During the Second World War, there were a huge amount of war crimes committed by different
armies, and many of these went unpunished after the end of the conflict.
Different trials were held across Europe to bring the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes
against humanity to justice, but there were many massacres who went mostly unpunished.
There was one massacre which took place on the 27th May 1940 during the Battle of France,
when the British Expeditionary Force were trying to retreat to get back to Dunkirk to
await evacuation.
The Le Paradis Massacre took place in which 97 British soldiers were killed being mown
down by machine gun fire near a barn.
There were only two survivors, and it was the German 14th Company SS Division Totenkopf
under the command of Fritz Knochlein who were the perpetrators.
Join us today as we look at, ‘The BRUTAL Executions Of The Le Paradis Massacre.’
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The Battle of France was the SS Division Totenkopf’s first major engagement of the Second World
War.
The unit were involved in conducting operations against the Allies to the north and east of
Cambrai.
They were tasked with rounding up prisoners, and then took 16,000 in total in France.
They did have a reputation for execution and murder as 200 French Army of Africa soldiers
refused to surrender and were then shot dead.
The fighting in France at the time in the war was intense, but the British and the Allies
were being batted back towards the English Channel.
They did launch counter attacks against the Germans, but around French towns the fighting
was very fierce.
The SS division were told to retreat as they approached towards Dunkirk, and were told
to preserve their tanks for the assault on Dunkirk.
They were told to let the Luftwaffe attack and engage Allied positions, and near to Bethune
there was heavy fighting with the British.
The 2nd Battalion of the Royal Norfolks and the 8th Lancashire Fusiliers were holding
the Allied line near to Riez Du Vinage, Le Paradis and Le Cornet Malo.
Their battalion headquarters had been established at Le Paradis, and they were told to hold
out and fight defensively against the Germans to make sure that thousands of members of
the British Expeditionary Force could be evacuated by sea from Dunkirk.
The SS Division Totenkopf attacked Le Cornet Malo on the 27th May and the British defended
well until they were over-run.
They did manage to kill a significant number of German soldiers around 150, and wounded
around 500 but then the Germans moved forward to attack Le Paradis.
Le Paradis known as Lestrem is a small town found around 20 miles west of Lille, and during
the First World War it had been completely destroyed, but during the Second World War
it would be the site of a horrific massacre.
The majority of the British soldiers had fallen back to their headquarters at Cornet Farm
just outside of Le Paradis.
The company commanders were told that they were isolated and cut off, and would have
to fight out as there would be no assistance sent.
They dug in around the farmhouse and prepared for the German assault which would come.
The defenders held out against the 14th Company 1st Battalion of the 2nd SS infantry Regiment
until 17:15, and had been fighting for a number of hours strongly.
They were attacked by mortars, artillery shelling and tanks, with the farmhouse being completely
destroyed by the assaults, which forced to British to withdraw to a cowshed.
There were many casualties, and as the situation looked dire for the British, the 99 defenders
who managed to survive were ordered to surrender by their commander, Major Lisle Ryder.
They left the cowshed waving a white flag.
The men surrendered not to the Germans they were fighting, but to Fritz Knochlein’s
unit who had been fighting nearby against the Royal Scots.
Around 20 of these men were later massacred in a separate large scale execution carried
out by Knocklein’s men.
The British who surrendered were a poor state.
A number of them had been wounded, but they were then disarmed and were taken down a road
off the Rue du Paradis.
They were then told to wait and to not move.
Whilst they were being gathered, two machine guns were being prepared and were set up by
a barn in a paddock of a farm.
The men had been marched under armed guard by the German soldiers, and a survivors account
states, ‘We halted on the road for two or three minutes.
During this time a German took from my pocket a packet a cigarettes and when I turned to
look at him he struck me with his rifle knocking me through the ranks.
An unbroken line of German transport was standing on the right hand side of the road facing
us.
We were then ordered to march again and it was at this moment that I saw what had apparently
been prepared for us.
At the far end of the field opposite the farm house I saw two machine guns, one of which
was already in position and the other was in the process of being set up.
Some distance behind the guns there was a hedge.
Standing just inside the gate leading into the field was a group of about a dozen Germans
who seemed to be having a discussion.
One of this group whom I saw at close quarters a few minutes later I identified as an officer
by the silver cord on his peaked cap.
He was about 5 feet 10 inches tall and of slim build, had a dark face with a prominent
hooked nose and dark piercing eyes and was 35-40 years old.
I am inclined to think that this group comprised of officers and NCOs.
At this moment the troops guarding us ordered us to continue the march.
At this point we left the road and went through a field through a gate, and I noticed at the
fit of the wall of the farmhouse a large hole which was at least 5 feet deep, 15 to 20 feet
long and eight feet broad.
When the first prisoners reached the far end of the hole, the firing commenced.
The men had been marched near to a farmhouse, and were machine gunned as they approached
a large pit.
Knochlein had ordered his men to continue firing until all of the British POWs ahad
fallen and been executed.
It was said, ‘I was just entering the gate.
It seemed that as the men were hit they fell into the hole.
When I reached the hole, the man nearest to me Private Ward was hit, and I felt a sharp
pain in my left knee and fell into the hole.
I fell ontop of some men who were already lying there and others fell ontop of me.
Firing continued for a few seconds which time I noticed Major Ryder sitting inside the hole
with his back to the side nearest the wall, he seemed to be very badly hit.
Groans were coming from men lying in the hole and it was at this point that three Germans
jumped down into the hole near Major Ryder evidently for the purpose of finishing any
prisoners still alive with bayonets.
These Germans evidently climbed out of the hole again because further shooting started
with revolvers and rifles from the edge of the hole.
One of the men beneath me moved and two shots were fired into the heap of bodies, both of
which hit me in the left lef.
At the sound of a whistle, firing ceased and all the Germans appeared to move away because
I heard no further sound.
The shooting took place at approximately 15:30 hours.
97 British prisoners of war had been killed and massacred in a shallow grave that the
germans forced French civilians to bury.
Private William O Callaghan and Private Albert Pooley were the only two who survived.
The pair wounded managed to hide in a pig sty for three days and nights, and they lived
on raw potatoes and water from puddles before they were discovered by the farms owner.
They then cared for them, and the men were later captured by the German Army.
A journalist with the Waffen-SS later arrived at the scene after the massacre and wrote,
‘It was possible to look into the back yard from the road ... the corpses in British uniform
were lying in the yard near the buildings.
They were lying in such a position that one can assume they were killed by machine-gun
bursts.
It struck me at once that the dead soldiers were not wearing helmets, nor did they have
any equipment on them ... I took pictures of the dead bodies, and the whole farm.
At Thum's request these were to be placed at the disposal of the division ... I believe
I was already sitting there in the vehicle when Thum ... told me that in the field, from
which he had just returned, the equipment taken from the shot British soldiers was lying
in a heap, from which he had come to the conclusion that a summary trial had taken place.’
The men who survived later arrived back in Britain, being deemed of no use and were repatriated,
but they were worried about reprisals.
They held the information in of the massacre for a while, and of the 97 killed only 50
bodies were identified.
The bodies were exhumed and then reburied in a nearby churchyard.
Fritz Knochlein the commander of the Germans who carried out the shooting was brought to
trial and he pleaded not guilty of war crimes for the massacre.
He was found guilty of war crimes and despite his defence trying to obtain some clemency,
he was sentenced to death and was executed by hanging on the 28th January 1949 in Hamelin
Prison.
He was the only German soldier or officer executed and prosecuted for the Le Paradis
Massacre.
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