Massacre at Le Paradise

On May 10, 1940, the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS launched Operation Gelb to seize France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Army Group A passed through southern Belgium and northeastern France, pushing the British-French combined forces to the River Meuse ^{[1] [2] [3] by} May 12 and then headed towards the English Channel , reaching it in a week. To save the units from destruction and ensure the evacuation of troops, the British command ordered the Royal Norfolk Regiment and the Royal Scots regiment to delay the German offensive in Northern France ^{[4] [5]} .

The 3rd SS Panzer Division “Dead Head” was advancing in that direction, commanded by the convinced Nazi fanatic Theodor Eike and who repeatedly suffered huge losses throughout the war ^[6] . She was sent to the front on May 17 and for the first time took part in any major operation. The division participated in the "sweeping" of the allied forces north and east of Cambrai ^{[7] [8]} . More than 16 thousand people were captured by the division, but some SS men were shot on the spot: for example, in one episode of the campaign they executed 200 surrendered Moroccan soldiers on the spot ^[9] .

By the time the Germans finished the hostilities in Cambrai, the first units of the Wehrmacht reached the English Channel. On May 21, the British counterattacked west of Arras , marking the beginning of the Battle of Arras . Reflecting the British counterattack, the SS Totenkopf division lost 100 killed ^[10] . She initially received an order to go to the city of Bethune and cross the La Basse river on May 24, but the next day she received an order to withdraw the troops in order to prepare the tank units for the campaign on Dunkirk and allow the Luftwaffe to attack the positions of the allies ^[11] . On the night of May 26, the SS division again crossed the river with the risk of being fired upon and entered Bethune, where the British fought for each house, but took it. The British retreated to the Lokon line - Le Paradise ^[12] .

2nd Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment and 8th Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers Regiment kept the line of Allied forces in the villages of Rieu du Vinage, Le Corneux Malo and Le Paradise, the headquarters of the battalions was in Le Paradise. The battalions were ordered to hold the line at all costs, until British troops were evacuated from Dunkirk ^[13] . The SS division Tottenkopf emerged from the Bois de Paco forest and attacked Le Corne Malo on May 27. Despite the courageous defense of the British, their positions were seized: the SS division lost 150 soldiers and 4 officers killed, 480 soldiers and 18 officers wounded. On the same day the Germans marched on Le Paradise ^{[14] [15] [16]} .

The Battle of Le Paradise

Rota C and the headquarters of the 2nd battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment after the defeat at Le Cornet-Malo retreated to the Cornet farm near Le Paradise. The company commanders received a radio message that their parts were cut off from the rest and would not receive help ^[17] . After that, personnel dug around a farm located on Rue de Paradise and linking the Royal Norfolk Regiment and the 1st Royal Scots battalion. The last contact of the Norfolkites with the headquarters of the brigade in L'Epinette was recorded at 11:30, but even in the absence of reinforcements and heavy weapons, the personnel restrained the onslaught of the 14th company of the 1st battalion of the 2nd SS tank regiment until 17:15 when the personnel ran out of ammunition ^{[16] [18]} . During the battle, the Germans fired at the house with mortars, tanks and artillery, destroying the building to the ground and forcing the defenders to retreat to the barn ^{[16] [18]} .

In the battle for Le Paradise, a British sniper killed the commander of the 3rd SS Tank Regiment, SS Standartenfuhrer Hans Friedmann Götze . However, despite the courage and resilience of his troops, the commander of the 2nd Norfolk battalion, Major Lysl Ryder, brother of the captain of the British Navy Robert Ryder ordered the 2nd battalion to surrender to the mercy of the winners and go out with a white flag ^[16] . Ryder’s troops eventually surrendered not to the company they were fighting against, but to the SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Fritz Knöheln, who fought against the Royal Scots regiment ^[17] . Excavations were carried out at Le Paradise in 2007, where the remains of at least 20 Royal Scots soldiers were discovered, who, apparently, also surrendered and were killed by the Germans ^[19] .

Most of the British personnel were injured. They were disarmed and transferred through Ru de Paradise. While they were waiting, the Germans took two machine guns from the 4th machine-gun company and loaded them, placing them near the barn in the pen ^[15] . The British were driven into a barn and placed in a row against the wall, after which two machine-gun teams were ordered to shoot prisoners. The fire was fired until the last Briton fell dead. Knechlein ordered his soldiers to finish off the survivors with bayonets. After making sure that everyone was dead, the Germans left the barn and returned to the location of the regiment ^{[20] [21] [22]} .

Only two survived - Private William O'Callaghan ( Eng. William O'Callaghan ) and Albert Pooley ( Eng. Albert Pooley ). Bullets told the following:

We turned off the dusty French road, drove through the gate and went out into the meadows behind the farmhouse. With one of the most terrible sensations that I experienced in my life, I saw two easel machine guns in a meadow that were aimed at the head of our convoy. They started firing machine guns. For a few seconds, the screams and squeals of our wounded were drowned out by bursts of machine guns. People fell like mowed grass. I experienced a burning pain and fell forward. My cry of pain mixed with the cries of my colleagues, but before I fell on a mountain of corpses, a thought flashed through my head: “If I get out of here, then the pigs that committed it will pay for it!” ^[23]

Original text

We turned off the dusty French road, through a gateway and into a meadow beside the buildings of a farm. I saw with one of the nastiest feelings I have ever had in my life two heavy machine guns inside the meadow pointing at the head of our column. The guns began to spit fire for a few seconds the cries and shrieks of our stricken men drowned the crackling of the guns. Men fell like grass before a scythe. I felt a searing pain and pitched forward, my scream of pain mingled with the cries of my mates, but even before I fell into the heap of dying men, the thought stabbed my brain 'If I ever get out of here, the swine that did this will pay for it.

The victims of the killings were 97 soldiers. The Germans ordered the French to bury everyone in a mass grave the next day. The surviving O'Callahan and Bullets managed to get out from under the mountain of corpses, hiding in a pigsty and hiding there for three days. They ate raw potatoes and water from puddles until they were discovered by Madame Duchenne-Creton, farm owner and her son, Victor. The owners guarded the soldiers, risking their own lives, until the soldiers of the 251st Infantry Division arrested both and took them to a military hospital ^{[16] [24] [25]} .

On May 28, 1940, Gunther D'Alken , editor-in-chief of the newspaper Das Schwarze Korps , arrived at the crime scene with the military lawyer of the SS division Tum. D'Alken wrote the following:

From the road you could see the back yard, where the corpses of people in British military uniforms lay. They lay so that it was possible to understand - they were shot from a machine gun. It shocked me that those killed did not wear helmets and were not armed in any way. I took pictures of the corpses and the whole farm. At the request of Tum they were sent to the location of the division. I remember that I was already getting in the car when Tum said that he had found all their equipment in the field and that the British corpses were simply piled in a heap, so it followed that there had been lynching ^[26] .

Major Friedkerr von Ridner, who was present at the crime scene, reported that all the dead were killed by shots to the head from close range: a skull was blown to someone in such a way that it was impossible to explain it with a blow from the rifle’s butt ^[27] . News of the massacre was spread across all nearby German divisions. Upon learning of the incident, General Erich Göpner ordered an investigation and threatened that if Eike executed the prisoners again without trial or harassment, he would be removed from command, but not a single threat of Göpner was realized, and the investigation did not led to nothing ^[15] . Even among the SS men, the fact of the execution of the British was disgusted: someone tried to unsuccessfully challenge Knechlein to a duel ^[28] .

Until the summer of 1943, the Allies did not know anything about the fate of the battalion, until Puli, who spent three years in the hospital, was declared absolutely worthless in the summer of 1943 and returned to his homeland. The British authorities did not at first believe Bullet’s statements, being firmly convinced that the German soldiers followed all the laws of war and could not simply raise their hand for British prisoners for moral reasons ^[13] . However, when O'Callahan returned to Britain after the end of the war in Europe and confirmed Bullet’s words, an investigation began ^[13] .

In 1942, the French exhumed the bodies of dead soldiers, but only 50 of the 97 dead were identified. All were reburied at the Le Paradise church cemetery (now the Le Paradise Military Cemetery) ^[29] ; in 1970, a memorial plaque was erected on the site of the barn where the soldiers were executed, and a monument to the dead soldiers was opened in front of the church ^{[30] [31]} .

The British authorities, who learned about the existence of Nazi death camps and heard from Puli and O'Callahan the details of the crime, began an investigation conducted by the War Crimes Investigation Division. In 1947, it was established that it was Knechlein’s company that was involved in the monstrous massacre, and in the same year he was arrested ^[17] . In August 1948, he was charged with mass murder, he pleaded not guilty:

The accused is Fritz Knechlein, a German citizen, at the request of the Hamburg garrison, according to clause 4 of the War Crimes Definitions. Accused of committing the following war crime: in the vicinity of the village of Paradise, Pas de Calais, France, on May 27, 1940, in violation of the laws and customs of war, he committed the killing of about 90 prisoners of war - soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment and other British military units ^{[17 ]} .

Original text

The accused Fritz Knöchlein, a German national, in the charge of the Hamburg Garrison Unit, pursuant to Regulation 4 of the Regulations for the Trial of War Criminals, is charged with committing a war crime in that he in the vicinity of Paradis, Pas- de-Calais, France, on or about May 27, 1940, in violation of the laws and usages of war, was concerned in the killing of about ninety prisoners-of-war, members of The Royal Norfolk Regiment and other British Units.

The trial of Knechlein took place on Monday, October 11, 1948 in Rotherbaum , in the courtroom No. 5. Knechlein based his alibi on the fact that he was not present at the crime scene, but his lawyers did not reject the fact that the crime took place. They claimed that the British used expansive bullets and abused the white flag, which provoked the indignation of the prosecution ^[17] . At the trial, survivors Puli and O'Callahan, Madame Duchenne-Creton and a French citizen who identified Knöchlein testified ^[32] . After 12 days, the supreme judge ruled: no matter what the British did, the Germans had no right to shoot prisoners without trial. On October 25, 1948, at 11:30 a.m., Knechlein was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. The lawyer of the convicted Ude asked the court to pardon and replace the death penalty with a prison term:

All I can say is a small fraction of the doubt that should convince the court not to resort to the death penalty. Spare the life of the condemned. He has a wife and four children, whom he must support. Keep in mind that he is a soldier, and the court consists of members of the British Army. I believe that I have the right to ask the court to pronounce a sentence that will allow my client to leave prison as soon as possible.

Original text

All that is left for me to say is that some little doubt may have remained in the minds of the Court which will enable the members not to award the extreme penalty. Spare the life of the accused. He has a wife and four children who are dependent upon him for support. Consider also the fact that he is a soldier, and the Court is composed of members of the British Army. I believe I am entitled to appeal to the Court to pronounce a sentence which will enable my client to come out of prison at an early date. ^[13]

However, on January 28, 1949 at 3:00 p.m. Knechlein was hanged in Hamelin. No one else appeared before the court from the soldiers ^[13] .

• The disappearance of the Norfolk Regiment
• The Vorma Massacre

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