German Barbarism: A Neutral's IndictmentMaccas, Léon
History
German Barbarism: A Neutral's Indictment
Maccas, Léon
World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities
“On the same day the soldiers came and called for M. Steiner, who was
concealed in his cellar. His wife, in dread of some disaster, tried
to keep him back. As she clasped him in her arms she was struck by a
bullet in the neck. Some moments afterwards Steiner, having obeyed the
command which had been given him, fell mortally wounded in his garden.
M. Kahn also was murdered in the garden of his house. His mother,
aged ninety-eight, whose body was burnt to a cinder in the fire, had
previously been killed in her bed with a bayonet thrust, according to the
story of an individual who was acting as interpreter to the enemy. M.
Binder, who was going out to get away from the flames, was also struck
down. The German by whom he was killed admitted that he had wantonly
killed him when the poor man was quietly standing before a door. M.
Vernier met with the same fate as Binder.
“About three o’clock the Germans, breaking the windows and firing shots,
forced an entrance into a house in which were Mme. Dujon, her daughter,
aged three, her two sons and a M. Gaumier. The little girl just missed
being killed; her face was singed by a shot. At this moment Mme. Dujon,
seeing her youngest son lying on the ground, begged him to get up and
flee with her. She then noticed that he was holding with full hands his
intestines, which were dropping out. The house was on fire and the poor
lad was burnt to a cinder, as was M. Gaumier, who had been unable to
escape.
“M. Wingstermann and his grandson, aged twelve, who had gone to dig
potatoes a little way off from Lunéville, at a place called ‘les Mossus,’
in the Chanteheux district, had the misfortune to meet the Germans. The
latter put them both against a wall and shot them.
“Finally, about five o’clock in the evening, some soldiers went into the
house of a woman named Sibille, in the same place, and without any excuse
seized her son, dragged him off 200 metres from the house, and massacred
both him and a M. Vallon, to whose body they had bound him. A witness who
saw the murderers just when they were dragging off their victim saw them
return without him, and declared that their bayonets were covered with
blood and pieces of flesh.
“On the same day a male nurse, named Monteils, who was tending a wounded
enemy officer at the Lunéville hospital, was struck by a bullet in the
forehead as he was watching through the window a German soldier firing
rifle shots.
“On the following day, the 26th, M. Hammann and his son, aged twenty-one
years, were arrested at their house and dragged outside by a gang who
had broken in the door and entered. The father was unmercifully beaten,
and as for the young man, when he tried to struggle a non-commissioned
officer cracked his skull with a revolver shot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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