Around April 1944, the FTP (Franc-tireurs and Partisans) *maquis* in Corrèze planned to take over the town of Tulle from the German occupying troops of the *Heer* and French collaborators from the *Milice* and the Mobule Guards and seize their weapons. However, the local Secret Army opposed assault on urban centers.
On June 7, one day after Overlord, the FTP attacks the German garnison but are overwhelmed and have to flee the town. Upon retaking the train station, the German troops shot the railway guards, whose white armbands are like the ones the FTP wear, detail they were conscious.
On the night, the battle restarts and the German troops group themselves in several places, the main one being the Girls’ Normal School. After the building ends burned by the FTP, German troops leave the building and, in unclear circumstances, they are shot at by the FTP, triggering the grenades some of them had; their explosion will cause heavy woundings other German officers will later believe were voluntary.
For now, Tulle is liberated and under FTP control.
Unfortunately, on 9, units from the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, since 1944 residing in the South and known for heavy reprisals against civilians, retake Tulle while surprising the resistance by overrunning their sentinels.
SS-*Sturmbannführer* Aurel Kowatsch, presumabely under orders from Heinz Lammerding, announces mass arrests of males from 16 to 60. Prefect Pierre Trouillé , who nearly missed being shot by SS troops, manages to negociate the liberation of hostages. Finally remains only 120 persons.
>I am sorry, we took up hanging in Russia, we have hanged more than 100,000 men in Kharkov and Kiev, this is nothing for us.
The executions begin but, for a mysterious motive, “only” 99 are hanged, the others are sent to Dachau, along other hostages. The bodies of the victims have been buried on a landfill.
After the war, Kowatsch (who died on the Hungarian front) and Lammerding are both sentenced to death *in absentia* by French courts; the latter will live a free man in West Germany, only losing defamation trial, and dying of a cancer at 66, on 1971.
Johannes_P
Around April 1944, the FTP (Franc-tireurs and Partisans) *maquis* in Corrèze planned to take over the town of Tulle from the German occupying troops of the *Heer* and French collaborators from the *Milice* and the Mobule Guards and seize their weapons. However, the local Secret Army opposed assault on urban centers.
On June 7, one day after Overlord, the FTP attacks the German garnison but are overwhelmed and have to flee the town. Upon retaking the train station, the German troops shot the railway guards, whose white armbands are like the ones the FTP wear, detail they were conscious.
On the night, the battle restarts and the German troops group themselves in several places, the main one being the Girls’ Normal School. After the building ends burned by the FTP, German troops leave the building and, in unclear circumstances, they are shot at by the FTP, triggering the grenades some of them had; their explosion will cause heavy woundings other German officers will later believe were voluntary.
For now, Tulle is liberated and under FTP control.
Unfortunately, on 9, units from the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, since 1944 residing in the South and known for heavy reprisals against civilians, retake Tulle while surprising the resistance by overrunning their sentinels.
SS-*Sturmbannführer* Aurel Kowatsch, presumabely under orders from Heinz Lammerding, announces mass arrests of males from 16 to 60. Prefect Pierre Trouillé , who nearly missed being shot by SS troops, manages to negociate the liberation of hostages. Finally remains only 120 persons.
[A poster](https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/bymsrp/poster_by_general_heinz_lammerding_head_of_the/) is then posed around Tulle to announce there will be hangings of “maquis and accomplices”, their bodies being thereafter thrown to the river. In the morning, ropes have been put on balcony surrounding the main place. Upon the protests of Trouillé, Kowatsch replied:
>I am sorry, we took up hanging in Russia, we have hanged more than 100,000 men in Kharkov and Kiev, this is nothing for us.
The executions begin but, for a mysterious motive, “only” 99 are hanged, the others are sent to Dachau, along other hostages. The bodies of the victims have been buried on a landfill.
After the war, Kowatsch (who died on the Hungarian front) and Lammerding are both sentenced to death *in absentia* by French courts; the latter will live a free man in West Germany, only losing defamation trial, and dying of a cancer at 66, on 1971.
Sources:
* [The Tulle Massacre- The hanging of 99](https://dirkdeklein.net/2018/06/09/the-tulle-massacre-the-hanging-of-99/)
* [Massacre de Tulle](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_de_Tulle)
* [Le massacre de Tulle](https://www.herodote.net/9_juin_1944-evenement-19440609.php)