Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Objective research on factual information regarding German military related warcrimes.
Cott Tiger
Associate
Posts: 856
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2003 8:44 am
Location: England

Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by Cott Tiger »

Hi Guys,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... llage.html

In an “unprecedented” move, a prosecutor from the Nazi war crimes bureau in Dortmund has arrived in Maillé to re-open the case of the brutal murder of 124 men, women and children in the French town by German troops on August 25th 1944.

According to the article it is the “first time the Germans have come onto French soil to investigate the war crimes of their own countrymen”.

It will be interesting to see how this case develops, not least to see if it can ascertained exactly which unit was responsible for the brutal murders. Both Wehrmacht and Waffen SS units have been implicated in the past in relation to the events at Maillé.

Regards,

André
Up The Tigers!
Paddy Keating

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by Paddy Keating »

A particularly nasty episode, by all accounts. Seems to have been provoked by partisan attacks on German personnel in the area. The perpetrators left notes on some bodies to that effect. Some people have attributed it to elements of the 17. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division "Götz von Berlichingen" and Heer sub-units under the command of supply officer Lt Gustav Schleuter. Schleuter was tried in his absence for Maillé in 1952 by a court martial in Bordeaux and sentenced to death but never extradited from Germany, where he died of natural causes in 1965. Maillé is often described as a "forgotten" atrocity but it is far from forgotten in the region. Survivors were plentiful, the Germans having killed 124 of the 500-plus inhabitants of the village and there are still quite a few people there who recall it clearly. The massacre was cited at Nuremberg in 1946.

It was nasty. It seems that the soldiers who entered the village just after 0800 hrs ran amok with sub-machine guns, edged weapons and flamethrowers. They killed people regardless of age and gender. And then, when they withdrew just after noon, the village was shelled, leaving just the church and a couple of buildings standing.

As far as is known, the reprisal was related to a firefight the previous evening between FTP fighters and German soldiers who arrived at the same time at a farm near the village in search of supplies. It seems that the partisans, well-armed because of RAF parachutages, outgunned the Germans, killing several of them and putting the remainder to flight. According to a couple of accounts, a family in a neighbouring farm was dragged out into the yard by a group of angry Germans, lined up against the wall and only survived because the executioner's sub-machinegun misfired, allowing them to run away. Leutnant Schleuter, who was involved in the firefight with the FTP, asked his superiors in Tours for orders and was told to attack Maillé.

Whether or nor he was just meant to enter the village and search for partisans remains open to question. It seems unlikely that his superiors intended a massacre, given the embarrassment over the excessive nature of the reprisals in Oradour-sur-Glane a month and a half before. The commander of the unit responsible for Oradour had been facing a court martial, which was only averted when he met a convenient death in action in Normandy, allegedly assisted by a couple of brother officers who are said to have held him up to take an enemy bullet. Whatever the case, Lt Schleuter attacked Maillé with infantry and artillery, killing more than a third of the inhabitants, and notes were left on bodies stating "This is punishment for terrorists and their accomplices.".

Hopefully, Leutnant Schleuter's personnel file was not amongst the hundreds of thousands of papers fed into furnaces by German civil servants a few years back. If it still exists, Dortmund prosecutor and Nazi hunter Ulrich Mass should be able to identify his Heer unit and there shouldn't be too much trouble in finding some half-senile old geezers to answer charges. Hey presto! Years of make-work employment at taxpayers' expense for a legion of civil servants, lawyers and other parasites while the world continues on its way to Hell in a handcart.

Image

But the predictably bearded Herr Mass, right, probably reckons he's onto a good thing.

PK
phylo_roadking
Patron
Posts: 8459
Joined: Thu Apr 28, 2005 2:41 pm

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by phylo_roadking »

Reading this and a couple of other news items recently - one thing comes to mind...

Given that DeGaulle said that the village would stand as an everlasting monument, like Oradour-sur-Glane...how come it got rebuilt so quickly? Anyone know?
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
User avatar
AAA
Contributor
Posts: 251
Joined: Mon May 24, 2004 9:43 am
Location: Latvia

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by AAA »

Hey presto! Years of make-work employment at taxpayers' expense for a legion of civil servants, lawyers and other parasites while the world continues on its way to Hell in a handcart.
Indeed, one has to wonder what present imperative prompts the need to investigate this event, that has been not present the previous 63 years.
Annelie
Patron
Posts: 1317
Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2002 2:07 am
Location: North America

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by Annelie »

Probably it may have to do with Germans in these last years aiding in helping track war criminals
and others whom committed criminal acts?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/997640.html

again time is of the essence I suppose to clear all these accusations once and for all.
Annelie
________________________
Cott Tiger
Associate
Posts: 856
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2003 8:44 am
Location: England

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by Cott Tiger »

Paddy,

Considering the staggering amounts of money wasted on all sorts of inane and ridiculous things across Europe, the investigation (and hopefully the clarification as to who exactly carried out the brutal 124 murders and why) seems to be a relatively good “waste of money”.

Regards,

André
Up The Tigers!
Cott Tiger
Associate
Posts: 856
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2003 8:44 am
Location: England

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by Cott Tiger »

phylo_roadking wrote:Reading this and a couple of other news items recently - one thing comes to mind...

Given that DeGaulle said that the village would stand as an everlasting monument, like Oradour-sur-Glane...how come it got rebuilt so quickly? Anyone know?
Phylo

At Oradour a much higher percentage of the town’s population was murdered. There was literally very few people left to re-inhabit the town even if it was rebuilt. Whereas in Maillé there were many more survivors than there were victims. I would imagine those people would want to return to their homes and rebuild their lives. Hence much more motivation for a rebuilding programme.

Regards,

André
Up The Tigers!
Paddy Keating

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by Paddy Keating »

Cott Tiger wrote:Paddy,

Considering the staggering amounts of money wasted on all sorts of inane and ridiculous things across Europe, the investigation (and hopefully the clarification as to who exactly carried out the brutal 124 murders and why) seems to be a relatively good “waste of money”.

Regards,

André
I would have thought that the court transcripts from the 1952 trial at which Schleuter was condemned in his absence would contain details of his military unit and where he was based. After all, they had details of the telephone conversation he had with his superiors after the firefight with the partisans. It seems reasonable to presume that some of the killers were from Schleuter's unit. Other may have come from the GvB. The village having been shelled, one could look at which artillery units were in the area at the time.

As for "why", this is pretty obvious: it was a reprisal for partisan or terrorist activity in which German military personnel were killed and wounded. As well as the firefight between the maquisards and the group with which Schleuter went to the farm to requisition supplies, there were reports of an SS officer and his driver being murdered by terrorists in the area. Soldiers are human like anyone else and seeing your comrades killed by terrorists - many people, including a lot of the French population, saw the partisans as terrorists and hoodlums - tends to infuriate you to the point where you will readily kill local civilians if you believe or are encouraged to believe that they are aiding and abetting terrorists who have killed your mates.

Quite how this applies to infants escapes logic but, sadly, logic tends not to influence the actions of people running amok, hellbent on getting some retaliation in. If there is any logic to the process, it is this: you do the men because they are capable of bearing arms against you, you do the women partly for the same reason but more because they are capable of bearing your future enemies and you do the children so that they cannot grow up and come after you. Since the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, we have been trying to educate people to refrain from this sort of thing but atavism is hard to eradicate.

I suppose it would be useful in terms of providing some sort of "closure" if the remaining survivors of the Maillé massacre learned who the murderers were and one should certainly not begrudge them that but they don't need Ulrich Mass for that and nor do the taxpayers who fund his office. The people of Maillé, or their mayor, could surely consult the archives in Bordeaux or Paris and find out which units were likely to have been involved. However, proving which individuals did what, when and to whom is likely to prove impossible, even if they do trace German veterans who were present on the day in question. But as I said, that won't stop Herr Mass and his colleagues from drawing salaries and expenses for the next few years as they go through the motions, thereby keeping their department safe from redundancy for the time being, at taxpayers' expense.

That was my point.

PK

PK
Cott Tiger
Associate
Posts: 856
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2003 8:44 am
Location: England

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by Cott Tiger »

Paddy,

I take on board your points. I am not fully conversant with the Nazi War Crimes bureau and their work (e.g. I don’t know how much the organization costs and who supplies the funding).

When I stated that it would be useful to clarify “why” the murders took place, I didn’t just mean what motivation the killers had. As you have pointed out, (and as the Daily Mail article I referred to states) there was definite Partisan activity in that area, and the Germans suffered causalities.
However, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of similar such actions against German units by French partisans at this time, the vast majority of which didn’t result in the blatant and horrific systematic murder of women and children in the manner it did at Maillé. Why did this unit or units act such an illegal and brutal manner? Who exactly gave the orders?

The fact is that most German troops who encountered French partisans didn’t kick down the nearest Farmhouse door and start murdering innocent women and children in such an horrific fashion simply because some of their buddies had been killed. Hence I can’t help feeling your explanation for the Maillé massacre falls some way short of whole story.

Regards,

André
Up The Tigers!
phylo_roadking
Patron
Posts: 8459
Joined: Thu Apr 28, 2005 2:41 pm

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by phylo_roadking »

The fact is that most German troops who encountered French partisans didn’t kick down the nearest Farmhouse door and start murdering innocent women and children in such an horrific fashion simply because some of their buddies had been killed.
Actually...."most German troops who encountered French partisans didn’t kick down the nearest Farmhouse door" - yes they did. Most killings were less than random as at Maillé i.e fixed numbers of hostages taken against information or surrender if the occupying forces suffered casualties. See for example discussion of the Hostages Case. Even the US Army had fixed WRITTEN procedures for taking hostages under threat of death after partisan/terrorist/insurgent activities.

What was exteme about Maillé, Oradour-sur-Glane, Lidice, Kondomari, etc. was that on occasions such as these, events stepped WELL outside what was regarded by all sides as the "underlaying custom of war" by degree.

I think that if anyone had access to the judicial transcripts, this subject could profit greatly by more detail on the trial in absentia of Schleuter - and especially why HE was tried and no others, and what evidence was presented at THAT time identifying Schleuter and his unit, and what was discussed at that time regarding the presence of other units.
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
Cott Tiger
Associate
Posts: 856
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2003 8:44 am
Location: England

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by Cott Tiger »

phylo_roadking wrote:
The fact is that most German troops who encountered French partisans didn’t kick down the nearest Farmhouse door and start murdering innocent women and children in such an horrific fashion simply because some of their buddies had been killed.
Actually...."most German troops who encountered French partisans didn’t kick down the nearest Farmhouse door" - yes they did. Most killings were less than random as at Maillé i.e fixed numbers of hostages taken against information or surrender if the occupying forces suffered casualties. See for example discussion of the Hostages Case. Even the US Army had fixed WRITTEN procedures for taking hostages under threat of death after partisan/terrorist/insurgent activities.
Phylo,

They well have kicked the door down, but most of the time the women and children present were not shot, tortured, slashed or burnt to death. That was my point.
What was exteme about Maillé, Oradour-sur-Glane, Lidice, Kondomari, etc. was that on occasions such as these, events stepped WELL outside what was regarded by all sides as the "underlaying custom of war" by degree.
My point exactly! Hopefully, amongst other things, the investigation can establish why the reaction at Maillé was so unbalanced and muderous.
I think that if anyone had access to the judicial transcripts, this subject could profit greatly by more detail on the trial in absentia of Schleuter - and especially why HE was tried and no others, and what evidence was presented at THAT time identifying Schleuter and his unit, and what was discussed at that time regarding the presence of other units.
Agreed.

Regards,

André
Up The Tigers!
phylo_roadking
Patron
Posts: 8459
Joined: Thu Apr 28, 2005 2:41 pm

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by phylo_roadking »

They well have kicked the door down, but most of the time the women and children present were not shot, tortured, slashed or burnt to death. That was my point
From the point of view of the casualties - I would have thought it didn't really matter much to THEM if they were killed on the sport...or spent ten days brooding on it in the local jail first... :(
most of the time the women and children present were not shot, tortured, slashed or burnt to death
Stangely enough - the outcome of the Hostages Case could be interpreted to say that it doesn't matter HOW people are put to death in retaliation - as long as the numbers weren't excessive! :shock:
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
Cott Tiger
Associate
Posts: 856
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2003 8:44 am
Location: England

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by Cott Tiger »

phylo_roadking wrote:
They well have kicked the door down, but most of the time the women and children present were not shot, tortured, slashed or burnt to death. That was my point
From the point of view of the casualties - I would have thought it didn't really matter much to THEM if they were killed on the sport...or spent ten days brooding on it in the local jail first... :(
most of the time the women and children present were not shot, tortured, slashed or burnt to death
Stangely enough - the outcome of the Hostages Case could be interpreted to say that it doesn't matter HOW people are put to death in retaliation - as long as the numbers weren't excessive! :shock:
Phylo,

I don't understand your argument.

I'm not talking about the method of killing. I am stating that it was not the norm in Western Europe for German troops to murder innocent women and children after every partisan attack.

Regards,

André
Up The Tigers!
phylo_roadking
Patron
Posts: 8459
Joined: Thu Apr 28, 2005 2:41 pm

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by phylo_roadking »

I'm not talking about the method of killing.
Nor am I.
I am stating that it was not the norm in Western Europe for German troops to murder innocent women and children after every partisan attack.
Was it or was it not the norm for German occupying forces to take civilian hostages for execution in reprisal for partisan activity?
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
Cott Tiger
Associate
Posts: 856
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2003 8:44 am
Location: England

Re: Germans to re-investigate the massacre at Maillé

Post by Cott Tiger »

phylo_roadking wrote:
I'm not talking about the method of killing.
Nor am I.
I am stating that it was not the norm in Western Europe for German troops to murder innocent women and children after every partisan attack.
Was it or was it not the norm for German occupying forces to take civilian hostages for execution in reprisal for partisan activity?
It was. But apart from the fact that isn't what occurred at Maillé, hostages (in Western Europe) would normally be men or male juveniles. Women were taken infrequently and infant children very rarely.

Hence I stand by my original statement: "The fact is that most German troops who encountered French partisans didn’t kick down the nearest Farmhouse door and start murdering innocent women and children in such an horrific fashion simply because some of their buddies had been killed."

Regards,

André
Up The Tigers!
Locked