Adolf Diekmann

Diekmann joined the SS on 18 May 1933 (SS-number: 309 984). He trained at the SS-Junkerschule. In August 1938, he was promoted to SS-Untersturmführer in the SS-Verfügungstruppe. After he had participated in the Polish campaign he was made an SS-Obersturmführer on 1 July 1940. By 1941, he was serving with the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich that was fighting as part of Army Group Center, taking part in the Battle of Yelnya near Smolensk. The division spearheaded Operation Typhoon in order to capture of Moscow. However, by the time Das Reich took part in the Battle of Moscow, it had lost 60 percent of its combat strength. By February 1942, it had lost 10,690 men. Deikmann was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer on 20 April 1942. Due to combat losses, Diekmann's division was pulled out of the fighting line and sent to the west to refit as a Panzer-Grenadier Division. It then returned to Russia where it fought in the Zhitomir–Berdichev Offensive during the winter of 1943-44. In spring 1944, the Das Reich Division was again withdrawn from Russia and sent to the south of France for refitting in preparation for the anticipated Allied invasion of occupied Europe. While in the southern France, Diekmann was promoted was on 8 June 1944—two days after the Normandy landings—to SS-Sturmbannführer. He was given command of the 1st Battalion, 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment, in the Das Reich Division.

On 9 June 1944, fellow SS-Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe, and personal friend of Diekmann was captured 2.5 mi (4.0 km) east of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat by a Resistance group led by a Sergeant Jean Canou from Colonel Georges Guingouin's Brigade, a group in the Maquis du Limousin.[1] Canou handed Kämpfe over to Guingouin. The following day the highly-decorated SS officer was executed on the orders of Guingouin or killed during an attempt to escape.[2] His body was then burned (although some reports say he was burned alive).

When the SS Division discovered that Kämpfe had been kidnapped, Diekmann led troops from the 3rd Company, 1st Battalion, 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment and members of the Milice on a brutal search of the surrounding area. Two local men were shot dead 1.5 mi (2.4 km) east of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat by SS men under Diekmann's command.[3] Diekmann eventually reached the outskirts of Oradour-sur-Glane. He told his superiors that he ordered his men to raze the village and kill the inhabitants (245 women, 207 children and 190 men) because he had become enraged after he had found Kämpfe's handcuffed body inside a German field ambulance with the remains of other German soldiers. He believed the vehicle had been set alight burning alive everyone inside.[2]

After hearing the testimony of Diekmann, the commander of the 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment, SS-Standartenführer Sylvester Stadler ordered that he should face a court-martial for ordering the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane. SS-Brigadeführer Heinz Lammerding, Das Reich's division commander, agreed with the decision.[4] However, all charges against Diekmann were dropped after he was killed near Noyers-Bocage while fighting in Normandy on 29 June 1944. He was buried at the La Cambe German war cemetery in block 25, row 4, grave 121.

On 12 January 1953, a military tribunal in Bordeaux heard the charges against the surviving 65 of the 200 or so SS men who had been involved in the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre. Only 20 defendants were convicted of war crimes. Although Diekmann was dead, the tribunal found him overall responsible for ordering the killings. Almost 70 years after the massacre, former solders from Diekmann's command were still being investigated over the killings. On 8 January 2014, Werner Christukat,[5] an 88-year-old former member of the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of the 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment was charged, by the state court in Cologne, with 25 charges of murder and hundreds of counts of accessory to murder in connection with the massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane.[6] The suspect, who was identified only as Werner C., had until 31 March 2014 to respond to the charges. If the case had gone to trial, it might have been held in a juvenile court because the suspect was only 19 at the time the crime occurred. According to his attorney, Rainer Pohlen, the suspect acknowledged being at the village but denied being involved in any killings.[7] On 9 December 2014, the court dropped the case citing a lack of any witness statements or reliable documentary evidence able to disprove the suspect's contention that he was not a part of the massacre.[8]

Diekmann married Hedwig Meinde on 12 February 1940. They had a son named Rainer (born 11 March 1942).

• Penaud, Guy (2014). Oradour : un jour de juin 1944 en enfer. La Crèche. ISBN 978-2-367-46171-7.
• Le Sommier, Régis (2014). Les mystères d'Oradour : du temps du deuil à la quête de la vérité. Neuilly-sur-Seine: M. Lafon. ISBN 978-2-749-92318-5.

• "Interview with Rainer Diekmann, Adolf Diekmann's son. By Marika Schaertl and Régis Le Sommier" (in French). Paris Match. 9 June 2014.