FREE DAS REICH: THE MARCH OF THE 2ND SS PANZER DIVISION THROUGH , JUNE 1944 PDF

Sir Max Hastings | 288 pages | 14 Sep 2009 | Pan MacMillan | 9780330509985 | English | London, massacre - Wikipedia

Buildings are closed. Curbside Pickup is available. Click here for our interim services. Germany's 2nd SS Panzer Division, one of 's most elite armor units, had recently been pulled from the June 1944 Front and relocated to France in order to regroup, recruit more troops, and restock equipment. With Allied forces suddenly on European ground, the division-Das Reich -was called up to counter the invasion. Its march northward to the shores of Normandy, 15, men strong, would become infamous as a tale of unparalleled brutality in World War II. Das Reich is Sir Max Hastings's narrative of the atrocities committed by the 2nd SS Panzer Division during June of first, the execution of 99 French civilians in the village of Tulle on June 9; and second, the massacre of more in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane on June Throughout the book, Hastings expertly shifts perspective between fighters, the British Secret Service who helped coordinate the French resistance from afar and on the groundand the German soldiers themselves. With its rare, unbiased approach to the ruthlessness of World War II, Das Reich explores the fragile moral fabric of wartime mentality. Hastings, M. Hastings, Max. My Account. Log Out. Search for. Advanced Search. Logged In As. Contact Us. Events Calendar. Tips and Tricks. Can't find what you're looking for? Average Rating. Available Online. Check Out Hoopla. Add To List. Also in This Series. More Like This. Table of Contents. Loading Table Of Contents Loading Excerpt Author Notes. Loading Author Notes LC Subjects. Electronic books. France -- History -- German occupation, World War, Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France Regimental histories -- Germany. World War, -- Underground movements -- France. More Details. Similar Series From NoveList. Similar Titles From NoveList. Similar Authors From NoveList. Librarian Reviews. Published Reviews. Reviews from GoodReads. Loading GoodReads Reviews. Citation formats are based on standards as of July Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Staff View. Grouped Work ID:. Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France, June by Max Hastings

Das Reich served during the invasion of France and took part in several major battles on the Eastern Frontincluding in the Battle of Prokhorovka against the 5th Guards Tank Army at the Battle of Kursk. It was then transferred to June 1944 West and took part in the fighting in Normandy and the Battle of the Bulgeending the war in Hungary and Austria. Das Reich committed the Oradour-sur-Glane and Tulle massacres. Hitler was unwilling to upset either the army or Himmler, and chose a third path. He ordered that the SS-VT form its own divisions but that the divisions would be under army command. On the following day the rest of the SS-VT Division crossed into the Netherlands, participating in the drive for the Dutch central front and Rotterdamwhich they reached June 1944 12 May. They forced a bridgehead across the river and waited for the SS Division Totenkopf to arrive to cover their flank. What arrived first was a unit of British tanks, which penetrated their position. In AprilGermany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. Fritz Klingenberga company commander in the Das Reichled his men across Yugoslavia to the capital, Belgradewhere a small group in the vanguard accepted the surrender of the city on 13 April. A few days later June 1944 surrendered. By the time Das Reich took part in the Battle of Moscowit had lost 60 percent of its strength. The division was "mauled". There it participated in the fighting Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France Kharkov. It was pulled out of the battle along Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France the other SS divisions when the offensive was discontinued, giving the strategic initiative to the Red Army. Beginning on 6 Junethe Allied took place on the coast of France. However, the Allied forces were prepared for this offensive, and an air assault on the combined German units proved devastating. A separate attack by British Typhoons close to La Baleine destroyed 9 tanks, 8 other armored vehicles, and 20 other vehicles. Over the course of two hours American artillery fired over rounds into the column. The division suffered the loss of 50 dead, 60 wounded and taken prisoner. Material losses were over German combat vehicles destroyed. The division also lost an additional 96 armored combat vehicles and trucks. Army in May After the Allied second front opened on 6 Juneall resistance groups joined "into the uprising". Part of Das Reich was ordered to attack strongholds of the rural guerrilla bands of French Resistance fighters as it moved to Normandy. The division massacred French civilians in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane on 10 June in the region. On 10 June, Diekmann's battalion sealed off Oradour-sur-Glane, and ordered all the townspeople to assemble in the village square, ostensibly to have their identity papers examined. All the women and children were locked in the church. The men were led to six barns and sheds. One of the six survivors of the massacre, Robert Hebras, described the killings as a deliberate act of mass murder. Inhe told the U. It was simply an execution. There were a handful of Nazis in front of us, in their uniforms. They just raised their machine guns and started firing across us, at our legs to stop us getting out. They were strafing, not aiming. Men in front of me just started falling. I got caught by several bullets, but I survived because those in front of me got the full impact. I was so lucky. Four of us in the barn managed to get away because we remained completely still under piles of bodies. One man tried to get away before they had gone — he was shot dead. The SS were walking around and shooting anything that moved. They poured petrol on bodies and then set them alight. Marcel Darthout's experience was similar. We felt the bullets, which brought me down. I dove And they were still firing. And there was shouting. And crying. I had a friend who was lying on top of me and who was moaning. And then it was over. No more shots. And they came at us, stepping on us. And with a rifle they finished us off. They finished off my friend who was on top of me. I felt it when he died. Darthout and Hebras' eyewitness testimony was corroborated by other survivors of the massacre. One other survivor, Roger Godfrin, escaped June 1944 the school for refugees despite being shot at by SS soldiers. Only one woman, Marguerite Rouffanche, survived from the church. She later testified that at about five in the afternoon, two German soldiers placed a crate of explosives on the altar and attached a fuse to it. She and another women and her baby hid behind the sacristy; after the explosion they climbed on a stool and jumped out of a window three meters from Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France ground. A burst of machine gun fire hit all of them, but Rouffanche was able to crawl into the presbytery garden. The woman and infant were killed. Diekmann was later killed in the battle of Normandy in On 12 Januarya military tribunal in Bordeauxheard the case against the surviving sixty-five of the approximately two hundred SS soldiers who had been involved. Only twenty-one of them were present. Seven of them were Germans, but fourteen were AlsatiansFrench nationals of Germanic culture. On 11 February, twenty defendants were found guilty, but were released after only a few months for lack of evidence. In December German police raided the homes of six former members of the division, all aged 85 or 86, to determine exactly what role the men had played that day. The French government never obtained his extradition from the German authorities. Following the war, one of the regimental commanders of the division, Otto Weidingerwrote an apologia of the division under the auspices of HIAGthe revisionist organization and a lobby group of former Waffen-SS members. The unit narrative was extensive and strived for a so-called official representation of their history, backed by maps and operational orders. Its express aim was to publish the "war narratives" of former Waffen-SS member, and the titles did not go through the rigorous fact-checking processes common in the traditional historical works; they were revisionist accounts unedited by professional historians and presented the former Waffen-SS members' version of events. June 1944 French author Jean-Paul Picaper, who studied the Oradour massacre, Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France the tendentious nature of Weidinger's narrative: it provided a sanitized version of history without any references to war crimes. Structure of the division Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France [44] [45]. From Wikipedia, the free Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France. German armored division. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Main article: Tulle massacre. Further information: Oradour-sur-Glane. University of California Press,pp. Retrieved 1 April University of California Press, Retrieved Bessel, Richard Nazism and War. New York: Modern Library. London: Headline Publishing Group. Time-Life Books. September Army Command and General Staff College. Archived from the original PDF on Soviet Military Intelligence in War. Zenith Military Classics. Zenith Press. New York: Routledge. The Siegfried Line Campaign Publication Retrieved July 24, ​Das Reich on Apple Books

On 10 Junethe village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne in Nazi-occupied France was destroyed when of its inhabitants, including non- combatant women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company. A new village was built nearby after the war, but President ordered the original maintained as a permanent memorial and museum. Following the Allied Normandy landings in Junethe division was ordered north to help stop the Allied advance. Command passed to Weidinger on 14 June. Early on the morning of 10 JuneDiekmann informed Weidinger that he had been approached by two members of the Milicea collaborator paramilitary force of the Vichy Regime. They claimed that a Waffen-SS officer Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France being held prisoner by the Resistance in Oradour-sur-Vayresa nearby village. He may have been captured by the the day before. On 10 June, Diekmann's battalion sealed off Oradour-sur-Glane and ordered everyone within to assemble in the village square to have their identity papers examined. This included six non-residents who happened to be bicycling through the village when the SS unit arrived. The women and children were locked in the church, and the village was looted. The men were led to six barns and sheds, where machine guns were June 1944 in place. According to a survivor's account, the SS men then began shooting, aiming for their legs. When victims were unable to move, the SS men covered them with fuel and set the barns on fire. Only six men managed to escape. One of them was later seen walking down a road and was shot dead. In all, Frenchmen died. The SS men next proceeded to the church and placed an incendiary device beside it. When it was June 1944, women and children tried to escape through the doors and windows, only to be met with machine-gun fire. The only survivor was year-old Marguerite Rouffanche. She escaped through a rear sacristy window, followed by a young woman and child. Rouffanche crawled to some pea bushes and remained hidden overnight until she was found and rescued the next morning. About twenty villagers had fled Oradour-sur-Glane as soon as the SS unit had appeared. That night, the village was partially razed. Several days later, the survivors were allowed to bury the dead inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane who had June 1944 killed in just a few hours. Amongst the men of the town killed were three priests who worked in the parish. It was also reported that the SS troops desecrated the church, including deliberately scattering Communion hosts before they forced the women and children into it. The Bishop of visited the village in the days after the massacre, one of the first public figures to do so, and his account of what June 1944 witnessed is one of the earliest available. Raymond J. Murphy, a year-old American B navigator shot down over AvordFrance in late Aprilwitnessed the aftermath of the massacre. About 3 weeks ago, I saw a town within 4 hours bicycle Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France up [sic] the Gerbeau farm [of Resistance leader Camille Gerbeau] where some men, women, and children had been murdered by the Germans. I saw one baby who had been crucified. However, Diekmann was killed in action shortly afterwards during the Battle of Normandy ; many of the 3rd Company, which had conducted the massacre, were also killed in action. The investigation was then suspended. On 12 Januarya military tribunal in Bordeaux heard the charges against the surviving 65 of the or so SS men who had been involved. Only 21 of them were present, as many were in East Germanywhich would not permit their extradition. Seven of those charged were German citizens, but 14 were AlsatiansFrench nationals whose home region had been annexed by Germany in All but one of the Alsatians claimed to have been forced to join the Waffen-SS. On 11 February, 20 defendants were found guilty. The convicted Alsatian former SS men were released shortly afterwards, which caused bitter protests in the Limousin region. Byall of the German defendants had also been released. General Heinz Lammerding of the Das Reich division, who had given the orders for retaliation against the Resistance, died infollowing a successful entrepreneurial career. The last trial of a Waffen-SS member who had been involved took place in He was one of several charged with giving orders to shoot 20 men in a garage. He was released from prison in the reunified Germany in and died in August If the case went to trial, it could have possibly been held in a juvenile court because the suspect was only 19 at the time it occurred. According to his attorney, Rainer Pohlen, the suspect acknowledged being at the village but denied being involved in any killings. After the war, General Charles de Gaulle decided the village should never be rebuilt, but would remain a memorial to the cruelty of the Nazi occupation. The new village of Oradour-sur-Glane population 2, innorthwest of the site of the massacre, was built after the war. The ruins of the original village remain as a memorial to the dead and to represent similar sites and events. Its museum includes items recovered from the burned-out buildings: watches stopped at the time their owners were burned alive, glasses melted from the intense heat, and various personal items. A joint news conference broadcast by the two leaders followed their tour of the site. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material June 1944 be challenged and removed. Burned out cars Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France buildings still litter the remains of the original village. World War II portal. Retrieved 24 November The New York Times book review. Retrieved 4 May Foreign Policy. Archived from the original PDF on 18 October The New York Times. Retrieved 12 December Retrieved 10 January ABC News. Associated Press. Retrieved 11 January Retrieved 9 December France 24 International News. Retrieved 4 September The Independent. Retrieved 11 May World War II. Africa Asia Europe. Bibliography Category Index Portal. . Belgium Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway. Battle of . Syria—Lebanon campaign. Liberation Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France Corsica. Liberation of Limousin. Battle of Mont Mouchet. Royan pocket Pointe de Grave pocket. Hidden Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France Articles with French-language sources fr CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Use dmy dates from September Coordinates on Wikidata Pages using deprecated image syntax June 1944 needing additional references from June All articles needing additional references Commons category link is locally defined Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers. Namespaces Article Talk. Views Read Edit View history. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. Download as PDF Printable version. Wikimedia Commons. Part of World War II. Wrecked hardware — bicycles, sewing machines — left in the ruins of Oradour- sur-Glane. Oradour-sur-GlaneFrance. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Oradour-sur-Glane. Prelude Africa Asia Europe. Nov .