LIMOGES, France (AFP) -- Nazi war criminal Heinz Barth, who has died aged 86, showed no regret for his part in the wartime massacre of 642 men, women and children in the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, survivors charged on Tuesday.

Heinz Barth, a former SS platoon leader, was jailed for life by an East German court in 1983 for his part in a string of atrocities during World War II, including the slaughter at Oradour that in France came to symbolize the worst of Nazi barbarity.
He was released from prison in 1997 on health grounds, sparking an outcry, and spent the last years of his life in Gransee near Berlin, where his death was announced late Monday.
""In 1983, during his trial in East Berlin, he voiced no regret,"" recalled Robert Hebras, 82, one of six people who survived the massacre at Oradour, near Limoges in central France. ""His sole regret was the fact there were survivors left to testify.""
""He never spoke a word of regret. 'It was war,' that's all he said,"" agreed Jean-Marcel Darthout, 83, the only other living survivor.
Oradour was destroyed on June 10, 1944, four days after the Normandy landings which marked the start of the liberation of France and Europe from Nazi occupation.
A detachment of SS troops heading north to reinforce German defenses halted in the village and, for reasons that have never been made clear, ordered its 642 inhabitants, including some 200 children, to assemble in the town square