French, German presidents to visit village martyred by Nazis 80 years ago

French President Emmanuel Macron and his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier will on Monday visit the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, where Nazi troops murdered more than 600 civilians in 1944. The village in central France has remained untouched ever since as a reminder of wartime cruelty.

The French and German presidents will together mark the 80th anniversary of the massacre, which saw SS soldiers kill 643 people and reduce most of the village to ruins.

Possibly as punishment for the killing by French Resistance of a high-ranking SS officer, German troops rounded up everyone they could find. They shot or burned alive men, women and children, then laid waste to most of the village.

Steinmeier will be the second German head of state to visit Oradour, after a landmark trip by his predecessor Joachim Gauck in 2013.

Macron has already been to the site three times, most recently in January 2022. 

Most post-war French presidents have paid their respects at Oradour, which remains a powerful symbol of the Nazis' atrocities.

Charles de Gaulle said the "martyred village" should never be rebuilt, but instead kept as a permanent reminder of the horrors of the Nazi occupation for later generations.

But 80 years on, the ruined buildings are crumbling beyond recognition and calls have multiplied for a major conservation effort.

"All the survivors are gone, the only witnesses of the massacre are these stones," said Agathe Hébras, whose grandfather was one of only six people to escape the massacre.

"I am deeply attached to these ruins, like many people here, we can't let them wither away," she told French news agency AFP last month.

"We need to take care of them as best we can for as long as possible."

Plea for preservation

The 10 hectares of ruins, which draw some 300,000 visitors each year, are owned by the French state and a listed heritage site.

Since 1946, the state has allocated the equivalent of €200,000 annually for maintenance.

In 2022 it agreed to spend almost €500,000 extra to shore up the church – where 451 women and children were shot or burned alive.

If Oradour is still to be here in 40 years' time, money has to be ploughed in, Benoît Sadry, head of an association for families of victims of the massacre, told RFI last year.

He and other families insist the whole village needs conserving and are launching a public fundraising campaign along the lines of the one for Notre-Dame Cathedral.

Watch RFI's report from Oradour-sur-Glane:

But those pushing for conservation say most of the money will have to come from the government. Estimates put the total cost of preserving the site at some €19 million.

"We don't want to bring back what was destroyed," Laetitia Morellet, the regional deputy director for heritage and architecture, told AFP.

"We want to preserve the state of destruction, because that is what helps people understand this war crime."