong women , about 90 years old and when i met her she was looking back on her live and told some impressive story's about the war and about the terrible suffering in the winter 1944-1945.

She had some special gifts for my school projects.

She and her man lived for 20 years in Normandie France and in the sixties they found some special items on the Normandie beaches.

The first item is an exploded navy artillery shell fired from a navy ship.

The remains of this artillery shell are found on the beach in front of the so called "Pluskat bunker ".

The second item is whats left from a Garand rifle found in the sand of the Normandie landing beaches.

When you bring in this items in the classroom you can see and feel that its important to bring history allive, items to touch and feel speek more than 1000 words.

After i explained the working of a British entrenching tool

the boys are focused on the different parts.

THE BEST MOVIES AND DOCUMENTARYS ON DVD.

If your main interest is in defence

and ww2 you have to search

through a great selection.

But what's to buy and

what's to forget ?

To help you to make the right choise with spending your money i made a selection with ratings, comments and clips.

About the rating : 5 stars is the maximum rating (*****).

The movie Das Boot directed by Wolfgang Petersen and produced by columbia tristar home video is a real first class quality production. There are a few reasons for this. At first its based on true historicaly events like the battle for the Atlantic Ocean and the German Wulf packs (a group of hunting submarines). This fight and the great lossses when the anti submarine strategy from the allied naval forces improved are shown in this movie.

The director is a master when it becomes to the atmosphere

and claustrofobic submarine conditions when the fight is at his breaking point and can also show you the boring daily routine and the social tension when there is simply nothing to do.

Its a long movie which tells you the story from the beginning, the glory, the daily routine and the catastrofic end.

This movie shows you also the madness of warefare in a well ballanced story about submarine U-96.

This movie received 6 Oscar nominations in 1984.

Rating : ***** .

Movie trailer on You Tube :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNMhyl3t0fU

__________________________________________________________________________________

From the cold and deep waters from the Atlantic Ocean we go to the hot air above Britain in 1940. The classic movie The Battle of Britain is the story of the brave pilots who fought against the Germans in a battle which changed history. This movie from the MGM studios directed by Guy Hamilton in 1969 has attracted a fine selection of top actors.

But this crew of actors by itself does not make a great movie.

The best example for this fact is the movie The Battle of the Bulge, about

the battle around the Belgium city of Bastogne during the German Ardenne offensive.

This movie is the most terrible war movie i have ever seen.

Its a true waste of money and even for free its a punishment  to see the movie from the start untill the end.

The historicaly incorrect use of tanks (M47 Patton tanks with a German cross as marking) and the terrible story line and unrealistic battle conditions and suffering makes this movie a shamefull production and waste of time.

But let's go back to a fine piece of movie art.

With this movie i was suprissed by the realistic air battle  with the famous Spifires, Hawker Hurricanes and German Messerschmitt's.

Its storyline shows clearly how close the Royal Air Force was to the point on which the battle was lost because of a lack of trained pilots and proper fighter planes due to the terrible losses during the air battle.

I only have one point to make on which the moviemakers made a mistake.

That's when they use the wrong wehicles when they show some German action on the ground to prepare for the invasion of Britain with groundtroops loaded in ships. But this small mistake is nothing when you look at the total picture.

A detail which is often forgotten when we think about this air battle is the fact that there where a lot of pilots from other nationalitys like the Polish, active in the RAF and this movie shows clearly the communication problems and also their killer instincts when it comes to action.

Rating : *****.

In remebrance of those who fought

for our freedom.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

After the cold waters and the hot air we will stand with both feet on the ground when we have a look at an other war movie classic :

A bridge too far.

This quality production from MGM and directed by Richard Attenborough

in 1977 is based on the book from Cornelius Ryan and tells the tragic story about the operation Market Garden. In september 1944 Montgommery made a plan to end the war before christmas.

It was a combined air/ground offensive, the Market part was the air assault with British and American paratroopers near strategically bridges and the Garden part was the groundoffensive from the Belgium border along a small road (Hells Highway) to the captured bridges.

The last bridge at Arnhem (today called the John Frost Bridge) was never reached by this groundoffensive and after a tragic battle the British and Polish paratroopers where no longer able to keep the Germans away.

The story in the movie follows all the steps in the operations and preparations and make you understand why some things which are great on paper does not work in the hard reality of war.

The tragic story also makes clear what whisfull thinking and ignoring important intelligence information on a high level can mean for the soldier in battle.

The only point on which the movie makers made a mistake is again the use of vehicles which are not historicaly correct. We see this again and this mistake is made a lot of times in war movies from the sixties and seventies.

At least they tried to camouflage the details to make look a likes.

But this error does not effect the good overall impression.

Rating : *****.

The You Tube trailer :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDC8aF_X9Fg

More updates to come !

Leopoldsburg Belgium re-enactment

Camp Leopoldsburg

Belgium.

Re-enactment.