CHAPTER 7

A Fatal Encounter

After a successful attack on Carjac, a town of about a thousand people, Maquis leader Jean-Jacques Chapou decided to try a bigger target. He decided on the town of Tulle situated in the River Corrèze valley. The first objective was a barracks occupied by militiamen who soon surrendered and were allowed to leave, heading for Limoges.

The second assault was on a school occupied by German soldiers. The FTP fired incendiary shells andthe school was soon ablaze. About forty soldiers came out to surrender. At about the same time soldiers higher up the street opened fire and the men who had surrendered were mown down, suffering multiple injuries. The Das Reich Division, received a report of the battle and on 9 June sent the 2nd Motorised Reconnaissance Battalion, the HQ company of the 1st battalion of the 2nd Panzer Regiment and two batteries of the 2nd Panzerartillery Regiment.

The maquisards were overpowered and, as the SS claimed that the soldiers who had been at the school were deliberately mutilated, General Lammerding ordered the execution of 120 men by hanging. Ropes with nooses were slung from lamp posts in the street.

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Tulle road bridge where the hangings took place. The SS took photographs and this drawing was made from one of them.

About 400 men were rounded up and 120 were selected by the Gestapo. The hangings were stopped at 99 because no more suitable ropes could be found. The men who were spared thought they might be released but were taken to Limoges and later to Poitiers. Their eventual destination was Compiègne where they were packed into trucks with 2,500 other deportees and taken to Dachau concentration camp. A hundred and one of them died, either on the train or at the camp.

The situation in Limoges was tense. The city’s rail centre had been hit by saboteurs and there had been several attacks on German vehicles, many of the occupants being killed.

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Major (Sturmbahnführer) Helmut Kämpfe. His capture by the Resistance was to spark the atrocity at Oradour.

The Der Führer Regiment, under Colonel Stadler, arrived in the city early on the morning of 9 June. Stadler set up his headquarters at the Hôtel Central. Later in the day, he ordered the 3rd Battalion, under Major Helmut Kämpfe, to go to the town of Guéret in the north-east, where there had been a battle between the army and the resistants.

The maquisards had launched their first attack on the German garrison at Guéret on 7 June. It was an easier campaign than that at Tulle because no militiamen were involved. In fact, the attackers were helped by students of a police college who moved en masseto join them. The Germans had been overcome within a few hours and the maquisards took control of the town.

The Wehrmacht launched an attack to retake the town on the morning of 8 June. Sections of the 121st Infantry Division were involved, together with the Jesser Brigade, but they were repulsed, despite a bombardment of the town by the Luftwaffe. There was another bombing on 9 June and the planes flew low, machine-gunning the streets. The soldiers attacked again and managed to get into the centre of the town, rounding up the resistants.

On the way to Guéret, Kämpfe’s men encountered four trucks carrying twenty-nine young maquisards. Only two of them were armed but the SS shot them all at the roadside. They met two more trucks, driven by maquisards who fled after firing several bursts which wounded an officer. The abandoned trucks contained captured German soldiers and officials and some collaborators. Two of them were dead and others wounded. Doctor Muller, an SS doctor, was ordered to take a vehicle and return to Limoges with the wounded. When the SS entered Guéret they found their services were no longer needed, the town being in the hands of the Germans again. They could only turn round and go back.

Kämpfe, who had been driving a stolen Talbot car, decided to return to Limoges as quickly as possible. He overtook Doctor Muller’s vehicle and was some way ahead when, near the hamlet of La Bussière, about fifteen miles from Limoges, he met a vehicle coming the other way. He was immediately surrounded by a number of armed maquisards, led by Sergeant Jean Canou, a miner. They had been blowing up a bridge at Brignac.

This was Canou’s description of what happened:

‘It was almost dark when we saw a car approaching. Our driver pulled up and we all jumped out as the car stopped. To our surprise, the driver of the car was a German officer. He made no attempt to resist . We put him in our truck and soon left the main road to take the road to Cheissoux.

‘The German was a tall, handsome type who smiled when we bundled him into our truck and carried on. Just after we left the main road we heard heavy vehicles passing.’

Canou’s camp was at Cheissoux and he handed over the captive to his chiefs there. He never saw him again.

Kämpfe probably smiled because he thought his captors would soon come face to face with his men. He had not counted on the truck leaving the main road. His careless behaviour was quite out of key with his otherwise intelligent and successful military career. If he had not been so foolish as to drive alone in country well-known for its maquis activity, Oradour might have been spared.

Helmut Kämpfe was born in 1909 and started his working, life as a printer – later the owner of a printing works. He joined the Nazi party early in his career. He was tall, strong and handsome and, being fascinated by soldiering and weapons, he joined an infantry regiment in 1934. In May 1939 he joined the SS as a member of the 7th Regiment of Reconnaissance. He was promoted a sub-lieutenant in 1940 and lieutenant a year later. In June 1941 he was on the staff of the reconnaissance section of the Das Reich Division and took part in the attempt to reach Moscow. He was promoted captain in April 1942 and in 1943 took part in the great tank battle at Kursk. His conduct in the Russian campaign resulted in his being promoted major in September 1943. His awards included the Ritterkreuz and the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class.

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Major (Sturmbahnführer) Helmut Kämpfe. He was popular among his fellow officers and men.

So this formidable soldier, who foolishly drove his car unaccompanied and was captured by a party of civilians, was a hero not on1y of the Das Reich Division but also of the SS as a whole. His loss was a shattering blow.

Doctor Muller was the fïrst to came across Kämpfe’s empty car with its engine still running. It had been abandoned by the maquisards because only one of them could drive. A Schmeisser machine-gun with an empty magazine was on a seat. There was no blood or other signs of a struggle. When the convoy arrived it was felt that Kämpfe must be somewhere near and the neighbourhood was scoured. Doctor Muller reported Kämpfe’s loss to Colonel Stadler when he arrived in Limoges. Kämpfe had been Stadler’s adjutant in Russia and he decided that a thorough search must be made. He sent members of the local militia, who knew the territory, to join in the search. This went on through the night, tracked vehicles being used and flares fired. The people living in the area were terrified as the searchers burst open doors and fetched them out.

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The road down which Kämpfe was driven immediately following his capture, thus ensuring his complete disappearance.

The farm of Pierre Malaguise, near the hamlet of La Bussière, was invaded and, because the soldiers thought he gave unsatisfactory answers to their questions, he was taken outside and shot by the roadside. A similar fate was suffered by Pierre Just, another farmer. Both men were married and each had five children.

The search was in vain and the men involved eventually had to return to Limoges, where confusion and fury reigned over Kämpfe’s loss. Stadler ordered Major Weidinger to return to Tulle where Lammerding was spending the night. After a nervous journey in the dark, in a field car with a motor-cycle escort, Weidinger reported Kämpfe’s loss to Lammerding who ordered an immediate resumption of the search.

What actually happened to Kämpfe is unknown. But it is certain that somewhere, somehow he was killed. It was rumoured that his captors locked him in a pig sty and he was still there on 28 June. He was said to have been shot by a sentry shortly afterwards when he tried to escape. But there has never been confirmation of this. The SS recorded that he was ‘missing in action against terrorists.’

When Kämpfe’s widow visited Cheissoux and other parts years later in an effort to find his grave, she came up against a wall of silence.

During the night of 7-8 June a group of maquisards had tried to blow up a viaduct carrying the Limoges-Angoulème railway line over the Vienne valley near Saint-Junien. The attempt failed, so they tried again early on the morning, of the eighth and managed to wreck the line, derailing a freight train. The engine fell into the river. Although trains could no longer cross, passengers could go over on foot to join a train at the other end. Among the first passengers to cross from a train from Angoulème to board one which would take them to Limoges were ten armed Germans. The maquisards, concealed in a small wood, opened fire on them. The other passengers scattered while shots were exchanged. Two of the Germans were killed and five ran back to the train they had left. The other three, carrying the bodies of their comrades, got on the waiting train and reached Limoges at about 10 p.m.

The next morning, 9 June, soldiers boarded an armoured train in Limoges and set out for Saint-Junien. They were accompanied by Lieutenant Wickers of the Gestapo and an interpreter named Hübsch. Mid-way, they stopped at a small station and Hübsch phoned the stationmaster at Saint-Junien, ordering him to summon the mayor and the police commissioner to be ready with a map of the town when the train arrived.

The saboteurs, who had taken over the mairie as a symbolic gesture of being in charge of the town, hurriedly left when they were told that an armoured train was coming. On arrival, the Germans were met by M Gibouin, who was deputising for the mayor, together with the police commissioner and the chief officer of the gendarmerie. They were frisked and locked in separate rooms at the station.

Wickers questioned Gibouin and the gendarmerie chief separately about the situation in the town, which had a population of about 20,000. Asked if there were ‘terrorists’ in the town, Gibouin is believed to have replied, ‘There are at least 1,800 here.’ This extraordinary statement, quite untrue, may have saved Saint-Junien from severe reprisals. The Germans did not want a battle at this stage. However, Wickers prepared for trouble. He ordered the rounding up of a hundred men to dig trenches. Fifty actually appeared, most of them elderly, and had to dig under guard until the early afternoon when they were discharged.

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Adolf Diekmann as a Captain (Hauptsturmführer). He was a close friend of Kämpfe.

News had been received that the lst Battalion of the Der Führer Regiment, under Major Diekmann which had been travelling on the west of the main SS drive to the north, was on its way from Rochechouart. When they arrived, Diekmann discussed the situation with Wickers. He also interviewed some nervous local officials and decided to set up his headquarters at the Hôtel de la Gare. The SS filled up their vehicles and jerry cans with petrol at the garages. They amused themselves and terrified the people by indulging in a grenade-throwing exercise in the town centre.

Early on the morning of the 10th, Diekmann was ordered to report to his regimental headquarters in Limoges. On arrival he joined in the general indignation over Kämpfe’s loss and immediately associated it with what two men had told him in Saint-Junien. They said an important German officer was a prisoner of the maquis at Oradour and was to be publicly executed that day. The whole population of the village was involved and there were important ‘terrorists’ leaders among them.

The identity of the informers has never been established. Confirmation of their action was given in an American news sheet or magazine called Siegrunen. A photocopy of the article concerned was sent to me by the editor of an American magazine in which a review of my original book appeared. lt had been sent to him with a letter from the author who described my book as ‘the standard French-Jew diatribe on the subject’. He said he had got his information from German ‘eyewitness’ accounts and from the history of the Der Führer Regiment by Major Otto Weidinger. A few extracts from the book are worth quoting, although there are some obvious distortions of the facts:

‘On the morning of 10 June two Frenchmen arrived at the command post of 1 Der Führer bringing information. The battalion C.O. Sturmbannführer Adolph Diekmann, a very close friend of Stubaf. Kämpfe, interrogated them. They advised him that an important German officer was held by the Maquis in the town of Oradour and further, that the town was an armed communist camp with even the women toting guns and dressed in military jackets and steel helmets.’

A fantastic statement in the article was that a ‘scouting party’ had found a burnt-out building ‘on the edge of’ the town which had been a German dressing station. Inside were the bodies of German wounded and medics who had been shackled together and burned alive! There is not the slightest evidence to support this.

The article also stated that the church was packed with explosives and when ‘an exploding shell of some type’ hit the roof there was ‘a tremendous blast.’ The ‘church attic’ (belfry) had been used as a store for explosives.

Obviously the writer of the article had never entered the ruined church or he would have seen the molten mass of the bells at the foot of the tower. A ‘tremendous blast’ would- have scattered them. In fact, it is obvious that he had never been to Oradour for he maintained that all the men were executed in a field outside the village.

However, the story of women toting arms in Oradour was also told by an SS ordnance officer, Lieutenant Gerlach who had been captured by the maquis the day before. He said he believed he had been transported through Oradour-sur-Glane where he saw one or two women carrying arms in the street.

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Colonel (Obersturmbahnführer) Sylvester Stadler gave Diekmann permission to search Oradour. But did he approve the massacre of all the people?

Gerlach had driven with six men in three cars to reconnôitre possible billets for the regiment in Nieul. As the accommodation seemed to be insufficient for all of them, he decided to move to the next town, and made the same mistake as Kämpfe’s. Although he had been warned of maquis activity in the region, he ordered his driver to race ahead of the others.

Suddenly the road was blocked by a party of armed maquisards who took charge of their car. They were driven for some distance and stopped in a wood. They were forced to get out and moved with their captors among the trees where they were made to strip to their underwear.

Gerlach was convinced that were going to be killed. His driver struggled and while the men’s attention was concentrated on him Gerlach ran through the wood, with bullets smacking against trees around him. He eventually got out of range and, after wandering a long time, stumbled on the railway line. He followed the line to Limoges where, still in his underwear, he reported to his CO, Colonel Stadler.

Diekmann closely questioned Gerlach who said he saw the vi1lage nameplate Oradour-sur-Glane. In the main street, in addition to the armed women, he saw a bakery with the name Boucholle on it. (Boucholle was an Oradour baker). His driver never returned.

By this time Diekmann felt that if the story of a German officer being held prisoner in Oradour was true it must be Kämpfe. He got Stadler’s approval for him to go to Oradour as soon as possible to search the place, although Stadler was not convinced by the story and thought Kämpfe might be held elsewhere. If Kämpfe were still alive and held somewhere else Diekmann should try to capture some maquis leaders and use them for negotiation.

An uncorroborated story is that a maquis prisoner held by the Limoges SD (SS security service) was released with a view to finding Kämpfe’s captors, offering them 15,000 Reichmarks for his release. Not unnaturally, the man disappeared.

Shortly after 9 a.m., Joachim Kleist, of the Limoges Gestapo, renowned for his brutality, was summoned by Lammerding to the Hôtel Central, accompanied by Eugène Patry, the Gestapo interpreter. Outside was a truck containing four militiamen. They were Pitrud (the leader), Davoine, Tixier and Tomine. Davoine had served in a battalion of Chasseurs Alpins in 1939 in the company of Darnand, the chief of the militia. He was a prisoner of war for over two years before he escaped. Unable to return home, he went to Nice where he met Darnand again. At the beginning of 1943, Darnand made him his bodyguard and in May 1944 promoted him a militia inspector concerned with Jewish problems and an auxiliary inspector of the Police Nationale, the office he held in Limoges. These men received orders from Lammerding to help the SS in ‘an operation in the region of Saint-Junien’.

Their truck was preceded by a truck carrying a number of soldiers, and was followed by three trucks carrying rations and munitions for Diekmann’s men at Saint-Junien.

Diekmann summond the militiamen and Gestapo officers to the Hôtel de la Gare where he presided over a conference in the dining room on the ground floor. He was accompanied by Captain Otto Kahn, the CO of the third company of the battalion, whose men were involved in the massacre, together with other officers. The militiamen, with Patry interpreting, provided local knowledge. The conference lasted just over an hour.

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Hôtel de la Gare at Saint-Junien where plans were made for the massacre.

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