Massacre at Oradour

By Robin Mackness

Book Overview

A True and Wholly Engrossing Tale of High Finance and Treachery in Which the Secret of a Wartime Tragedy is Revealed Through a Contemporary Drama. On 10th June 1944, four days after the Allied... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394570022
• ISBN13: 9780394570020
• Release Date: March 1989
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 165 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An alternative explanation of the massacre

Mackness writes about this story because he says that he became involved when he tried to smuggle gold to Switzerland. Imprisoned, he did some investigation and concluded that the real reason the unit of the 2nd SS "Das Reich" division massacred the residents of Oradour-sur-Glane wasn't because they wanted to retaliate for a partisan ambush that killed some fellow SS members. Rather, it was because in an ambush near Oradour, a shipment of gold was lost by the 2nd SS. The gold was the result of confiscations by certain 2nd SS officers from the French population, particularly Jews. The officer in charge of protecting the gold immediately suspected that the partisans had fled to Oradour. He thus went into town to interrogate the township and started massacring them when he could not find the gold. The gold stayed hidden until after the war. I don't know how truthful the story is but it is an interesting story.