The most notorious outburst of vengeful violence in western Germany took place in Freudenstadt in mid-April. The only really important transport junction in the Black Forest region, Freudenstadt had assumed a key position in the campaign of the French commander, General de Lattre de Tassigny, to occupy the south-western corner of the Reich.
After French forces had converged on Freudenstadt from the north and east and taken the town on 17 April, three days of looting, arson and violence ensued. According to one account, some 500 women reported having been raped when the French occupied the town and then set much of it alight, allegedly chanting ‘we are the avengers, the SS of the French Army’.
The intensity of this violence may have been due to the presence of units of the ‘Forces Françaises de l’Interieur’ (which were composed in large measure of people who had taken part in the résistance)
[…]
It was not until the local French commandant threatened those guilty of looting and rape with the death penalty, three days after the French had taken the town, that the violence subsided.
Source:
Bessel, Richard. “Revenge.” Germany 1945: From War to Peace. New York, NY, HarperCollins, 2009. 158. Print.
Original Source Listed:
See Elmer Krautkrämer, ‘Das Kriegsende in Südwestdeutschland’, in Horst Buszello (ed.), Der Oberrhein in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Von der Römerzeit bis zur Gründung des Landes Baden-Würtemberg (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1986), pp. 213-217.
Gerhard Hertel (ed.), Die Zerstörung von Freudenstadt. Das Schicksal von Freudenstadt am 16./17. April 1945 (Horb am Neckar, 1987).
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