The Nazi War Crime That Shocked Even the Nazis

in our video today a war crime so horrifying so disgusting so vile that even the nazis were like whoa this is some crazy but first this video is sponsored by hellofresh seamless transition right there folks welcome to 2021 where you want to eat a little healthier you want to try new things maybe you want to even be more fiscally or environmentally conscious hello fresh is your gateway to all of those things we're talking about a specially designed meal kit that's going to help you break out of that recipe rut that you've been in for weeks now right who has time to go across town to the grocery store get misted on through the produce aisle and hope no one gets too close in the checkout lines right now the grocery store is more of a hassle than it's ever been enter hello fresh and it's delicious five-star choices they work with local farmers to send you delicious locally sourced meals they help you skip the meal prep and put dinner on the table in 30 minutes or less it's awesome hellofresh is a perfect service because of its flexibility but also because of its responsible business model if you like variety you're also not locked into options you can change your meal preferences for a week if you just want to switch things up you're getting bored get something else in there and of course virtually everything with hellofresh is recyclable sustainable and sanitized because govid hello fresh is a fun experience if you've never tried a meal kit you are missing out and hello fresh are the best on the market right now you guys can go to hellofresh.com and use my code brainfood10 for 10 free meals including free shipping [Music] of all military units in the second world war few were as infamous or as feared as the german warfare ss entirely separate from the regular german army or veermarked the ss short for schutzer staffer or protection force were the paramilitary wing of the nazi party its members swore allegiance not to germany or the german government but directly to adolf hitler himself first formed in 1925 as a personal bodyguard for hitler by 1939 the ss had grown into a powerful organization a quarter million strong divided into three branches the alga mine or general ss which ran the whole organization as well as the gestapo secret police the totem cop verbanda which ran the concentration camps and then the waffen-ss the combat wing which fought alongside the regular armed forces as the vanguards of the nazi party the men of the ss were selected for their racial purity physical prowess and absolute devotion to nazi ideology as rashfira heinrich himmler head of the ss explained one basic principle must be the absolute rule for the ss man we must be decent loyal and comradely to members of our own blood and to nobody else what happens to a russian or to a cheque doesn't interest me in the slightest recruits family trees were rigorously scrutinized for even a single drop of jewish blood and in the early days even a single tooth filling could disqualify a candidate from serving though as the war ground on and the ss grew increasingly desperate for men its standards would relax substantially with even muslim volunteers from the balkans being allowed into its ranks as soldiers waffen-ss troops underwent a brutal training regime to forge them into perfect warriors tenacious cunning contemptuous of danger and courageous to a fault while this tenacity and zeal made the warfare a formidable fighting force it often proved counterproductive for instance with their refusal to retreat in the face of battle resulting in disproportionately high casualty rates their fanaticism also made them merciless towards their enemies with often ss units committing countless atrocities against enemy prisoners and civilians over the course of the war especially in poland and the soviet union one atrocity committed in france in the summer of 1944 was so heinous that it shocked the ss and the vimac thai command to their core and prompted the nazis to investigate their own men for war crimes the town of orodua soglan lies in the haudvienne department of southern france around 10 kilometers northwest of the famous pottery center of limoge a sleepy market village of less than a thousand people for most of the war the town was all but untouched with life carrying on much as it had for hundreds of years but all of that would change on the 10th of june 1944. four days earlier on the 6th of june allied forces landed on the beaches of normandy as part of operation overlord the largest amphibious invasion in history prior to the invasion a massive allied deception campaign called operation bodyguard had convinced the germans that the actual landings would take place in the paddock lay leading german commanders to station their units far away from the normandy coast among these units was the 2nd spans division das reich which had recently been transferred from the eastern front to the southern french town of valencia for refitting soon after the overlord landings began the division commander ss stan and fiora silverster stadler received orders to ready his troops for battle and prepare to make the 600 kilometer journey to normandy to repel the invaders on the 8th of june the division headed north a journey seriously hampered by the french resistance who sabotaged rail lines and flat cars and felled trees across the roads then on the morning of june the 10th ss dorm banfura adolf deichmann commander of the fourth ss panda grenadillo regime zafura was approached by officers of the males the paramilitary wing of the french collaborationist vishi regime the officers told daikman that the night before asses tonbanfura helmut kampf commander of the 2nd ss panzer reconnaissance battalion had been captured by the marquis de lima a local french resistance group and was being held in a nearby village enraged deigmond quickly assembled his men and set off to exact his revenge on the villagers brutal reprisals against civilians for sheltering and assisting partisans was official policy for the nazis and its occupied territories exactly two years prior following the assassination of ss ubergruppenfuhrer reinard heydrich by czech agents trained and equipped by the british the nearby village of le ditzer was liquidated by the ss with 340 of its residents being either shot in place or sent to extermination camps and the town itself was raised and erased from all maps aura del sur glo was not even the only reprisal committed by the das reich division that month on june the eighth resistance fighters captured the town of tule only for it to be retaken the next day by the second ss reconnaissance battalion who proceeded to hang 99 villagers on the 10th of june ss soldiers were fired upon from the church tower while passing through the town of marsula leading to 27 villages being executed but the massacre in ore der seuglar that was about to unfold was by far the largest most methodical and most brutal ever to be committed on french soil in the entirety of the second world war nobody knows exactly why adolf deichmann chose orodua sil glove for liquidation as it had never been a major center of resistance activity the best explanation historians have been able to come up with is that daikman mistook it for the nearby village of oradour surveys a era that was to have horrific consequences whatever dikeman's reasoning by 2pm the durfura battalion arrived in euroduclore and began setting up roadblocks on all roads leading into and out of the village sealing its residents and six outsiders who happened to be bicycling through inside the villages many of whom were in the middle of their midday meal were confused by the sudden invasion but as the germans had hardly bothered them before few panicked or attempted to flee once the village was sealed off deichmann made his way to the town hall and informed the mayor jean de soto that he was conducting a check of identity cards and that the villagers were to assemble in the main square at dusserto's instructions the town crier jean de piefische set off around town with an ss trooper beating his drum and calling for the villagers to follow dartmouth's orders nobody was exempted the head teacher at the girls school andre bernay was dragged from a sick bed with a high fever and forced into the main square in a nightgown another man clemon brucitier was dragged from the barber's chair in the middle of a haircut when he tried to collect his bicycle he was ominously informed you won't be needing it anymore despite dogman's claims none of the village's identity cards were ever examined instead once everyone was assembled in the square dikeman informed the villagers that he was conducting a search for resistance weapons caches deichmann then asked mayor desetto to select 30 villagers to hold us hostages who would then be traded for the captive helmut kampf when desoto refused telling dykman that he would have to choose himself diehmann ordered that the men be separated from the women and children and allowed to be taken to the village church the men were then divided into six groups and marched out to various sheds and barns scattered around the town while most of the villagers cooperated with the germans a handful chose to flee as soon as they arrived among these was marshall brassar who took a circuitous route out of the village to avoid being seen by the approaching troops at one point priscilla crossed paths with the mayor who asked him where he was going when brassar explained that he was trying to run and hide the mayor laughed and told him you can come and tell me tomorrow where your hideout is it was the last time he would see the mayor alive others who refused to comply included jacqueline francine and andre pined the children of a jewish couple who hid at their home while their parents went to the village square to be counted there was also paul dutre a 21 year old who hid at home and roger godfriend an eight-year-old schoolboy who leaped from his school window godfriend was immediately spotted and shot by a soldier but fell down as if dead and lay still even as the soldier approached his body and kicked him in the kidneys once the soldier had gone godfriend leapt up and fled into a nearby field in total around 20 villagers escaped in this manner but the vast majority would not be so lucky by 4 pm all of the men had been herded into the barns and sheds one among them german speaker joseph bergman overheard the soldiers talking and whispered to his comrades they were about to be shot but as they were surrounded by german machine guns there was nothing they could do suddenly at a pre-arranged signal a pistol shot the shooting began the ss troops aimed for the men's legs cutting them down before moving in to shoot or bare net them in the back once the germans were satisfied everyone was dead they laid straw wood and other fuel atop the bodies and set the sheds a light though badly wounded six men were still alive and able to move robert harris marcel dartho of all robbie plymouth brussellier matthew barry and pierre horry potron patrol was the first to flee but was immediately spotted and shot dead the others however managed to escape and hid in a rabbit hatch until seven that evening when finally they were able to flee into the surrounding countryside in all 190 men died in the sheds barns meanwhile the women and children were led to the village church the ss troops looting and desecrating the building before cramming their prisoners inside forty-seven-year-old marguerite reforged the only woman to survive described what happened next around 4 pm a few soldiers brought into the nave close to the choir a large box from which hung strips which trailed to the ground when the trailing strings were lit the device suddenly exploded with a loud bang and gave off thick black suffocating smoke women and children half choking and screaming in terror rushed to those parts of the church where the air was still breathable it was thus that the door to the sacristy was broken down under the irresistible pressure of a terrified crowd i followed them and sat down on a step my daughter joined me the germans saw that people had escaped into the room and cold-bloodedly shot down everyone who was hiding there my daughter was killed where she stood by a shot fired from outside owe my life to closing my eyes and feigning death firing burst out into the church then the straw firewood and chairs were thrown in a heap onto the bodies lying on the flagstones i had escaped the slaughter unwounded and took advantage of a cloud of smoke to hide behind the altar in that part of the church there were three windows i went to the middle one the biggest and with the aid of the stool used to light the candles tried to reach it i don't know how but my strength was multiplied i heaved myself up to it as best i could and threw myself out of the opening that was offered to me by the already shattered window i fell about 10 feet when i looked up i saw that i had been followed by a woman who was holding out her baby to me from the window she fell down next to me but the germans alerted by the child's cries fired at us the woman and the child were killed i myself was wounded as i made my way to a nearby garden i hid amongst some rows of peas and waiting in terror of help to arrive that was not until the following day about 5 pm in all 248 women and 205 children perished in the burning church along with the men in the sheds the total death toll was 642. that evening the ss troops looted and partially raised the village before returning to their base where dikeman delivered his report to division commander startler stadler's reaction however was not what dyckman expected i am extremely shocked by this report and shaken to the core dikeman this may cost you dearly i'm going to ask the division court at once for a court-martial investigation against you i cannot allow the regiment to be charged with something like this news of the massacre soon reached the vishi government and the ss and army high commands all of who agreed that dikeman had grossly exceeded his orders and called for his immediate court martial indeed no less a figure than field marshal ervin rommel the legendary desert fox volunteered to preside over the trial but it was not to be on june 29 adolf dijkman was killed by a shell splinter while fighting allied forces near neuers and within a month most of the ss men who had participated in the massacre were also dead with no one left to try the investigation was quietly dropped the aurados surglar massacre first came to the attention of the allies thanks to one lieutenant raymond murphy an american b-17 bomber navigator who had been shot down in april 1944 and was being sheltered by the resistance in the area after witnessing the aftermath of the atrocity on august the 6th murphy was finally flown back to england where on august 15th he completed his final report stating about three weeks ago i saw a town within four hours bicycle ride up the gerber farm of resistance leader camille garbo where some 500 men women and children had been murdered by the germans i saw one baby who had been crucified the incident would not come to trial until january 12 1953 when 65 of the surviving soldiers involved in the massacre were brought up on charges of war crimes in the french city of bordeaux however the affair was to prove emblematic of the fractured nature of post-war france and europe as a whole failing to deliver any sort of satisfactory justice for one thing only 21 defendants were physically present at the trial the rest having fled to communist east germany or the british zone of occupation where they could not be extradited there was also the matter of fourteen of the accused being from the region of al sas lorraine this region which borders germany and is home to many german-speaking residents was annexed into the third reich following the armistice of 1940. the 14 alsatian defendants claimed that they had been drafted into the ss against their will and should thus be exonerated of any crimes committed during the war the final verdict which found 20 men guilty sentencing two to death and the rest to ten years in prison or hard labor caused an uproar across france with left-wing politicians decrying the sentences as two lenient right-wing politicians said that they were too harsh and alsace lorraine called for the acquittal of its citizens the pressure was so intense that only a week later on february the 19th the french government passed an amnesty law and the 14 alsatian defendants were released this in turn sparked outrage in germany which argued that if french ss members could be exonerated on grounds of involuntary conscription then so should german members consequently the remaining defendants were eventually pardoned and by 1958 all 21 were free men general heinz lameding the commander of the dassride division who had ordered the policy of retaliation against the french resistance never stood trial dying in 1971 following a successful entrepreneurial career in dusseldorf in the end only one man was ever convicted for participating in the massacre former ss platoon leader heinz bath who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1983 but released in 1997. the ruins of ordos aglam still stand to this day having been preserved on the orders of french president charles de gaulle as a memorial to the horrors of the german occupation everything has been left exactly as it was when the germans marched out of the village from sewing machines and other household items tossed out into the street during the looting to the burned-out remains of the church and mayor de soto's car a museum housing personal items and testimony from villagers was dedicated in 1999 while the new village of order surglar population 3000 was built nearby shortly after the war while dorsegle was far from the largest massacre civilians committed during the war it nonetheless stands as a microcosm of the arbitrary brutality that characterized the deadliest conflict in human history and of course it is unique in being the only war crime so heinous that shocked the nazis themselves so i'm not going to ask whether you enjoyed that video but i do hope you found it interesting if you did please do hit that like button below and thank you for watching

Channel: Today I Found Out

Views: 2,275,845

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Id: L75nC6Z2y9I

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2021