Author Topic: WWII Nazi trial  (Read 4546 times)

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Offline Maik

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WWII Nazi trial
« on: Wednesday, 08 January, 2014 @ 17:09:51 »
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An 88-year-old German man has been charged with involvement in one of the most infamous World War II massacres.

The charges relate to Oradour-sur-Glane in central France, where 642 people were murdered by SS troops in 1944.

Many were herded into a local church into which hand grenades were thrown before it was set on fire.

Prosecutors in Dortmund said the man had been charged over the murder of 25 people and with aiding and abetting the murder of several hundred.

The ruins of the village have been preserved just as they were after the massacre, as a permanent memorial.

French leader General Charles de Gaulle said it should be a reminder of the cruelty of the Nazi occupation.

Some 60 soldiers were brought to trial in the 1950s. Twenty of them were convicted but all were later released.

On 10 June 1944, a detachment of SS troops had surrounded the tiny hamlet in the Limousin region.

It is believed by some that they were seeking retribution for the kidnap of a German officer but some say that resistance members were based in a different, nearby village.

Most of the victims were women and children. The men had been locked in a barn. Machine-gunners shot at their legs, then doused them in petrol and set them alight.

Last September German President Joachim Gauck travelled to the village and joined hands with one of the survivors and with French President Francois Hollande, as a sign of reconciliation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25656746