Knchlein Fritz

German nazi military, SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) during the Second World War who was subsequently convicted and executed for war crimes. 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 OCallaghan, 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. Upon being found guilty, Knöchlein applied for clemency, arguing 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. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less