the tram station of Oradour-sur-Glane, France - historically significant in more ways than one

Oradour-sur-Glane was the site of the worst Nazi massacre in France during WW2 on 10 June 1944 when 642 people in the village at the time were murdered by a regiment of Waffen-SS Das Reich and the village burned.

The electric tramway through Oradour was part of a metre-gauge system of nearly 350 km built through the Haute-Vienne region. Seen here is the station and a goods shed situated to the north of the village where lines crossed.

The system based around Limoges had its genesis with the construction of an urban network in 1895 in Limoges, inaugurated 2 years later.  Longer distance lignes subsequently built were -

1 - Limoges - Aixes-sur-Vienne
2 - Limoges - Oradour-sur-Glane et Mézière-sur-Issoire
3 - Limoges - Saint Paul d'Eyjeaux
4 - Limoges - Bessines
5 - Limoges - Saint Sulpice-les-Feuilles

As for the massacre, on the morning of 10 June 1944 two (collaborator) Milice members approached Sturmbannführer Diekmann with a claim that a Sturmbannführer, Helmut Kämpfe, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion (another unit of the "Das Reich" division) may have been captured by the Maquis the day before and was being held at Oradour-sur-Vayres, a nearby village. Diekmann informed his regimental headquarters and received orders from his regimental commander, Standartenführer Stadler, to have the mayor of the town name 30 people who could serve as hostages in exchange for Kämpfe; however, after entering Oradour-sur-Glane, Diekmann instead ordered the population exterminated and the village burned.

Protests followed from Feldmarschall Erwin Rommel; General Gleiniger, German commander in Limoges; and the Vichy government. Standartenführer Stadler felt Diekmann had far exceeded his orders and announced he would be court-martialed. As Diekmann, 29 years old, was killed in action 19 days afterwards during the Battle of Normandy, and a large number of the third company, which had committed the massacre, were themselves killed in action within a few days, the investigation was suspended. Prosecutions of surviving members were pursued after the war by the French government.

The town was rebuilt nearby and the ruins of the original town turned in a memorial-museum. Website

the town in 1932 and the ruins after 10 June 1944