Edmond Réveil, resistant, reveals the execution of German soldiers in 1944 in Corrèze

He broke the omerta 79 years after the fact. Edmond Réveil, 18 at the time and a maquisard, gave himself up in the columns of the newspaper La Montagne. In June 1944, he claims to have witnessed the execution of 47 German soldiers and a woman linked to the Gestapo in Meymac. Soldiers captured after the attack on the girls’ normal school in Tulle on June 7, 1944. Until now, no one knew what had happened to them.

At 98, the man is tired, but in his right mind. His diction is clear and his words precise. It’s the last witness of this story. Edmond Réveil receives our team, Jean Perrier and Laurent Du Rusquec, this Tuesday, May 16 in his house in Meymac, in Corrèze.

He entrusts us with this story that has remained secret until now.

June 1944, the one then known by the code name “Butterfly” is only 18 years old. Originally from Creuse, he arrived in Meymac in the 1930s with his parents. He enlisted in the maquis a few weeks earlier. He is first and foremost a liaison officer.

On June 7 and 8, 1944, he took part in the attack on the Normal School for Girls in Tulle. The fights are very violent. At the end of the battle, around fifty soldiers were taken prisoner.

Edmond Réveil recounts for the first time what would have happened next:n June 12, 1944, he claims to have witnessed the execution of 47 German prisoners and a French woman.

One of them who tried to escape was killed instantly. A guy from the Gestapo. We took the others because Allassac didn’t want them. They had made them prisoners, but they gave them to those of Treignac. We went up with them as far as Lonzac. Arrived in this commune, those of Treignac said: “we cannot keep them”. It is therefore we who have finished going up them to Meymac. Four days of walking.

It was complicated. We had no structures to guard them, we had nothing and the Germans still controlled the whole area. We couldn’t keep them, we moved often, we changed sides. When they wanted to pee, two guerrillas were needed to accompany them. There was the story of refueling.

It was General Koenig who gave the order to shoot them to Commandant Rivière, who was leading the Maquis. Our local leader. This is how the order came to us. The captain who commanded us was crying when he announced it to the prisoners. He taught them one by one because he was Alsatian, he spoke German very well. We then placed aside those who were not German. They were put in the MOI (the immigrant labor movement).

So we were left with 47 Wehrmacht soldiers plus one girl. A French woman was also killed. She was in her twenties. She had cooperated.

We were about thirty.

How is the execution going?

Everyone kills their man (silence, editor’s note).

Aren’t they platoons?

No, each voluntary maquisard killed his German. I did not participate. We were three or four not to take part. We refused. It happens in one morning. They were falling into the hole they had dug themselves. We weren’t aware of what we were doing, we were too young. We never talked about it again. It remained a secret. The other guerrillas in the area didn’t know it either.

It had to be known, it is a historical truth. Vis-à-vis the people of Tulle. We have somewhat avenged those who were hanged. The Germans had also killed 47 young people in Ussel on June 10. Today, the bodies must be returned to their families. They were buried with their military booklets and dog tags. I’m glad it’s no longer a secret today.

The event is not glorious sincewe don’t have the right to kill prisoners. We didn’t want to say it. We received the order to kill them by General Koenig. There was an inter-allied group which was here and which supervised the Maquisards and which was stationed in the commune of Saint-Fréjoux (in Corrèze, Editor’s note). There were Canadians, English and Americans controlling us.

Are the hanged people of Tulle not precisely a response to the attack of June 7 and 8 and the disappearance of these prisoner soldiers?

No… Maybe it got the Germans a little excited because they didn’t know where their men had gone. It was a funny time.

The exhumation of the bodies of the German soldiers which should follow on the site revealed by this former resistant, will make it possible to confirm this account hitherto kept secret.

According to Edmond Réveil, this version was given for the first time in December 2019 during a meeting of the National Association of Veterans, comments confirmed by the mayor of Meymac, which were not, at the time, relayed by the media nor by the ANACR.

We had met Edmond Réveil five months ago in the context of the “Paroles d’ancien” section. He had not then mentioned the facts which he has just revealed.