Fritz Knoechlein
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Fritz Knöchlein (1911 in Munich - January 28, 1949) was a SS Obersturmbannführer during the Second World War who was subsequently convicted and executed for war crimes
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[edit] Biography
After the outbreak of war in 1939, he was posted as a Company Commander to the Dachau concentration camp on the formation of the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf. He served through the Western Front campaign as Commander of No. 3 Company of the SS 2nd Infantry Regiment.
[edit] Massacre
It was in this capacity that he gained notoriety, being responsible for the 27 May 1940 massacre of British prisoners-of-war at Le Paradis in the Pas-de-Calais. Ninety-nine members of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment who had surrendered to his Regiment in a cattle shed were stood in front of the barn wall, and Knöchlein ordered two machine-guns turned on them. Two of the prisoners, privates Albert Pooley and William O'Callaghan, managed to escape the massacre, but the remaining 97 were hastily buried along the barn wall.
In 1942, the bodies were exhumed by the French authorities and reburied in a local cemetery which eventually became the Le Paradis War Cemetery. During this time, Albert Pooley made it a personal mission to hunt down Knöchlein and bring him up on charges of war crimes after the war.
[edit] Eastern Front
After leading 5th Company, the regiment was dissolved later in 1941, and he became Battery Commander of an Anti-Aircraft Battery in the same division. He served in this capacity on the Russian Front until January of 1942, and then became Battalion Commander of the newly-formed No. 36 Regiment, 16th Panzer Grenadier Division.
In April 1944, he became a Regimental Commander, and remained in command of a regiment fighting the Russians until the capitulation. Knöchlein was decorated with the Iron Cross three times, first in France in May 1940; with the German Cross in 1942 for fighting in Russia; and in 1944 with the Knight's Cross again in Russia.
[edit] Trial
In August of 1948, he was formally arraigned on charges of war crimes, to which he plead not guilty.
- The accused Fritz Knochlein, 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 27 May 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.
His trial began in No. 5 Court of the Curiohaus, Altona, on Monday 11 October 1948 - and both Albert Pooley and William O'Callaghan were called to testify against him. Knöchlein's defence attorney, Dr. Uhde, claimed that Knöchlein had not been present on the day of the battle, and challenged that the British forces had used the illegal dumdum bullets. Upon being found guilty, he applied for clemency indicating that he had a wife and four children that depended on him, but was sentenced to be hanged, a verdict that was carried out on January 28, 1949.
