Abstract

The article presents the results of a wide-ranging research on Oradour-sur-Glane, a French village victim of one of the harshest reprisals of the WWII in the West. The article attempts to discuss the historiographical results achieved from an international perspective, including the significant revisionist approach adopted by the German side, and integrate these results with primary archival sources and the complex process for the construction and negotiation of memory. Linking historiography and archival research, a further element emerges, central to the narrative related to the massacre, namely the fact that Oradour-sur-Glane became a crucial point in the French unification process.