On the day of France's liberation from Nazi occupation in 1944, German troops decimated a small French village. A German prosecutor is now trying to track down surviving suspects -- with slim hope for success.

German investigators are to look for evidence next week in the central French village of Maille in the hope that they can spot connections between the massacre of August 25, 1944, and documents on German troop movements at the time.

The troops, described by witnesses as very young, killed 124 of Maille's population of about 500 in a bloody reprisal for a French Resistance ambush the previous night that had destroyed two German military vehicles in the area south of Tours.

The massacre was the second worst in France after the frenzy of violence two months earlier in Oradour-sur-Glane where 642 villagers were slaughtered. To this day, no full list of the butchers of Maille has been drawn up. Witnesses spoke of 60 to 100 German soldiers.