In memory...
I would like to tell you a story which happened on August 25th 1944. You may know this date because it is the day of the Liberation of Paris from the Germans in 1944-45 , but I am not going to talk to you about that because on that same day, a real tragedy occurred. Unfortunately, this event has been forgotten for the last 66 years , that's why I think it is very important to remember this part of our History which faded away for too much time.
August 25th 1944 : Maillé , a martyred village.
In France , many remember the terrible massacre and destruction of Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10th 1944. But who knows what happened to the village of Maillé , in the Indre-et-Loire , France on August 25th 1944 ?
That day , while Paris was being liberated , Maillé was victim of an organized massacre committed by the German army to avenge Resistance actions.
This massacre cost the lives of 124 villagers and most of them were women and children.
It was in the morning of Friday 25th August 1944 , that the German armed forces of the SS division surrounded the village and progressively shot any civilians that crossed their path. Any villagers seen were tracked down , murdered and their houses burnt.
The massacre lasted the whole morning. Cannons bombarded the village in the afternoon and until late in the evening.
The Context :
Maillé is a village in the south of the Indre-et-Loire, in Touraine, France. Situtated 40km from Tours, it stretches the Paris-Bordeaux railway. A road connecting Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine with Nouâtre cuts through the village.
Maillé's church.
In the summer of 1944 with Liberation approaching, the Resistance were particularly active in the area. They blew up the railway three times, two of these occasions being at the Maillé train station. Also, on August 11th 1944, a British pilot parachuted from his falling plane, shot down by the D.C.A (Défense contre avions or aerial defense corps). Despite German patrols, he was not found and was probably hidden by locals.
If these incidents could have irritated the occupying power, what must have triggered the massacre was an attack on a German patrol by the F.F.I (Forces françaises de l'intérieur or the Résistance).
German soldiers occupying the area.
On August 24th, at around seven o'clock in the evening a truck of Resistance fighters armed with a light machine-gun burst into a farm North of Maillé to commandeer supplies. At the same moment, two German army cars filled with soldiers and officers, arrived in the farm. The opportunity seemed too good to be true for the members of the Resistance who immediately attacked the Germans. The fighting caused wounded and dead on the German side.
Some members of the Resistance.
Second-Lieutenant Gustav Schlueter was part of the attacked convoy. He called Colonel Stenger , Commander-in-Chief in Tours, to inform him that " terrorists had shot at his car in the proximity of Maillé " and asked him " if he should act against these terrorists." Second-Lieutenant Schlueter was authorised, with rather unclear instructions, to organize the slaying of the Maillé population.
On that Day :
Gustav Schlueter, a confirmed Nazi and party member since 1931, obtained all the permission he needed with the sole word "terrorists".
During the night he had two cannons moved to nearby hilltops and procured the means of transport and men necessary for the operation. He also arranged for passing trains to fire upon the village the following morning.
An artillery cannon.
The next morning at around eight o'clock, soldiers were posted to the south-east of the village with a dozen camouflaged cars to prevent any entry into the village.
At the same moment, a squadron of British planes attacking a train machine-gunned one of the cannons meant for the bombardment of Maillé, putting it out of action.The presence of the aircraft distracted the villagers from what was going to happen ; they thought that the first fires were due to the Allies' attack.
People were hunted down in the fields, in the houses, the gardens, the cellars... Some were machine-gunned or shot down, some had their throats cut, others were burnt alive by flame-throwers and their livestock was killed as well. After slaughtering a family, the Germans set fire to their home. The only people escaping death were those who hid before the Germans arrived or those who played dead among the corpses.
The ruins of Maillé after the massacre of August 25th 1944.
According to survivors, the slaughterers were laughing while they carried out their butchery , they were young and dressed in green. Some of the survivors think they were drugged...
They worked from the South to the North of the village and left around midday. Twice left their signature ; a simple note saying : " This is punishment for the terrorists and their accomplices. "
The notes left as a signature.
Once they were gone, Maillé suffered shelling from the cannon that was still working ; eighy shells fell on the village.
In the middle of the afternoon, a new troop of soldiers got off a train at Maillé station , preventing survivors from leaving their hiding places until the following morning.
However, during the afternoon Father André Payon , Maillé's parish priest who had been absent during the massacre, managed to get into the village. He negotiated with the Germans to evacuate the survivors. So the surviving villagers had to step over the charred bodies of their neighbours, their friends, even their families, lying in the main road, in order to leave the village.
That evening four trains passed, travelling towards Tours, and each time shots were fired upon Maillé.
The Victims :
Second-Lieutenant Gustav Schlueter who commanded military lodgings at Sainte-Maure, was found guilty of the Maillé massacre and was condemned to death in his absence in 1952 by the military tribunal in Bordeaux. But he was never found so never executed.
Why did I choose to tell you this story ? Well, this event has always touched me because my grandmother, who was eight years old, is one of the survivors of this massacre and she has often told me about this horrible part of her life; so thanks to this blog, I just wanted to pay homage to her and to all the victims who were slaughtered by Nazi savagery. Among the 124 victims of the massacre of Maillé, 44 children were killed and the youngest one was only 3 months old...
Audrey G.