This French depiction from 29. April 1945 shows the importance of Freudenstadt for the battle plan of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, as a „strategic traffic centre, the hub of all roads, that fan out toward the upper Neckar, the Danube and Constance.“

After 1945 the victors of WW2 sat in judgment over the Germans and condemned many German soldiers for alleged war crimes, mainly to divert the attention from their own war crimes, which, besides, fell immediately under a then declared amnesty.

A war crime of an especially disgraceful kind, which German troops had not once committed in both world wars, was the plundering of Freudenstadt by French troops in April 1945, the hospital town in the Black Forest,  lasted for days. (1) This crime has remained unatoned until this day. There has not been even one case known in particular, in which the French troop command seriously attempted to curb the excesses. (2)

Freudenstadt after the inferno, 16^th and 17^th  of April 1945. „Among the 649 destroyed buildings were counted all historically valuable buildings, almost all government departments and business houses and more than half of all the apartment buildings.“ From Gerhart Hertl,  „Die Zerstörung von Freudenstadt“ (The Destruktion of  Freudenstadt), Geiger, Horb 1997, P 80

The hospital town Freudenstadt had all German troops withdrawn and was therefore undefended - a fact that should not have escaped the attention of the Allied forces reconnaissance – as well as being declared an open city. On April 16.  1945, about 2:30 p.m.  French troops stationed just outside the town, began a bombardment with demolition and incendiary shells. By late afternoon  a heavy bomb attack followed. The barrage fire onto the undefended town lasted into the following night, until the handsome Black Forest town was for the most part reduced to rubble and ashes.

At the end of the bombardments, on the  17^th of  April 1945 from 9 o'clock onward, the colored soldiers of the third Maroccan Spahi regiment under the command of Major (later General) Christian de Castries got into the town without a fight. To them and French units following were given permission by the French command to plunder Freudenstadt for three days and three nights. As late as the fifth day after the occupation the inhabitants were still robbed in broad daylight in the streets by French soldiers. Systematically firebrands were lit by the French days after their entry, especially to the buildings of government departments and the houses of former members of the NSDAP, and then, about eight days later, to the City Hall as well. Not only did the French forbid to extinguish the fire, but the willing Germans were prevented from limiting the damage by force of arms.

Christian de Castries (1902 – 1991)

Some citizens of Freudenstadt, who survived the bombardments by hiding in their cellars, were shot by looting soldiers, many women and girls were raped, just as it happened in 1944 in Central Italy and in Rome. In total there were 70 fatalities to be mourned. Accountable municipality commanders right after the occupation were: Major Deleuze, from the following day on captain de L’Estrange for nearly a week, and Major Campigneuilles, whose security officer Guyot had many cruelties to German citizens on his conscience, from 23rd April on.

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A few days later the French Army Dispatch announced that the Army of General de Lattre de Tassigny, to whom the Regiment de Castries belonged, that doubts arose out of the ranks of French officers about the depiction. The staff of General de Lattre de Tassigny apologized. and declared that before the French “assault“ on Freudenstadt members of a German free corps had inflicted great losses to the advancing French and a French peace envoy had been shot. Both claims did not verify corresponding  facts. Probably more   honest was General de Lattre de Tassigny, who declared: "the destruction of Freudenstadt was only our just(!) revenge for the Alsatian town of Hagenau which was levelled to the ground by German troops."  The fact though was that Hagenau had changed multiple times before its occupiers, during heavy fighting,  was seriously shot to bits by German and Allied artillery, which in no way can be compared to the undefended and captured Freudenstadt. In his memoirs(4) de Lattre de Tassigny has hardly mentioned the "battles" around Freudenstadt – possibly because of the embarrassment.

 General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny

The clearance for plundering of Freudenstadt was a clear violation of the binding rules of the  Hague Conventions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Conventions_(1899_and_190)  In it, article 46 says: “Private property must not be levied” and article 47: “Plundering is expressly prohibited”. Also an action for revenge due to the alleged, previously inflicted losses on the French, or for the destruction of Hagenau, is prohibited there. In article 50 it is stated: “No penalty in money or in other kind can be imposed on the whole population on behave of actions of individuals, for which the population can’t be seen as jointly responsible”. Not once has any place in both World Wars been cleared for plundering and rape by German command post, like manifestly for coloured French troops as “reward” in Freudenstadt.

In 1945, not much better behaved,  the  French advanced in Karlsruhe,  was illustrated by Josef Werner in his document "Karlsruhe 1945“(5) with statements by many experienced witnesses about scenes in the capital of Baden after April 1945: "There are special matters with the pillage at the Market Place (Marktplatz). The houses were obviously set on fire to be reported  effectively in pictures from the „"conquest“ of the first German main city by the French“.(6) An eye witness reported:  "They clearly intended to feign fires after battle action. On the tanks were mounted camera tripods, from which photos and films were taken“.(7) Another eye witness saw French troops  as they marched in formation through Kaiser Street and were filmed opposite the torched buildings’.(8) On the 6th of April  a curfew for Karlsruhe was ordered and circularized by posters. In the morning of the 7th of April several blocks of houses, in city central at Market Place, on Kaiser and Lamm Streets, were set on fire – and then came General de Gaulle, who had his press-effective photos taken in front of such backdrop "in the heart of the burning City of Karlsruhe“. He wrote in his memoirs(9), he crossed the Rhine in ‚proud satisfaction’ on the 7th of April: "After that I paid a visit to the terribly destroyed capital of Baden“. That part of the destruction had been carried out after the battle in his honour, he failed to mention. 

Also in Karlsruhe plundering and rapes took place for days. Eyewitness Eduard Fink reported thus: "Every passer-by is stopped – often with pointed weapon – and physically searched. Watches, rings, valuables are taken off him without deference. From women brooches, besides wrist watches, were confiscated. In the afternoons the same show takes place in the homes. Also bicycles, radios, cameras and weapons are tracked down and taken along. Continuously small troops roam from house to house“. Doing this particularly, were colonial soldiers from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia (11)“ excelled – like in 1918, coloured people were intentionally deployed for the abasement of Germans and for the rape of German women by the French at the Rhine. In the County Women's Clinic in Karlsruhe alone 276 terminations of pregnancies after rape were performed in April and May 1945(12).

Would such a plundering of a town by German soldiers in the Second World War only once have been perpetrated the world would reverberate even today from it. But of the Allied war crimes hardly anyone knows about today, they aren’t mentioned in any German school book, where apparently German war crimes are spread broadly, and have never been judicially pursued.  Nor an official apology by the causing „culture nation“ has taken place.

  General Eisenhower and General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny       

For General Eisenhowers Jewish bloodline see here

Foot notes:

 1   Hans Rommel, „Vor Zehn Jahren, 16/17 April 1945. Wie es zur Zerstörung von Freundenstadt gekommen ist“, (Ten years ago, 16/17 April 1945. How Freudenstadt came to be destroyed) Oskar Kaupert, Freudenstadt 1955; Short reports in: Deutsche Wochenschrift (German Weekly Magazine), 20 November 1975., Letters to the Editor from Josef W. Neidlinger, Frankfurt, in Nassauische Landeszeitung (Nassau country Newspaper), 20 Februar 1982.  Anzeiger der Notverwaltung des Deutschen Ostens (report of the provisional administration in the German  East) Nr 2, March /April 1982, 11 year.
2   Rommel, same, page 31
3   Quoted in E.L.S.A. aaO, footnote 1
4   Jean de Lattre de Tassigbny, „Histoire de la lére Armée française”, Paris 1949, S 520 f
5   Josef Werner, ”Karlsruhe 1945, Under Swastika, Tricolour and the starspangled banner. ”Karlsruhe 1945, Unter Hakenkreuz, Trikolore und Sternenbanner“, G. Braun, Karlsruhe 1985, (2) 1986
6    same, p. 104
7    same
8    same
9    same P. 105
10  same
11  same
12  same p. 11