Le Paradis Massacre: SS Murder of 97 Surrendered British Soldiers

The Le Paradis Massacre was one of the first major Waffen-SS war crimes in Western Europe during World War II. On 27 May 1940, during the Battle of France, ninety-nine soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment surrendered after being surrounded near the French village of Le Paradis. Expecting to become prisoners of war, they instead became victims of one of the most notorious atrocities of the campaign.Led by SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Knöchlein of the SS-Totenkopf Division, the captured British soldiers were marched to a farmyard, lined up against a barn wall, and machine-gunned at close range. Ninety-seven men were killed. Only two survivors — William O’Callaghan and Albert Pooley — escaped death by hiding among the dead and later taking refuge in a nearby pigsty.Their testimony after the war helped expose the crime and identify those responsible. Despite attempts to conceal the massacre, postwar investigations linked the killings directly to Knöchlein. His claims that British troops had used illegal ammunition and his denials of responsibility failed to convince the court. In 1949, he was convicted of war crimes and executed by hanging.This documentary explores the Battle of France, the actions of the SS-Totenkopf Division, the fate of the Royal Norfolk Regiment soldiers, and the long search for justice that followed. The massacre at Le Paradis remains one of the clearest examples of Waffen-SS brutality against surrendered Allied troops during the Second World War.This episode is part of the series The Forgotten Massacres of Defenseless Soldiers in WWII.Watch the full documentary and explore hundreds of historical films at:WorldHistory.tv