FRANCE: Individual Judgment

Individual Judgement

In Alsace one day last week, a restaurant owner publicly tore off his Legion of Honor ribbon, the French flag was flown at half-mast, army reserve officers sent in their military papers, lawyers refused to appear in court, and church bells tolled—all in protest against the verdict of a French military court 350 miles away in Bordeaux. Among the 20 former SS soldiers found guilty that morning of having taken part in the massacre of 642 men, women & children at Oradour-sur-Glane in 1944 (TIME, Jan. 26) were 14 Alsatians. Mostly youths of about 17 at the time of the massacre, all but two had been pressed into German service against their will, their lawyers said.

In Bordeaux, Judge Marcel Nussy Saint-Saëns (nephew of the composer) had delayed his verdict until 1 a.m. to avoid a public demonstration of quite another kind. There, not far from the desolate ruin of Oradour, feeling had run high all month long as witnesses told of the grisly mass murder. Paris newspapers had built the story up into one of the year’s great controversies; it proved particularly timely, as a reminder of past German cruelties, for politicians who oppose a European army in which Germans and Frenchmen will wear the same uniform. The verdict: death for SS Sergeant Georges-René Boos (a Frenchman) and Karl Lenz (a German), sentences from five to twelve years for 18 others, including the Alsatians.