Emmanuel Thomas, DPA, Tuesday, June 27, 2023
FRANCE – The search for 47 German soldiers killed in a mass execution in World War II was to commence on Tuesday in a forested area in southern France.
The investigation was prompted by a former French resistance fighter who broke his silence about the shooting of German prisoners of war near the village of Meymac in June 1944 when the country was occupied by Nazi Germany.
The executions came after German Waffen-SS troops carried out a massacre in Tulle, to the south-east of Meymac, and obliterated the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, a war crime that became a symbol of Nazi barbarism in France.
For decades it was generally known that the German POWs and a French woman accused of collaboration were shot dead.
But all those involved had remained silent about the circumstances until the last surviving witness – a 98-year-old – spoke to local media in May.
According to his account, those who were killed are buried in two mass graves. One with 11 bodies is said to have been located in a discrete operation in 1967, but the exhumation effort was halted. The other dead are said to be buried about 100 metres away.
Broadcaster France 3 said investigators will first use ground radar to find the graves, an effort that could take several days.
If the Germans are found at the presumed site, the German War Graves Commission will arrange for their exhumation and burial in a German military cemetery, the French Defence Ministry said.
