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Show FRENCH JOYOUS, FOE RAZE TOWN Nazis Ravage Valley When People Defy Himmler's Demand for Labor. GERARDMER, FRANCE. The Germans burned and blasted 30 miles of the once beautiful Meurthe river countryside of eastern France in an orgy of destruction planned as methodically as a military campaign, cam-paign, the mayor of this ruined town said. Special engineers crated pyres of gasoline and straw, weighted down with furniture, in most homes and farm buildings. Large houses were destroyed with aerial bombs. Special Spe-cial squads went through factories and broke up all machines with sledgehammers. The 60-year-old mayor, 1 Andre Boucher, told about the destruction after correspondents had driven through the valley of the Meurthe en route from the American Seventh army to the French First army sector. sec-tor. The valley was a scene of incredible in-credible destruction. Almost all the houses, whether clustered in hamlets ham-lets or isolated far up the mountainsides, moun-tainsides, were destroyed by fire or explosives. Carefully Planned. The houses were destroyed by a special SS "Command Post for Destruction," De-struction," which, the mayor said, descended upon Gerardmer on November 9. The area was divided into sections, each under a chief of destruction. All were connected by phone with a central headquarters, where a glowering SS officer sat with a map on which was drawn the plan of devastation. The mayor said Heinrich Himm-ler, Himm-ler, German gestapo chief, had visited vis-ited Gerardmer on September 7 to confer with six German generals. While taking a cold bath in the lake, Himmler saw many boys and girls enjoying themselves. "How is it," Himmler demanded of the mayor, "that these French youths are able to amuse themselves while the young men of Germany fight for the Fatherland?" That night, the mayor said, a German Ger-man soldier brought him an order from Himmler that all males from 14 to 60 must be assembled to build fortifications for the Germans. On November 8 the Germans took 600 men off to the woods, but 500 escaped. es-caped. The next day the mayor was ordered to appear before the Ger- , man commandant, who showed him a map with a small area in the center outlined in red ink. All to Be Destroyed. "He told me that the entire population popu-lation of that area, 11 by 8 miles, must join together in ati area less ' than a square mile, which would be spared from destruction," the mayor may-or said. "Everything, the comman-' comman-' da.nt said, would be destroyed. He said he did not know why that it was an order from above." That day the Germans went into action as the people of the valley fearfully assembled in their assigned as-signed place. By November 16, the mayor said, all the houses were burning. . "On November 18 the Germans were gone and we were alone in our ruins," the mayor said. "On November Novem-ber 19 the French arrived. There was no demonstration. We were glad to see them. But what sorrow they could not have come a day or two earlier." |
