Das Reich division and the massacre of Marsoulas (France)

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lebel
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Das Reich division and the massacre of Marsoulas (France)

#1

Post by lebel » 06 Aug 2007, 16:33

on june 10th , 1944 , after a skirmish with French resistants , members of Das Reich massacre of cold blood 28 of 92 inhabitants of a peaceful village of southern France , Marsoulas
Lest we forget
http://membres.lycos.fr/jeff31/

Rob - wssob2
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#2

Post by Rob - wssob2 » 07 Aug 2007, 02:55

Hi Lebel - thanks for your post about the terrible events at Marsoulas.

I was struck by the date - the same day as the massacre at Oradour-sur-glane.

Marsoulas is however, I believe in the Haute Garonne region just north of the Pyrenees and the border with Spain. It is also basically in the opposite direction of Limoges. where the bulk of the 2nd SS was heading on its route to the Normandy beachhead.

On June 7th, 1944, while the bulk of the division headed north as I mentioned, the division's SS-Regiment Deutschland and the II Battalion of the sister regiment Der Fuhrer were ordered to remain at Montauban. SS-Regiment Deutschland later that summer formed a 600-man kampfgruppe that was completely separated from the division and that supposedly conducted savage antipartisan operations in southwestern France over the summer, although I have seen little documentation of these operations - althought your post might be one.

Can you describe further exactly what happened at Marsoulas on June 10, 1944? How do you know it was SS troops?


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lebel
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marsoulas

#3

Post by lebel » 07 Aug 2007, 10:28

Hello Rob
on the website related in my post , you'll find all informations of the involvement of Das Reich in that massacre .Furthermore a search on
http://www.google.fr : Marsoulas +Das Reich , will lead to useful infos
Amicalement
Lebel

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Georg_S
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#4

Post by Georg_S » 08 Aug 2007, 07:54

The very first Time I have heard about this town and a massacre comitted by the SS-Div. Das Reich.
I am very well aware of Tulle and Oradour, but this is new. What I have found doubts in that no one ever mentioned this
when they speak about the "Das Reich", there are several books concerning the Tulle and Oradour but never Marsoulas.
I must ask the same question as Rob are you sure that it´s SS troops who did this, and do you know the reason why they should
have shot the civilians? In both Tulle and Oradour there is a german version why the did what they did. But when I can´t read french I don´t udnerstand a word on the homepage you provided a link to. And then I must say that the photos on that homepage doesn´t show anything
beside some dead civilians I think I counted to 6-7 different corpses, i would like to know more about this happening.

Best regards,

Georg

Ps I did a goole search which you suggested, but every page I found is in French, so I still can´t get any information about what happened.

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#5

Post by Andreas » 08 Aug 2007, 08:37

The reason given on the French homepage is that they were fired at from the Church steeple of the village. There is a (badly translated) English page. Click on the Union Jack.

All the best

Andreas

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#6

Post by Georg_S » 08 Aug 2007, 09:10

I missed that (Union Jack) so now I have read about the reason why they was a massacre there, but still I have doubts about it.
But I will see if there is more to find.

Best regards,

Georg.

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#7

Post by Andreas » 08 Aug 2007, 10:50

Source can be found by Googling for "Marsoulas 1944"

http://www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/prefets/de/schl ... #_ftnref41

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tg ... 7-08.shtml
A Marsoulas le 10 juin 1944, une compagnie du régiment « Deutschland » de la division des SS « Das Reich » massacra 27 civils, parmi eux 11 enfants et 6 femmes. Avant le massacre, la colonne avait été mitraillée par deux maquisards.
My translation: At Marsoulas, on 10 June 1944, one company of the Regiment "Deutschland" of the SS Division "Das Reich" massacred 27 civilians, amongst them 11 children and six women. Before the massacre, the marching column had been machine-gunned by two Maquisards (resistance fighters).

http://www.fondationresistance.org/docu ... c00004.pdf

All the best

Andreas

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lebel
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Marsoulas

#8

Post by lebel » 08 Aug 2007, 17:29

Hello Georg
ALL the numerous entries in Google (in french or english ) ascertain the involvement and responsability of Das Reich in that massacre (even in Nurnberg Trial )
Some are more precise , mentionning "a compagnie of Regiment Deutschland of Das Reich _ brigade Jenssen
And among the numerous crimes of "Das Reich " in France , Tulle and Oradour are the more infamous but not the only ones

BTW , Marsoulas being in France , no wonder if almost all the infos related are in french :)
Salut

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#9

Post by Georg_S » 09 Aug 2007, 07:14

I agree that it might occured, bvut I still have my doubts. About that all pages about this event is in French, it´s difficult for us non french speaking
peopel to understand what is written in all pages, but if you do a search on tulle or oradour you will find a lot of pages in English or German and of course French.

But I wonder one thing, from what I can understand was the Germans shot at from two resistancemembers from the church, correct, they returned fire, and what I have guessed was som eof the victims found in the church? But some was as well found in there homes? I would like to know more what the resistance did after they shot at the Germans? Did they leave the church and tried to hide in other houses or was there a shotout between them and the Germans, with the effect that both where killed, correct by most military laws. Why I ask is when I read this it´s not much of a story why they did what they did. If you compare with Tulle and Oradour there is a to side stories, both from the Germans and the French people, but here isn´t much to get a complete story. Thre was 150 people living in this village, and 28 was killed so there must atleast be around 100 people who can tell there point of the story, and was anyone of the Germans convicted after the war because of this event? If so they also must have a story why the returned fire etc.

Best regards,

Georg

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Daniel Laurent
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#10

Post by Daniel Laurent » 09 Aug 2007, 07:53

Hi,
Georg, the link given above by Andreas :
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tg ... 7-07.shtml
is in english...

See also, still in english :
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tg ... 7-08.shtml

It is not surprising if the fact is not well known out of France, it is a "small" one compared to Oradour and Tulles.

By the way, most of the civilian massacres commited by the same division in the Eastern Front are not recorded or only recorded in Russian.

Back to Marsoulas, the story is well documented (In French..) at the Toulouse Archives, a file called "Fonds Latapie".

I noticed, Georg, that you show some interest to the "German" version of the story ?

Regards
Daniel

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#11

Post by Andreas » 09 Aug 2007, 09:47

Georg wrote:I agree that it might occured, bvut I still have my doubts. About that all pages about this event is in French, it´s difficult for us non french speaking
peopel to understand what is written in all pages, but if you do a search on tulle or oradour you will find a lot of pages in English or German and of course French.
Questioning something happened because you don't speak the language in which it is reported strikes me as odd. Pretending that the German (which I know you can read) and English references given to you are not there is even odder.

What's your point? That only warcrimes reported in English are likely to have happened?

Regards

Andreas

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#12

Post by Georg_S » 09 Aug 2007, 12:48

It ´s not that I don´t understand French which have made that I have doubts, you pointed me to the "english" version, and after I have read that I still have doubts about what really happened, and I also find it faschinating that no one ever have mentioned this warcrime, epecially when it´s kids involved ( I have three kids on my own). I don´t decline that it have happened, but I would like to know more about this event and what really happened.
Is that to much to ask? If you compare with Tulle, Oradour, Malmedy, La Paradis, Wourmhout, Invasionfront etc most are known why and how those massacres occured, but in this case there isn´t much known.

Best regards,

Georg

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Re: Das Reich division and the massacre of Marsoulas (France)

#13

Post by Marcus » 17 Jul 2008, 11:59

The attached is from "Konventioneller Krieg oder NS-Weltanschauungskrieg?: Kriegführung und Partisanenbekämpfung in Frankreich 1943/44" by Peter Lieb and might be of interest.

/Marcus
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Re: Das Reich division and the massacre of Marsoulas (France)

#14

Post by TH Albright » 17 Jul 2008, 16:42

I am curious about what civilian massacres were committed by Das Reich on the Eastern Front that anybody has documentation on...Russian, English, German or otherwise. A History Channel program on the Waffen SS, while wallowing in the usual generalizations about "thugs" and "killers", did mention a massacre in the Fall of 1941 on the Moscow Front by Das Reich involving officials and commissars from a collective farm. It would be fair to say few units of the German Heer and Waffen SS did not participate in war crimes in the East, but that the Waffen SS was uniquely qualified to carry out ad hoc operations of a politicial nature when called upon, such as Einsatzgruppen assistance and the type of operation against a Bolshevik institution mentioned above. Look at the assistance Jochen Peiper's battalion provided to the local Gestapo in Northern Italy in rounding up local Jews there for deportation to Auschwitz. A Heer mechanized unit would decidedly not have been used for this purpose. Apologists for the Waffen SS have a hard time explaining these "political" operations as opposed to the run-of-the-mill anti-partisan repraisals which most German units performed with ham-fisted ruthlessness usually in proportion to the "eliteness" of the units involved..Waffen SS, Herman Goring Division, Gebergsjager and Fallschirmjager all, in Italy, exacted very similar levels of violence against civilan populations during anti-partisan sweeps. See Carlo Gentile's analsysis of war crimes in Italy on this board from several years back..very good stuff.

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Re: Das Reich division and the massacre of Marsoulas (France

#15

Post by PATRICK CHARRON » 13 Jul 2011, 14:05

Hello,

The best account of Marsoulas events is in Division Das Reich by Guy Penaud La Lauze Editions 2005. In french
It was Ostuf Gross 10/ III/ 3 SS Pz. Gr. Rgt Deutschland that made the reprisals.
Regards
Patrick

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