Fritz Knoechlein

Fritz Knöchlein (27 May 1911, Munich – 28 January 1949) was an SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) during the Second World War who was subsequently convicted and executed for war crimes.

Biography

Fritz Knöchlein joined the SS in 1934. Upon the formation of the 3rd SS Division ("Totenkopf") (then organized as a motorized infantry division) at the SS training area near Dachau he was promoted to the rank of Hauptsturmführer (Captain) and appointed to the command of No. 3 Kompanie, I. Abteilung (of which he was also the deputy commander), 2. Regiment ("Brandenberg") of the Totenkopf Division and fought as part of the division during the Battle of France in May–June 1940.

Massacre

It was in his capacity as a company commander 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 unit in a cattle shed were stood in front of the barn wall, and Knöchlein ordered two machine-guns turned on them, followed by bayoneting and shooting any apparent survivors. 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.