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With 15,000 men and more than 200 tanks, Das Reich took six days to reach Normandy from the south of France, massacring civilians along the way.
With 15,000 men and more than 200 tanks, Das Reich took six days to reach Normandy from the south of France, massacring civilians along the way.
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00:09This is the story of the elite SS division, Das Reich, which fought against the Allies until the final days
00:15of the Second World War.
00:17Its soldiers, who swore allegiance to the Führer, were responsible for a string of appalling atrocities committed in the name
00:24of the Fatherland.
00:25They are now called to come to its defense.
00:30The Allied landings in Normandy pose a direct threat to Hitler's supremacy in mainland Europe.
00:36But Das Reich's route across central France to bolster the German counterattack is marked by yet more acts of barbarity.
00:44Acts for which its soldiers would never pay.
01:06On June 10th, 1944, Das Reich commits one of its most infamous crimes on the citizens of the French town
01:14of Orador-sur-Gland.
01:17A handful of survivors recall the horrific scene.
01:24When they'd stopped shooting, they checked the bodies and finished off those they saw stirring.
01:29They were firing handguns, machine guns.
01:32They fired into the crowd.
01:34I was wounded.
01:36Then they covered us in hay and firewood, whatever was in the barn.
01:40They set fire to us.
01:48We had been locked in the church.
01:52The Germans brought in this big crate.
01:56I said to someone, see that?
01:59That's a bomb.
02:00We're going to be blown up with the church.
02:03We're going to be blown up with the church.
02:06Oh, she said, don't say such things.
02:10But the fact is, the box exploded.
02:15It gave us such a lot of smoke.
02:18We were suffocating.
02:20We couldn't see in the church and cries went up on all sides.
02:30My eldest girl had lost her little baby.
02:33Then she found him, but I don't know if he was alive or dead.
02:38But my youngest girl was killed by a bullet from outside.
02:42As for the other, the eldest, she was burnt alive.
02:48And that's when I jumped out the window.
03:05At nightfall on 10th June, Marguerite Rufonche hovers between life and death
03:10as she waits for the Germans to leave, with three bullet wounds to the body.
03:15Robert Ebras, who managed to make it to a hiding place,
03:19witnesses the burning of the village.
03:21The SS, under Diekmann, sees motorcycles, cars, and livestock.
03:27Kahn takes a blue Peugeot car.
03:29Bath, the grocer's cash register.
03:32Not far from the still-smoking ruins of Oradour-sur-Glane,
03:36the SS requisition a school in which they feast and drink late into the night.
03:49On the military map dated 11th June,
03:52the Germans draw a ring around the area of Oradour-sur-Glane,
03:55where the massacre took place the day before.
03:58The figure of 500 dead is marked in red ink.
04:02In fact, 642 people were murdered in this French village on 10th June 1944.
04:11Of the men locked in barns and sheds, there are just five survivors.
04:17Of the dozens of women and children left to burn alive in the church,
04:21only Marguerite Rufonche escaped.
04:25For Adolf Diekmann, battalion commander of the Das Reich Regiment known as Der Führer,
04:30that led the massacre,
04:31this orgy of violence was about completing the training of the rookies under his command.
04:39These young men from Alsace, the Ukraine and Hungary,
04:43had only just joined the Das Reich Division.
04:46Before the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane,
04:48they had not yet been bloodied,
04:50unlike their comrades who had served on the Eastern Front.
04:54Now, none of them could claim to be innocent of the crimes committed by the SS.
05:02Oradour is not an isolated case in Western Europe.
05:06After operations in the Soviet Union, SS divisions were sent to the West.
05:11In Italy, Belgium and Greece, they carried out similar massacres,
05:16employing the same methods that had been systematically used in the Ukraine and Belarus.
05:2212th August, 1944, Italy.
05:26The battalion of the 16th Panzer Division, led by Walter Rader,
05:30a veteran of the Battle of Kharkov and the infamous Totenkopf SS Division,
05:35executes the 560 women, children and old men
05:39of the Tuscan village of Sant'Anna di Stadzema,
05:42before raising it.
05:47Several weeks later, near Bologna,
05:50this same unit executes an estimated 955 civilians
05:54around the village of Marzoboto.
05:57Just as in Oradour-sur-Glane,
05:59there is no established link between the civilian population
06:02and partisan groups.
06:09On leaving Oradour,
06:11Dieckmann asks his men to say nothing
06:12of the events of 10th June 1944.
06:15If need be,
06:17they are to say they had found a resistance arms cache
06:19as justification for their actions.
06:22As for the Das Reich Major, Helmut Kampf,
06:25whose disappearance triggered the massacre,
06:28he is executed on the orders of Communist resistance chief
06:31Georges Ganguin,
06:33once he hears of the SS crimes in Oradour.
06:36Kampf's body is never found.
06:40The following day,
06:42a Das Reich contingent returns to Oradour
06:45to remove evidence of the massacre.
06:47They clear sheds
06:48and bury the charred bodies of women and children
06:51in a mass grave.
06:53Already, the men under Otto Kahn and Heinz Barth,
06:57the officers who orchestrated the attack,
06:59are back in the main unit.
07:01On 12th June 1944,
07:04at 8.45am,
07:06the Der Führer Regiment
07:07finally sets out again
07:09for the Normandy Front.
07:10all of a sudden eye Whoever 不 ensures
07:10away as they don't have a soul.
07:26The community's war yapmış
07:29is how many people know
07:29They are being
07:29They are not odds that they do
07:29They are not,
07:30they are morally morse,
07:31they are not the planet.
07:32They are not keeping their allies
07:38Theyanst выгляд
07:39at the Allied offensive in Normandy has been marked by fierce battles on land and in the air.
07:45Reinforcements have been brought from the west and Germany. But it is obvious that those forces
07:50won't be enough to push the enemy into the sea. So the Führer orders reinforcements to be sent.
07:57The 2nd Armour Division, the 1st Tank Regiment, the 116th Panzer Division and the feared 2nd Panzer SS
08:05Das Reich.
08:16While the Das Reich Division was attempting to eliminate pockets of resistance by spreading
08:21death along its route, in Normandy the German troops have not succeeded in pushing back the
08:27Allied advance. The arrival of the division could yet tip the balance. However, its vehicles and its
08:34equipment are in a dire state. Some 60% of its tanks and 30% of the half-tracks are
08:42not operational.
08:44General Heinz Lameding, the commander of the division, complains to his superiors that the
08:49defective panzers should have been ditched farther south between Montauban and Tulle.
08:55This is particularly the case for the dozens of armoured vehicles sent off by rail
08:59from Montauban on flatbeds a few days earlier.
09:09Britain's Special Operations Executive is aware of this.
09:12Based on information delivered by André Malraux, the resistance commander in the Dordogne,
09:17bombers are sent to pound them in Angoulême and Poitiers on their route north.
09:35Philippe Liévert, head of Violette Szabo's commander unit, asks the Gaullist's secret army to step up
09:42sabotage operations. The electricity supply to the German submarine base in the Atlantic port of Rochefort is cut.
09:49The Paris Limoges railway line is dynamited.
10:02In Salon Latour, the place where days earlier Szabo had been captured by Das Reich,
10:08Liévert and Maloubier derail two trains by directing one against the other.
10:13It takes the Germans two months to repair the tracks.
10:19By 13th June, 91% of the 1055 operations against the railway planned by Allied command have been carried out.
10:34As for Violette Szabo, she is in deep trouble.
10:38After her capture, she is handed over to the Gestapo in Limoges.
10:41Her true identity is quickly revealed, and it is Aurel Kovac, the butcher of Toul, who will interrogate her.
10:51But her SOE comrades cannot simply leave her to her fate.
10:55They plan a rescue operation for 16th June.
10:59Twice a day, Szabo is taken from her cell and marched between two policemen to Gestapo headquarters.
11:06Her comrades must act during those 200 meters when she is not handcuffed.
11:11Maloubier is to fire at the two policemen from the back seat of a car, before snatching her.
11:17The day arrives, but the SOE commandos draw a blank.
11:21That same morning, Szabo has been transferred to Gestapo headquarters in Paris.
11:3618th June, and the Das Reich Division is just kilometers from the Normandy Front.
11:41Its regiments are assembled in Saint-Lô, where it prepares to go into battle.
11:46The Allies still only occupy a thin strip of land along the coast.
11:50Although the Americans are gaining ground as they head for Cherbourg, the Germans are putting up a better defense than
11:56predicted,
11:57and are holding General Montgomery's British troops in check at Cannes.
12:11As the Allies continue to unload equipment on the beaches,
12:14General Charles de Gaulle, now back on French soil, is given an ovation in the liberated town of Bayeux.
12:31But the success of the Allied invasion is far from guaranteed.
12:35The Germans take advantage of a storm to cut the Allies' supply line and regain the upper hand.
12:44This, for Das Reich, is the decisive moment.
12:47So far, the division has lost just 40 men on its laborious journey north.
12:56Elimar Schneider, the Alsace man from the Deutschland Regiment,
13:00grows increasingly anxious as they approach the war zone.
13:05On the way, a huge aircraft flew over us.
13:09At the same time, we had massive explosions.
13:12It didn't bode well, and my heart began to beat faster.
13:17I thought, it must be an American bomber,
13:20getting rid of its last bombs that it couldn't drop over Germany.
13:30Hitler is now personally directing operations.
13:33He takes the decision to attempt a German breakthrough between Coman and Saint-Lô.
13:39On 29th June, four SS panzer divisions are mobilized to retake Bayeux,
13:44with Das Reich spearheading the attack.
13:51General Lameding sends in the 1st Battalion of the Der Führer Regiment.
13:54This is the regiment of Diekmann and Kahn,
13:57two of the ringleaders of the Orador-sur-Glan massacre.
14:09German propaganda emphasizes the decisive nature of the battle
14:12and the eager fighting spirit of the German troops on the ground.
14:17Each day, the fighting is fiercer on this part of the European continent.
14:22The confrontation has turned into a large-scale war of destruction.
14:27German tanks, assault guns and cannons attack the American and British units around Bayeux.
14:33German tanks, assault guns and cannons attack the British-American units around Bayeux.
14:53In reality, the operation fails dismally.
14:56It ends in carnage for the Germans.
15:00German tanks, assault guns and cannons attack the Germans.
15:02German tanks, assault guns and cannons attack the Germans.
15:09German tanks, assault guns and cannons attack the Germans.
15:10After two days fighting, the Der Führer Regiment has lost 600 men.
15:15Diekmann is dead, decapitated by a Sherman tank.
15:19Kahn's left arm is ripped off.
15:21He's sent off to be treated at the rear.
15:24The following day, 250 Royal Air Force bombers pound the Das Reich positions.
15:35German tanks, assault guns and cannons attack the Germans.
15:36During the month of July, the German army falls back, but does not crumble.
16:03In their efforts to support the regular army, the Das Reich units are constantly being shifted around,
16:09to contain the Allied offensive.
16:11And they are now being stretched to breaking point.
16:15Sometimes the enemy is British, sometimes American.
16:26Successes are short-lived, and the balance of power shifts daily in the Allies' favor.
16:32That's Reich has joined the battle too late.
16:35Had it not been for resistance ambushes, and the atrocities the division committed on its way north,
16:41it could have made the difference.
16:43Instead, it must make do with plugging the gaps.
17:0124th July, the start of Operation Cobra.
17:04No fewer than 4,000 tons of bombs rained down on Normandy.
17:09It is the largest carpet bombing of the Second World War.
17:16That's Reich commander, General Heinz Lameding, is wounded during the bombing and evacuated from the front line.
17:35The Americans hold their positions and gain ground everywhere.
17:39In four days, the towns of Coutances, Avranches and Grandville are liberated.
17:53Behind the German lines, near Saint-Lô, a reception committee awaits Khan, who is recovering from his wounds.
18:00An SS military judge has come to hear his version of events in Orador-sur-Glane.
18:06The Apostolic Nuncio and the Prefect of the Limoges region, who visited the scene of the massacre,
18:11have complained to France's collaborationist government.
18:17I want to emphasize that the village of Orador was one of the quietest towns in the region,
18:23and its hard-working, peaceful population was known for its moderation.
18:27These details enable you to renew your protest to the government of the Reich,
18:33insisting on the appallingly heinous nature of such reprisals,
18:36the huge emotion they have aroused, and the terror in which the people now find themselves.
18:45Vichy demands explanations.
18:49The marshal was greatly moved to learn about the cruel and inhuman treatment
18:53meted out to the town of Orador-sur-Glane and its population.
18:58Having made a solemn protest to the head of the German government about such acts,
19:02which nothing can justify,
19:04he proposes to send, as soon as circumstances permit,
19:07a member of his cabinet to pay their respects in his name
19:11at the place where so many innocent victims, including children,
19:15met with the most appalling death.
19:26The members of the resistance who enter Orador on 12th June
19:30film the devastated village.
19:32The discovery of charred corpses and ruined buildings
19:36is a shock for which they are unprepared.
19:40They send a damning report to London
19:43based on the testimonies of the survivors
19:45and evidence provided by forensic examiners.
19:54In his statement,
19:56Kahn sticks to the explanation Diekmann told him to give.
20:00Orador was hiding stocks of weapons for the resistance.
20:04The SS judge, who delivers his verdict six months later,
20:08accepts this version of events.
20:18The French protests are not passed on to Hitler.
20:22The Führer's special envoy refuses to trouble him for something so trivial.
20:27Hitler has other fish to fry.
20:30The German generals believe the battle for Normandy is lost.
20:34Hitler refuses to accept such defeatism.
20:37Increasingly isolated,
20:39he decides, against their advice,
20:41to attempt a massive counterattack at Mortin.
20:45The 2nd Panzer Division, Das Reich,
20:47will lead this last-ditch assault.
21:06The Royal Air Force quickly halts the Mortin counter-offensive.
21:10It's another heavy blow for Das Reich.
21:29Heinz Barth,
21:30one of those responsible for the Orador-sur-Glan massacre,
21:33is evacuated from the front
21:35to have his wounded leg amputated.
21:38The Das Reich division is decimated.
21:40Over 200 operational panzers are reduced to just 15.
21:53Elimar Schneider is caught up in the turmoil.
21:58Wherever the gang was tough,
22:00our company was involved.
22:02Mortin,
22:03Donfranc,
22:04Argenton,
22:04Falaise,
22:05all these names remind me of episodes,
22:08but I can't place them exactly.
22:10With hunger gnawing away at us,
22:13we'd climbed the apple trees,
22:14but the apples were always too green,
22:15and weren't good for you.
22:17In fact,
22:18everything here was too green.
22:20The soldiers too young,
22:22the officers too young.
22:24Even the weapons we couldn't try out before,
22:27for lack of ammunition.
22:29There were so many dead and wounded,
22:31that one,
22:32more or less,
22:33made no difference.
22:34Unless we're talking about comrades.
22:44Even in the heart of battle,
22:46the Waffen-SS divisions continue to hunt down the resistance,
22:49and commit war crimes.
22:5213th August 1944,
22:5418 people are killed in Tour Houvre,
22:57in the Orn region of Normandy,
22:58and part of the town burnt.
23:00American prisoners of war,
23:02are summarily executed by Das Reich,
23:05on the pretext,
23:06that they look Jewish.
23:15At the end of the mortar counter-offensive,
23:17defeat for Germany,
23:19is no longer in doubt.
23:21The 100,000 soldiers in the field,
23:24all that's left of some 30,
23:25devastated divisions,
23:26are overwhelmed,
23:27by an Allied battering.
23:3114th August.
23:33The army chiefs of staff,
23:35give the order,
23:36for a general retreat.
23:58Already weakened,
23:59by the loss of 12,000 soldiers killed in July,
24:02and 28,000 made prisoners of war,
24:05the Germans lose an additional 10,000,
24:07at Falaise,
24:08south of Caen.
24:09A further 50,000 are taken prisoner.
24:17This French newsreel,
24:19underlines the scale,
24:20of German losses.
24:23In the huge mass grave,
24:25from Caen to the Seine,
24:27Hitler saw his powerful army,
24:29reduced to ribbons,
24:30by the British tanks.
24:32Germany,
24:32had a debt to pay.
24:35For 40 days of fierce fighting,
24:37Montgomery had the measure,
24:39of the German armour.
24:40Then,
24:41this deluge of fire and steel,
24:43drowned the German power.
24:47First,
24:48one by one.
24:49Then,
24:50in their hundreds,
24:51German prisoners,
24:52were sent to the concentration camps,
24:54that they themselves,
24:55built for French patriots.
25:03That's right,
25:04is a mere shadow,
25:05of the elite division,
25:07it once was.
25:15With great difficulty,
25:16those who miraculously survived,
25:18the battle of Falaise,
25:20somehow slipped through,
25:21allied fingers.
25:22They cross the Seine at Elboeuf,
25:24before heading for the hills,
25:25of the Ardennes,
25:26on the Belgian border.
25:28They then disappear,
25:29to the other side,
25:29of the Siegfried line,
25:31the German defences,
25:32as the Allies make for Paris.
25:4615th August,
25:47and the Allied landings,
25:48in Provence,
25:49open up a new front,
25:50in the West,
25:51and speed up,
25:52the disintegration,
25:53of the German forces,
25:54putting a final end,
25:55to any hopes,
25:57of reconquering France.
26:01In Paris,
26:02German staff,
26:04prepare to pull out.
26:05The Gestapo's,
26:07most valuable prisoners,
26:08resistance leaders,
26:09and SOE agents,
26:10are evacuated.
26:12Despite being subjected,
26:13to harsh interrogation,
26:16Violette Szabo,
26:17has lost none,
26:18of her determination.
26:21While incarcerated,
26:22she has met up,
26:23with two SOE comrades,
26:25Denise Bloch,
26:2628,
26:27a first class secret agent,
26:29whose Jewish family,
26:30was rounded up,
26:30by the Gestapo in 1942.
26:33And Lillian Rolf,
26:3430,
26:35a half Russian,
26:36half British radio operator,
26:38arrested,
26:38during a French police raid.
26:42Szabo has done all she can,
26:44to aid,
26:45and comfort them.
26:47Their nightmare,
26:47is coming to an end,
26:48she promises them.
26:50But in reality,
26:51it is only just beginning.
26:54On 8th August,
26:55barely two weeks,
26:56before the liberating forces,
26:57enter the city,
26:58the three women,
26:59are taken to the,
27:00Gardelest railway station,
27:02where a cattle train,
27:03awaits them.
27:04Destination,
27:06Ravensbrück.
27:09This concentration camp,
27:11for women,
27:12is located,
27:12some 90 kilometers,
27:14from Berlin.
27:15It's overcrowded,
27:16with thousands,
27:17of forced workers,
27:18packed into the sheds.
27:20The inmates,
27:21are resistance fighters,
27:22of every nationality,
27:23as well as those,
27:24deported on racial grounds,
27:26both Jewish,
27:27and gypsy.
27:28They provide,
27:29an easily exploitable,
27:30workforce for German industry,
27:32in the region.
27:33Violet Szabo,
27:34Denise Bloch,
27:35and Lillian Rolf,
27:36are sent to work,
27:37in the munitions factory,
27:38at Torgau.
27:40Conditions,
27:40are appalling.
27:42For the three resistance women,
27:44daily life,
27:45is a matter of survival.
27:48What they don't know,
27:49is that Belarus,
27:50has been liberated,
27:51by the Red Army,
27:52which is now,
27:53advancing on Berlin.
27:5925th August,
28:00and Paris,
28:01is liberated.
28:03The borders,
28:04of the Third Reich,
28:04are shrinking,
28:05with each new,
28:06allied victory.
28:07But the war,
28:08is not yet over.
28:10In September,
28:11US paratroops,
28:12fail to break through,
28:13the front in the Netherlands.
28:15The following month,
28:16Canadian forces,
28:17struggle to free up,
28:19access to the port,
28:19of Antwerp.
28:20A vital supply route,
28:21for the allies,
28:22in Northwest Europe.
28:24Germany bends,
28:25but does not yield.
28:33Hitler decides,
28:34to launch a surprise,
28:35counter-attack,
28:36in the Ardennes,
28:37where the Allies lines,
28:38are thinly defended.
28:40This range of hills,
28:41is close to,
28:42the Siegfried Line,
28:43a line of fortifications,
28:45along Germany's border,
28:46with the Netherlands,
28:47Belgium and France.
28:48said to be impenetrable,
28:50it has just been reinforced,
28:52by order of the Führer.
28:53A German attack,
28:55will be the chance,
28:56to pierce the allied front,
28:57and retake Antwerp.
28:59It's a last roll,
29:00of the dice.
29:01It is no longer,
29:02about winning the war.
29:04It's about securing,
29:05the most advantageous position,
29:07to negotiate a peace,
29:08over the Western front.
29:18Ahead of the counter-attack,
29:20what's left of the
29:21Das Reich division,
29:22licks its wounds,
29:23back in Germany.
29:25Elimar Schneider,
29:26from Alsace,
29:27like the rest of the division,
29:29recovers from the summer's,
29:30harsh fighting.
29:34I celebrated,
29:35my 18th birthday,
29:37in Orzebek.
29:38It was the first time,
29:39we'd had some relative peace.
29:42The ranks of our battalion,
29:44were swelling visibly.
29:46Young Hungarians,
29:47and Germans joining us.
29:50In December,
29:52the news comes,
29:52that Hitler has given the order,
29:54to take back the Ardennes,
29:55from the Allies.
30:04To the enemy's surprise,
30:06on the morning,
30:06of 16th December,
30:08the powerful German forces,
30:09launched a totally,
30:10unexpected attack.
30:12Hundreds of batteries,
30:13of all calibers,
30:14delivered death,
30:15to the enemy.
30:25American infantrymen,
30:26slaughtered.
30:27From the very start,
30:28American losses,
30:29have been high.
30:33Division commander,
30:34Heinz Lameding,
30:35now recovered,
30:36from his wounds in Normandy,
30:38is keen,
30:38to get back into action.
30:40Das Reich,
30:41will be back,
30:41on the offensive.
30:44It was action stations,
30:46once again.
30:47After tasting,
30:48the joys of life,
30:49we were scared again.
30:51Very scared of dying.
31:1623rd December,
31:17as battle rages,
31:18around the Belgian towns,
31:19of Bastogne and Saint-Vite,
31:21the Das Reich division,
31:22makes a sensational entry,
31:24onto the battlefield.
31:25Launching a ferocious assault,
31:27to drive back the Americans,
31:29in what becomes known,
31:30as the Battle of the Bulge.
31:39But once the new battlefront,
31:41is established,
31:42the SS can make,
31:43no further headway.
31:45Doubt sets in.
31:47Like the rest of his company,
31:48Schneider is worn down,
31:50by the stubborn,
31:50American resistance.
31:53At night,
31:54while the corporal,
31:55and I,
31:56were sound asleep,
31:57our company received,
31:58the order,
31:59to take back a hill,
32:00from the Americans.
32:01Another third of the company,
32:03was out of action,
32:04and the Americans,
32:05were still there.
32:08The surprise of the attack,
32:10has worn off.
32:11The bad weather,
32:12that prevented the Allies,
32:13sending reinforcements,
32:14or providing air cover,
32:15has now cleared.
32:17Now,
32:18they renew their air attacks,
32:19throwing everything,
32:20into the battle.
32:22German hopes,
32:23of a decisive counter,
32:24are shattered,
32:25in three days.
32:26On 26th December,
32:28Das Reich,
32:29is defeated,
32:30at Saint-Vite.
32:31General Patton,
32:32relieves the besieged town,
32:33of Bastogne.
32:51The dream,
32:52is over.
32:58In the months,
32:59following the Ardennes defeat,
33:00the men of the Das Reich,
33:02are little more,
33:03than cannon fodder.
33:05Broken into three groups,
33:06to face the Soviet advance,
33:08in Czechoslovakia,
33:09Hungary,
33:10and towards the German city,
33:11of Dresden,
33:12the SS division,
33:14is wiped out,
33:14by the Russians,
33:15in the last exchanges,
33:16of spring,
33:181945.
33:20Like so many others,
33:23Aurel Kovac,
33:24the man who selected,
33:25those to be hanged in Tull,
33:27is killed,
33:27in the fighting.
33:31The soldiers,
33:33of Das Reich,
33:33who escape death,
33:34and the Red Army,
33:35fall back to Prague,
33:37and surrender,
33:37to the Americans.
33:45Germany is in a state,
33:46of ruin.
33:47Hitler commits suicide,
33:48in his bunker.
33:50Lameding,
33:51whose final mission,
33:52was to defend Berlin,
33:54succeeds in slipping,
33:55through the Allied net.
33:57On 8th May 1945,
33:59Germany capitulates.
34:13That Violette Szabo,
34:14will not taste the victory,
34:15to which she devoted,
34:16her young life.
34:18Behind the Ravensbrück,
34:19crematorium,
34:20in February 1945,
34:22she and her SOE comrades,
34:24Denise Bloch,
34:25and Lillian Rolfe,
34:26are executed.
34:28Two months before,
34:29the Red Army,
34:30liberates the capital.
34:31camp,
34:31and only three months,
34:33before the end,
34:34of the conflict.
34:39Of the 130,000,
34:41sent to Ravensbrück,
34:42just 40,000,
34:43survive the forced labour,
34:45and the medical experiments,
34:46carried out in the camp.
34:53Szabo's daughter Tania,
34:55awaiting a return in London,
34:57is not yet three years old.
34:59It is she,
35:00who receives the most prestigious decorations,
35:03awarded posthumously to her mother,
35:05by the British and French authorities.
35:23General de Gaulle visits Oradour-sur-Glan,
35:26wiped out by the Germans.
35:29You are our saviour,
35:31the mayor of Oradour told him.
35:33We are asking that you be our avenger.
35:39After a visit to the cemetery,
35:41of this town that is itself a cemetery,
35:43General de Gaulle said,
35:44if our friends help us,
35:47But it is up to us to see that justice is done,
35:49and to prevent such crimes from ever happening again.
35:54The war was over.
35:55But the crimes of Das Reich lived on in people's memories.
35:59From 1946 on,
36:01the Tull Hangings and the Ogardour-sur-Glan massacre,
36:05were the focus of post-war trials.
36:07At the Nuremberg trials,
36:09the prosecution tried in vain to discover exactly
36:12who gave the orders for the massacres.
36:16None of the Das Reich officers were present.
36:18The question remained unanswered.
36:23That is, until well into the next decade.
36:26January 1953.
36:28And after seven years of investigation,
36:31the Oradour-sur-Glan trial opened in Bordeaux.
36:36In September 1948,
36:38a law was passed in France
36:40that meant the collective responsibility of the accused
36:43could be taken into account.
36:46This legislation was intended to see
36:48that the SS could be punished for its crimes,
36:51the Nuremberg trials having classified the SS
36:54as a criminal organization.
36:56Two of the six Oradour survivors,
36:59Robert Ebras and Marguerite Rufonche,
37:02came to Bordeaux to testify.
37:04The military court in Bordeaux
37:06had to investigate the responsibility of 21 accused men,
37:10including 14 from Alsace,
37:12who claimed to be innocent.
37:14They were press-ganged into the SS, they said.
37:17They were known as the Malgré nous,
37:20or against our will.
37:23The night of 12 February,
37:26and the court's verdict triggered a wave of protest.
37:29Just one death sentence was pronounced,
37:31plus some hard labor.
37:38The victims' families deplored the leniency of this judgment.
37:42The families of the men from Alsace
37:44also cried injustice
37:45against their sentences of hard labor or prison.
37:49In the name of national reconciliation,
37:52all were granted amnesties the following year.
37:57Outraged, the families of the Oradour victims
37:59inscribed the names of the 319 members of parliament
38:03who voted for this amnesty
38:05on a plaque at the entrance to the ruined village.
38:08And right up until 1968,
38:10they would not let any representatives
38:12of the French Republic attend commemorations there.
38:23There were protests, too,
38:25over those responsible for the Thule hangings.
38:27The victims' families demand the extradition
38:30of Heinz Lameding,
38:31the Das Reich general who ordered the executions.
38:37Sentenced to death in absentia
38:39at a trial in Thule in 1949,
38:42the former SS officer
38:43lived a quiet life in West Germany,
38:46as this December 1965 report shows.
38:55Lameding lives here,
38:57number 1 Falcon Street,
38:59next to Dusseldorf Airport.
39:05Today, Lameding is in the phone book in Dusseldorf
39:09where he is a public works contractor.
39:12His name can be seen on trucks,
39:13but during the three days of this shoot,
39:15it has been impossible to meet him
39:17even by surprise.
39:30Despite several extradition requests,
39:32all rejected by the German federal authorities,
39:35Lameding was never given any trouble.
39:40He died aged 66 in Bavaria
39:42on January the 13th, 1971.
39:46His comrades in the SS and Das Reich
39:48paid him a glowing tribute at his funeral.
40:08Seven years later, age 69,
40:11Otto Kahn,
40:12one of those responsible
40:14for the Orodur-sur-Glan massacre,
40:16died in turn near Munich,
40:18without ever having to pay for his actions.
40:28His subordinate, Heinz Barth,
40:30although sentenced to death in absentia
40:32in Bordeaux in 1953,
40:34pursued a career in an industrial cooperative.
40:37But his past did catch up with him,
40:39and he was finally tried in 1983
40:42by a West German court.
40:46By order of the Attorney General of West Germany,
40:50I file a complaint against former Waffen-SS
40:54Oberstunführer Heinz Barth,
40:56born October 15, 1920.
41:00I accuse him of having participated in war crimes
41:03and crimes against humanity.
41:08Robert Ebras, the Orodur survivor,
41:11who testified in Bordeaux,
41:13travelled to Germany for the trial.
41:15Barth's trial was also followed in France.
41:17The press and TV news gave it prominent coverage.
41:24Heinz Barth is 63,
41:27sound in mind, with a perfect memory.
41:29He is permitted to sit
41:31because his leg was amputated
41:32after the Battle of Normandy.
41:34He speaks to the court
41:36as if reciting a history lesson to a schoolroom.
41:39It's the everyday story of a wretched SS soldier
41:43turned torturer and murderer
41:45just because he wanted to be promoted to officer.
41:49Sentenced to life imprisonment
41:51for his part in the Ledica and Orodur massacres,
41:54Barth was released in 1997.
41:57Ten years later, at the age of 87,
42:00he died after a quiet retirement in Granze,
42:03where he was born.
42:11Of the 15,000 men
42:14who took to the road with the Das Reich Division,
42:16only a handful ever answered for its crimes.
42:21Death sentences and life sentences
42:23were all commuted or amnestied.
42:26The reasons cited
42:28were national reconciliation,
42:30rebuilding,
42:31and the Cold War.
42:33Of the volunteers from Alsace
42:35and the Against Our Wills,
42:37not one served even a short prison sentence.
42:44Among them was Elimar Schneider,
42:47claiming that he had saved a man from hanging.
42:50He was not charged at the Thule trial,
42:53and because he was not present at Orodur
42:55during the massacre,
42:57he was never tried.
42:59However,
42:59there is ambiguity
43:01over his reasons
43:02for enlisting in the SS.
43:04In 1982,
43:06he expressed
43:07no regrets.
43:12I don't agree
43:13when they always say
43:15the Waffen SS were murderers.
43:17There's a question of honour involved.
43:20What I saw the Red Resistance do
43:23in Limousin
43:27didn't incite me
43:28to become a deserter.
43:30I stayed with my unit
43:32to avoid becoming a murderer.
43:34A murderer?
43:36A murderer?
43:42It's also an order
43:44present.
43:45Each member receives
43:46an instruction
43:46moral and political
43:47Helping.
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