ATROCITÉS ALLEMANDES UN DOCUMENT ÉCRASANT Rapport de la Commission d'Enquête Française - German atrocities a crushing document - report of the French Commission of Inquiry on the crimes of the Germans in the territory of France in the first months of the outbreak of the First World War. December 1914. French.
By official order of September 23, a commission was established whose task was to detail the acts committed by Germany in the territories conquered by it in France in violation of international law. The commission was composed of members of the Council of State, and it was submitted to the president of the council. The report submitted by the commission was based on numerous testimonies and photographic documents. The commission focused in particular on the Lorraine region, which was the most severe victim of German atrocities, entire villages were destroyed, entire towns wiped out, while committing acts of rape, robbery, looting, and burning. The introduction to the report states: "We can say, in fact, that never has a war between civilized nations had the savage and cruel character of the one now being waged on our soil by a ruthless enemy. Looting, rape, arson and murder are common practices among our enemies: and the facts revealed to us daily, while constituting true crimes under common law, punished by the codes of all the most severe states. and notorious punishments showed an astonishing decline in the German mentality since 1870".
The report details the systematic killing of innocent civilians committed by the Germans, the setting of buildings on fire with their inhabitants, the massacring of civilians for intimidation, terrible acts of rape, abuse ("A seventy-year-old man named Jacquemin was tied to his bed by an officer and remained in that state without food for three days, he died shortly thereafter"), and more. The report details the crimes committed by the Germans in every city in France, with countless terrible acts detailed here without censorship. The important part of the report is the findings proving that the atrocities committed by the Germans were not on-the-spot decisions of the commanders in the field, but came as an explicit order from the German high command.
40 p. 23 cm. Good condition.
