Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 5, C minor, Op. 67

Conductor: Herbert von Karajan

Performance: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Year of recording: 1983

 

I. Allegro con brio (C minor)

II. Andante con moto (A♭ major)

III. Scherzo: Allegro (C minor)

IV. Allegro – Presto (C major)

 

Die Deutsche Wochenschau – Newsreel No. 569 – 30 July 1941

1. Eastern Front.

 

Hermann Göring arrives at the eastern front by train, he is in the division of the Luftwaffe, bypasses the generals, greeted General Student, talking to the high honours of the Reich pilots.

 

– Bypass the formation of pilots.

 

– Reichsmarschall Göring makes a speech.

 

2. Germany.

 

Hermann Göring Receiving Croatian General Slavko Kvaternik in the train carriage, they exchange of handshakes.

 

– Kvaternik gives Goring gifts from the Croatian people: richly inlaid antique sabre, box, axe, etc.

 

3. Volunteers from the countries of Europe are sent to the Eastern Front.

 

Denmark.

 

– Danish battalion is sent to the Eastern Front.

 

– Procession of legionaries through the streets of the city.

 

Spain.

 

– The new replenishment of the “Blue Division” departed for the front, seeing off at the railway station.

Italy

 

Solemn march replenishment of the Italian army on the eastern front.

 

– Crown Prince Umberto on the podium.

 

– Residents welcomed the soldiers.

 

– The train leaves the platform.

 

4. USSR. Northern section of the eastern front.

 

Operations of German fighters and torpedo boats off the coast of the Murmansk Peninsula.

 

– A fragment of the battle with Soviet ships.

 

– Burning Soviet ship.

 

– The Germans and Finns repair roads, remove stones.

 

– Horse-drawn carriage with difficulty sneaking along the broken road.

 

– Fighting in the area of the city of Salla.

 

– Fires a gun.

 

– Shelling of Soviet positions.

 

– Crossing the river.

 

– The Germans landed on the opposite bank, go on the burning settlement.

 

5. Bessarabia.

 

German troops are on the road, combing the forest.

 

– German infantrymen in an ambush.

 

– Pointing a gun.

 

– Germans search Soviet prisoners.

 

– German infantry at the Dniester.

 

– They are on boats and boats forcing the river.

 

– Building a pontoon bridge.

 

– Crossing in action.

 

– Transportation of heavy guns.

 

– Column of Soviet prisoners.

 

– The camera shows the faces of individual soldier prisoners.

 

– Hungarian and Slovak troops are moving forward.

 

– Soldiers dragging motorbikes.

 

– Blown up bridge, the soldiers sneak through a temporary crossing.

 

– Slovakian troops are advancing along the motorway.

 

6. USSR. The area of Kiev.

 

The accumulation of Hitler’s troops on the outskirts of the city.

 

– There are German infantry, tanks.

 

– Waffen-SS troops crossing the Dnieper River on boats and pontoons.

 

7. USSR. The area of Polotsk-Vitebsk.

 

German cavalry on the march.

 

– They are infantrymen.

 

– Fragments of the battle near Polotsk.

 

– The Germans fired at Soviet positions from guns and machine guns.

 

– Liaison officers pull the line of communication.

 

– The Germans in the village.

 

– Explosions.

 

– Destroyed Soviet battery, the corpses of soldiers.

 

– Polotsk, engulfed by fire.

 

– The Germans climb over the remains of the blown-up bridge.

 

– Burning ruins of buildings.

 

– Destroyed houses, completely burned-out buildings.

 

– The Germans are forcing the Daugava.

 

– The construction of a new bridge.

 

– German soldiers in the village occupied by them.

 

– Horses drink water, eat hay.

 

– German kneads dough in a trough.

 

– Hunting for a pig.

 

– Carcass cutting.

 

– Cooking pork.

 

– Distribution of the finished dish.

 

– German troops moving in the direction of Vitebsk.

 

– Capture of the farm, carried out by a patrol that arrived on the railway.

 

– Station, destroyed station buildings, steam locomotive circle.

 

– Broken trains on the tracks.

 

– Sappers-railway workers restore the tracks.

 

– Trophy Soviet steam locomotive goes on the road.

 

USSR. The front near Vitebsk.

 

The retreat of Soviet troops.

 

– Destruction of the Bolsheviks of their cities before the retreat.

 

– Vitebsk, burning buildings, set on fire retreating troops.

 

USSR. Bolsheviks destroying their cities before retreating.

 

– Vitebsk.

 

– Burning buildings set on fire by retreating Bolsheviks.

 

– Karelia, burning houses.

 

– The ruins of Kishinev.

 

USSR. Columns of Soviet prisoners of war.

 

– German units moving to the East.

 

– Motorised infantry.

 

– Tanks.

 

– The northern section of the eastern front.

 

– German planes are attacking a cluster of Soviet troops in the huge forests around Lake Peipsi, the bombing of the railway junction.

 

– German soldiers crossing the “Stalin Line”.

 

– Fragments of battles.

 

– Surrendering Soviet soldiers.

 

– German troops are going east.

 

– Motorised infantry.

 

– Destroyed railway line.

 

– German bombs flying on a Soviet column.

 

Estonia.

 

– Under the plane Tartu.

 

– Destruction in Tartu.

 

– This city with 900 years of history suffered particularly heavy losses from the terror of the GPU. The ancient cultural monuments of this old German settlement in the east lie in ruins, the dwellings completely destroyed.

 

– Every day more new victims of the GPU are discovered. The corpses of civilians.

 

– SS troops on the offensive north of Lake Peipsi.

 

– Shelling of Soviet fortifications.

 

– Tanks and motorised infantry can continue the offensive.

 

– Captured Red Army, their faces in front of the camera - selected Asian types.

 

– The Germans are on the offensive.

 

– Some settlements are taken by storm.

 

– Burning in the night huts, on the streets lying dead.

 

– The Germans are forcing the water frontier.

 

Air Force Base.

 

– German planes are preparing for the first flight to Moscow.

 

– Summary of the Wehrmacht on 22 July says that the German pilots avenge the Soviets for the Bolshevik attacks on Helsinki and Bucharest.

 

– German aeroplanes are in the air.

 

– They are dropping bombs on the Soviet capital.

 

– Visible from height fires on the banks of the Moscow River remain after the flight of the first machines.

 

– Explosions.

 

– A huge fire in the area of the Kremlin.

Adolf Hitler Announces the Withdrawal of Germany from the League of Nations, October 14, 1933

 

My German Nation!

In November 1918, when the German nation laid down its arms trusting implicitly in the assurances contained in President Wilson's 14 Points, this marked the end of a disastrous struggle for which some individual statesmen could be blamed but certainly not the people of the warring nations. The German People fought so heroically only because they were completely convinced that they had been wrongfully attacked and were therefore justified in fighting. The other nations had hardly any idea of the immense sacrifice which Germany, almost entirely without allies, was forced to make at that time. If in those months the rest of the world had held out its hand to its defeated enemy in a spirit of fairness, mankind would have been spared a great deal of suffering and countless disappointments.

The German People suffered the most profound disappointment. Never had a defeated nation tried more sincerely to assist in healing the wounds of its former enemy than the German People did in the long years when it complied with the dictates imposed upon it. The fact that all these sacrifices could not genuinely pacify the other nations was due to a treaty which, by attempting to perpetuate the status of victor and vanquished, could only perpetuate hatred and enmity. The nations of the world had a right to expect that people would have learned from the greatest war in history that the sacrifices - particularly those of the European nations - far exceed any potential gain. So when this treaty forced the German People to destroy all its armaments in order to achieve world-wide general disarmament, many people believed that this was merely a sign that an awareness capable of saving the world was spreading.

The German nation destroyed its weapons. Counting on its former enemies to honour the terms of the treaty, it complied with their demands with almost fanatical conscientiousness. On land, air and sea an enormous quantity of war material was deactivated, destroyed and scrapped. In accordance with the wishes of the powers which were dictating the terms, the former army of millions was replaced by a small professional army equipped with weapons of no military significance. At that time the political leaders of the nation were men whose intellectual roots were entirely within the world of the victorious powers. For this very reason the German People were entitled to expect that the rest of the world would keep its word, for the German People were trying to fulfil their treaty obligations by the sweat of their brow under immense hardship and indescribable deprivation.

No war can remain a permanent human condition. No peace can be the perpetuation of war. At some point the victor and the vanquished must find a way to join in mutual understanding and trust. For fifteen years the German People have waited and hoped that the end of the war would also bring an end to the hatred and enmity. But it seemed that the aim of the Treaty of Versailles was not to bring mankind lasting peace but instead to keep it in a state of permanent hatred.

The consequences were unavoidable. When right finally yields to might a state of permanent uncertainty disturbs and inhibits the course of normal international relations. In concluding this treaty it was completely forgotten that the world could not be rebuilt by the slave labour of a violated nation; that this could be ensured only by the cooperation of all nations in mutual trust; that the basic prerequisite for such cooperation is the removal of the war psychosis; that historical clarification of the problematical question of war guilt cannot be achieved by the victor forcing the defeated nation to sign a peace treaty which begins with a confession of the defeated nation's war guilt. On the contrary, for then the ultimate responsibility for the war emerges most clearly from the contents of a dictate like this!

The German People are utterly convinced that they are not responsible for the war. The other participants in this tragic disaster may well be equally convinced of their innocence. This makes it all the more urgent to ensure that this situation, in which all sides are convinced that they are not to blame, does not become a state of permanent enmity. We must also ensure that the memories of this world-wide catastrophe are not artificially kept alive, and that, by unnaturally perpetuating the idea of a "victor" and a "vanquished", a permanent state of inequality is not created, causing on the one side understandable arrogance and on the other bitter resentment.

It is no coincidence that after such a protracted and artificially prolonged sickness of the human race certain consequences must manifest themselves. A shattering collapse of the economy was followed by a no less dangerous general political decline. But what possible meaning did the World War have, if the consequences were an endless series of economic disasters not only for the vanquished but also for the victors? The well-being of the nations is not greater, nor has there been a genuine improvement in their political fortunes or a profound increase in human happiness! Armies of unemployed have formed a new social class and the disintegration of the economic structure of the nations is accompanied by the gradual collapse of their social structure.

It is Germany which suffered the most from the consequences of this peace treaty and the general uncertainty which it has created. The number of unemployed rose to one third of the normal national work force. That, however, meant that, including all family members, approximately twenty million out of sixty-five million people in Germany were without any livelihood and faced a hopeless future. It was only a question of time before this host of economically disenfranchised people would become an army of politically and socially alienated fanatics.

One of the oldest civilized countries in the contemporary human community with over six million Communists was on the brink of a disaster which only the indifferent and ignorant could ignore. If the red menace had spread like a raging fire throughout Germany, the Western civilized nations would have been forced to recognize that it does matter whether the banks of the Rhine and the North Sea coast are guarded by the advance troops of a revolutionary expansionist Asiatic empire, or by peaceful German farmers and working men who, genuinely conscious of a common bond with the other civilized European nations, are struggling to earn their daily bread by honest labour. The National Socialist movement, in rescuing Germany from this imminent catastrophe, saved not only the German nation but rendered the rest of Europe a historic service.

This National Socialist revolution has but one goal, namely to restore order within its own nation, to give our hungry masses work and bread, to champion the concepts of honour, loyalty and decency as the basis of a moral code which cannot harm other nations but only contribute to their general welfare. If the National Socialist movement did not represent a body of ideas and ideals, it could never have succeeded in saving our People from ultimate disaster. It remained true to these ideals not only in the course of its struggle to obtain power but also after it came to power! We have waged war on all the depravity, dishonesty, fraud and corruption which had festered and spread within our nation since the disastrous Treaty of Versailles. This movement is dedicated to the task of restoring loyalty, faith and decency without regard to person.

For the last eight months we have been engaged in a heroic struggle against the Communist threat to our nation, against the subversion of our culture, the destruction of our art and the corruption of our public morality. We have put an end to atheism and blasphemy. We humbly thank Providence for granting us success in our struggle to alleviate the distress of the unemployed and to save the German farmer. In just under eight months, in the course of a program which we calculated would require four years, more than two and a quarter million of the six million unemployed have been returned to useful production.

The most persuasive evidence of this enormous achievement is provided by the German People themselves. They will show the world how firmly they support a regime which has no other goal than - through peaceful labour and acts of civilized morality - to assist in the reconstruction of a world which is anything but happy today....

...I regard it as a sign of a noble sense of justice that in his most recent speech the French Premier, Daladier, used words that reflected a spirit of conciliatory understanding, for which countless millions of Germans thank him. National Socialist Germany desires only to redirect the rivalry between the European nations to those fields of endeavour where through the noblest form of competition they gave the entire human race those magnificent gifts of civilization, culture and art which today enrich and adorn the world.

We also note with hope and emotion the assurance that the French Government under its present Head does not intend to insult or humiliate the German People. We are deeply moved by the reference to the all too sad fact that these two great nations have in the course of history so often sacrificed the lives of their best youths and men on the field of battle. I speak on behalf of the entire German People when I offer my assurance that we genuinely desire to overcome an enmity which has resulted in sacrifices which far outweigh any potential benefit to either side.

The German People are convinced that their military honour has remained pure and unstained in a thousand battles and we likewise regard the French soldier only as an old and valiant foe. We and the entire German People would be happy at the thought of sparing the children and children's children of this nation the suffering and pain which we ourselves as honourable men were forced to see and experience in long and bitter years. The history of the last 150 years with all its vicissitudes should have taught both nations one thing: namely, that with all the bloodshed permanent and significant changes are no longer possible. As a National Socialist I and all my supporters, as a matter of national principle, reject the idea of shedding the blood and sacrificing the lives of those who are dear and precious to us, to win over people of a foreign nation who will not love us. It would be a momentous event for the entire human race if the two nations were able to eliminate once and for all the use of force from the life which they share. The German People are ready to do this.

In claiming without reservation the rights granted us in the treaties themselves, I wish to state without reservation that as far as Germany is concerned no further territorial conflicts exist between the two countries. After the return of the Saar only a madman could conceive of a war between the two states, for which from our point of view there would then no longer be any moral or rational justification. For no one could demand the extermination of millions of young lives in order to achieve a correction of the present frontiers which would be questionable both in its extent and value.

When the French Premier asks why German youth are marching in rank and file, our reply is that this is not to demonstrate against France. It is to display and document the political will required to defeat Communism and which will be necessary to keep Communism in check. In Germany only the army bears arms. And the National Socialist organizations have only one enemy and that is Communism. But the world must accept the fact that when the German People organize themselves so as to protect our Nation from this danger, they select the only forms which can guarantee success. While the rest of the world is digging in behind indestructible fortifications, building vast fleets of aircraft, enormous tanks, huge pieces of artillery, it cannot speak of a threat when German National Socialists bearing absolutely no arms march in columns of four, thus providing visible evidence and effective protection of the German national community!

When, however, the French Premier asks why Germany is demanding weapons which would have to be destroyed later, this is an error. The German People and the German Government never demanded weapons but only equal rights. If the world decides that all weapons down to the last machine gun are to be destroyed, we are prepared to sign a convention to this effect immediately. If the world decides that specific weapons are to be destroyed, we are prepared to forgo them. If, however, the world approves of certain weapons for every nation, we are not prepared to be excluded as a nation deprived of the same rights.

If we fight for the things in which we sincerely believe, we shall be more honourable partners within the family of nations than if we were prepared to accept humiliating and dishonourable conditions. For by our signature we pledge the honour of an entire nation, whereas a dishonest and unscrupulous negotiator will only be rejected by his own People. If we conclude treaties with Englishmen, Frenchmen or Poles, we want to conclude them only with men who consider themselves to be 100% Englishmen, Frenchmen or Poles and who are acting on behalf of their nation. For we have no wish to conclude pacts with negotiators; we want to sign treaties with nations. And the only reason why we are fighting against an unscrupulous hate campaign today, is because it will unfortunately not be those who incite animosity but the people of the nations who will pay with their blood for the sins of these poisonous agitators.

The former German governments confidently joined the League of Nations hoping to find there a forum where they could achieve a just resolution of conflicting national interests, and above all genuine reconciliation with their former enemies. This presupposed, however, the ultimate recognition of equal rights for the German nation. Their participation in the disarmament conference was based on the same assumption. Demotion to the status of membership without equal rights in an institution or conference of this nature is an intolerable humiliation for a nation of 65 million people which values its honour and for a government which attaches no less importance to its honour!

The German People more than fulfilled its obligation to disarm. It should now be the turn of the nations who are armed to show no less willingness to fulfil the same obligations. In taking part in this conference the German Government's goal is not to negotiate for a few canons or machine guns for the German People, but to work towards universal world peace as an equal partner. Germany has no less a right to security than any other nation. Since Mr Baldwin, the English Minister, takes if for granted that disarmament means only that better-armed states disarm while England continues to arm until parity between them is achieved, it would be unfair to heap criticism on Germany if, as an equal partner at the conference, it ultimately adopted the same position with regard to itself. This demand by Germany cannot possibly mean the least threat to the other powers. For the other nations have defence installations designed to withstand the heaviest assault weapons, whereas Germany is not asking for assault weapons but only for those defence weapons which will not be prohibited in the future and which all other nations are permitted. Here, too, Germany is quite prepared to accept a minimum number, which bears no relationship to the enormous arsenal of assault and defence weapons of our former enemies. The deliberate demotion of our nation, by granting every nation of the world an automatic right which we alone are denied, is in our view a perpetuation of intolerable discrimination. In my speech about peace in May I already stated that under these circumstances, to our great regret, we would not be able to remain within the League of Nations or to participate in international conferences.

Germany's current leaders have nothing in common with the paid traitors of November 1918. All of us - like every decent Englishmen and Frenchmen - have risked our lives to do our duty to our fatherland. We are not responsible for the war, we are not responsible for what happened in it. We feel responsible only for what every man of honour had to do, and we did, at a time of national crisis. The boundless love we feel for our nation is matched by our ardent desire to reach an understanding with the other nations and we will attempt to achieve this wherever possible. It is impossible for us, as the representatives of an honest nation and as honest people, to participate in institutions under conditions which would be acceptable only to a dishonest person. In the past men may well have existed who even under such intolerable conditions may have believed that they could be party to international agreements. There is no point in examining whether they were the best elements in our nation, but beyond any doubt the best elements in our nation did not support them. The world can only be interested in negotiating with the honest men rather than the questionable elements within a nation, and in signing treaties with the former rather than the latter. The world must, however, in turn make allowance for the sense of honour of a regime of this nature, just as we in turn are grateful that we are able to deal with honest men. This is all the more vital, because only in this kind of atmosphere can the solution be found which will lead to genuine peace between the nations. Unless a conference of this nature is conducted in a spirit of sincere understanding it is doomed to failure. Having gathered from the statements of the official representatives of a number of major powers that they have no intention of granting Germany equal rights at the present time, Germany at this time and in such a humiliating position finds it impossible to impose its presence upon other nations. The implementation of the threats to use force can only constitute violations of international law.

The German Government is absolutely convinced that its appeal to the entire German nation will prove to the world that the Government's desire for peace and its concept of honour are shared by the entire nation. In order to document this claim I have decided to request the President of the Reich (Reichspräsident) to dissolve the German Parliament (Reichstag) and in new elections and a plebiscite provide the German People with the chance to make a historical statement, not merely by approving of their government's principles but by showing total solidarity with them.

May this statement convince the world that the German People have expressed their total solidarity with their government in this struggle for equal rights and honour; that both sincerely desire only to play their part in ending an epoch of tragic human error, regrettable discord and strife between the nations which dwell in the most civilized continent in the world and have a common mission to accomplish for all mankind. May this powerful demonstration of our People's desire for peace and honour succeed in providing the relationships between the European states with the necessary basis not only for an end to a century of discord and strife but for the foundation for a new and better community: namely, the recognition of a common higher duty based on equal rights for all!

The Lynching of Fritz Knoechlein

Published in „Siegrunen“ Magazine - Vol. V, No. 5, Whole Number 29, January 1983

  By Richard Landwehr

 

“I personally and a number of my comrades were tortured in the Cage in a most brutal and gruesome fashion, and refusing to make a written statement was the only means at my disposal by which I hoped to be heard by a higher authority. My personal complaint was made to Colonel Scotland, but the only result was that the torture became worse.” SS-Obersturmbannführer Fritz Knoechlein commenting on his British captivity. Prisoners held in the London “Cage” were required to sign a statement saying that they had not been ill-treated during interrogations. Since interrogations were routinely conducted through torture this was simply a device to get the Warden and his accomplices off the hook. Despite the further use of force, a few brave souls like Knoechlein refused to give in.

 

In October 1948 in the town of Altona in the British occupied zone of Germany, Fritz Knoechlein went on trial for his life, accused of having organized a massacre of British prisoners-of-war at Le Paradis, France in May 1940. The judge and jury were British Army officers; the legal proceedings were organized on the premise that the victors had the right to mete out justice as they saw fit. There was absolutely no international sanctification for such a proceeding, in fact past international conferences had tried to outlaw the practice of such “ad hoc” undertakings. The defendant and a number of the prosecution witnesses would be mercilessly tortured by the British authorities. Although little positive evidence linking the defendant to his ‘crime’ could be found, the ultimate verdict was never in doubt. Fritz Knoechlein was hung as a ‘war criminal’ in January 1949. Yet, as would later be revealed the British Army committed the same crimes that Knoechlein was charged with at the same time and the same place. Beyond that, the British were also admittedly in violation of numerous provisions of the Geneva Convention in the battle area around Dunkirk in May 1940.

 

As recently revealed through declassified British documents, the British soldiers defending the Dunkirk perimeter committed a number of criminal actions against both German soldiers and French and Belgian civilians. Some of the British soldiers were issued illegal “dum-dum” ammunition (a fact vehemently scoffed at during the Knoechlein ‘trial’), and they were under orders to take no prisoners except when needed for interrogation. Because of this the British soldiers worried that they might be shot as well if they fell into German hands. And this seems to have been the case in two separate instances at Le Paradis and Wormhout. At both these locations a number of captured British soldiers were executed in retaliation for the massacre of a large number of troopers from the SS “Totenkopf” Division. [For further details see “The Miracle of Dunkirk Reconsidered” by Charles Lutton in the Winter 1981 issue of the “Journal for Historical Review”]. 

 

Portrait of Ostubaf. Knoechlein.

 

It must be said that the British authorities were never really interested in prosecuting the Germans for the Le Paradis and Wormhout shootings, simply because their own evil doings might have been revealed in the process. The fact that the Le Paradis incident ever saw public light was due primarily to Press exposure, first in France and then in Britain, and the efforts of one of the “survivors.” The lid was kept on the Wormhout affair for 30 years and no effort was made to bring people to trial for it. But when, due to public pressure, the decision was made to go ahead with a Le Paradis trial, the British military authorities made sure that it would be a totally stacked deck from the start.

 

According to the official line, on the afternoon of 27 May 1940 a company from the I. Battalion/SS “Totenkopf” Infantry Regiment 2/SS “Totenkopf” Division, accepted the surrender of part of the British Royal Regiment at the town of Le Paradis. 99 of the British soldiers were then placed before a machine-gun firing squad and all save 2 were killed. The 2 'miracle survivors’ (remember there were always survivors at German 'massacres!’), both wounded, were later treated by German medics and became normal prisoners-of-war. They later served as the chief prosecution witnesses at the trial of Fritz Knoechlein, although both had trouble identifying him, and one had a long history of alcohol abuse (even while on duty in France!) and the other suffered from mental disorders.

 

In late 1946, after the story had broken in the newspapers, the British War Crimes Investigation Unit went to work on the Le Paradis story. They had a two-fold task: 1) to find someone to blame the 'crime’ on and 2) to maintain a careful cover-up of all related British war crimes. Through captured German Army files the appropriate “Totenkopf” regiment and battalion were quickly identified, but the job of finding the right man to blame was at first a tough one as most of the company commanders were long since dead, having been killed in action. After combing through the Waffen-SS prisoners still in Allied captivity (remember Waffen-SS captives were deliberately kept prisoner for many years after the capitulation!), the man who had commanded 3rd Company/I. Btl/SS “T” Rgt. 2, was located. He was of course, Ostubaf. Fritz Knoechlein. Being the sole surviving company commander from that battalion to have served in France in 1940, Knoechlein was the automatic choice to be blamed for the Le Paradis shooting. Of course, a certain death sentence went along with this ‘honor!’ 

 

Knoechlein (far left) at a change of command ceremony. SS-Totenkopf Division, France 1941.

 

“Totenkopf” Division medic treating wounded member of the division.

  

Fritz Knoechlein’s military record was unblemished. A recruit into the SS-Verfuegungstruppe in the 1930s, he had served as a platoon leader with the SS-Standarte “Deutchland” until his transfer into the newly forming SS “Totenkopf” Division in 1939. Several ‘atrocity’ writers blamed the influence of the “concentration camps” on Knochlein’s ‘deeds’ at Le Paradis, but in truth he had never seen the inside of one in use.

 

Knoechlein had also graduated from the SS-Junkerschule “Braunschwig” in 1935, so he had excellent military command credentials. From 1939 to 1941 he served as a company commander with the “Totenlopf” Division with the rank of Haupt- sturmführer (Captain) and from 1942 to 1944 he served as a battalion commander with the “Totenkopf” and “Reichsführer-SS” Divisions with the rank of Sturmbannführer (Major). In April 1944 he took over the command of the SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 24 “Norge” with the rank of Obersturmbannführer (Lt. Col.) and led the regiment with stamina and courage throughout the Narva Front fighting. He won the Iron Cross 1st Class in 1940, the German Cross in Gold in 1942 and the Knight’s Cross in November 1944. During his military service with the Waffen-SS he had received nothing but praise from his commanding officers for the manner in which he had carried out his duties. If he had any flaws, it was that he was not particularly close to his subordinates and was certainly far from the “father figure” that many commanding officers became to their men.

 

There were some problems with the selection of Knoechlein as chief villain; one of which was that his company lacked the heavy machine-guns needed to carry out the alleged deed. Only 4th Company of I. Battalion had these weapons. This meant some shuffling around had to be done, so that on paper at least, 4th Company had to be placed under Knoechlein’s jurisdiction even though he was not its commander! In the world of Allied ex post facto justice, this little technicality was simply maneuvered out of the way.

 

While there does seem to have been a shooting of British prisoners at Le Paradis estimates of the number shot have ranged from 30 to over 100. Many battlefield dead may have been tallied in the final count; at this point in time on one will ever know for sure. There is no doubt that there was savage fighting at Le Paradis; the British soldiers had been instructed to hold on at all costs. Now, due to declassified documents we know that the English had both used “dum-dum” bullets and shot prisoners. The “dum-dum” ammunition used was reported in the Divisional and Regimental headquarters of the “Totenkopf” Division at the time. In addition the regimental ordnance officer reported witnessing the shooting down of stretcher bearers by the British as they attended the wounded. Documents show that SS “T” Regiment 2 lost over 200 killed and missing on 27 May alone — an enormous figure — and that many of the bodies had either been shot in the back or showed evidence of “execution-style” slaying.

 

The village of Le Paradis was taken by SS “T” Rgt. 2 late in the afternoon of 27 May 1940 and on that day there were no reports of any mass shootings of British prisoners, nor was the name of Fritz Knoechlein ever mentioned in such a connection. After pleading “not guilty” at his arraignment on 28 August 1948, Knoechlein was placed on trial for his life on 11 October 1948. The Press from both ‘free’ and communist countries was on hand; the latter journalists were particularly interested in propagandizing the trial.

 

Knoechlein’s defense counsel, Dr. Uhde, was literally operating in the dark since he was denied most of the documentation and information that he needed for his case. The British War Office refused to cooperate with him (with good reason!) and the British Judge Advocate took on sole responsibility for determining what information would be “relevant” for the defense, so from the very start, everything was rigged to fit into the prosecution scheme. The popular British Press was used shamelessly to carry an endless stream of lurid accounts condemning Knoechlein.

 

On the first day of the trial, one of the British survivors of Le Paradis, embarrassed the prosecution by failing to make a really positive identification of Knoechlein. That prompted the Judge Advocate who ran the trial to order Knoechlein dressed in an SS uniform to parade about for the benefit of the witness! The witness had other problems with his testimony and blamed it on his extensive hospitalization. Prior to the beginning of the trial the witness had already been shown Knoechlein and yet had failed to remember him very well from that observation. Things then went from bad to worse for the side of the prosecution.

 

A French woman who owned a farm at Le Paradis described being threatened at the time of the Le Paradis shootings by an SS officer in a peaked cap, with a facial twitch, who carried a large revolver and spoke broken French. After a dramatic, and completely irrelevant burst of testimony she made a theatrical identification of Knoechlein as that SS officer. The author who recorded the events of the trial had the audacity to state that: “She obviously did not know where to look for the accused.” The accused was seated at the time in the dock with two hulking armed guards on either side of him! One would have had to have been totally blind not to have picked him out. Additionally, all of the woman’s descriptive comments given about Knoechlein were at variance with the truth!

 

The defense counsel was able to extract from the woman the following points: a) she suffered from “head illness” at the time of the alleged events, b) she had memory problems and c) that the officer who threatened her had a cheek twitching problem (an affliction that Knoechlein never had!). The woman apparently had been questioned by German soldiers in 1940 for harboring British soldiers after hostilities had ended, and was released unharmed.

 

The next prosecution move was to call former SS men (in British captivity) to testify. The first of these witnesses, one Emil Stuerzbecher, a former adjutant of the I. Battalion/SS “T” Regiment 2, gave a long-winded testimony directly implicating Knoechlein in the shooting. Stuerzbecher’s comments have since become the principal mainstay of “atrocity” writers, yet any objective examination of them reveal them to be impossibly ludicrous. Here is his version of a conversation with the I. Battalion commander, SS-Standartenführer Heinz Bertling: Bertling speaking: “These stories that have been going around are correct. Some frightfully dirty work has been going on in Number 3 Company. Knoechlein is a blackguard and a showman, but no soldier. He actually maintains he is in the right. There was never anything like it in the World War and the whole thing springs from the mad ideas of the Führer. In any case, this swinish trick spoils the day’s success for me.”

 

Staf. Berling went on to become an SS General. According to all of the “atrocity” writers, the SS “Totenkopf” Division was “ideologically pure” and anyone saying bad things about the Führer was cashiered on the spot. This brief commentary attributed to Bertling did not take place of course but was a product of one of Stuerzbecher’s “interrogation sessions!” In fact all of Stuerzbecher’s testimony was “coached”; it absolutely bears no relation to reality as we know it today. Note also that Number 4 Company — not Number 3 Company (Knoechlein’s) mentioned above had the heavy machine-guns that supposedly did the shooting!

 

The clincher in Stuerzbecher’s testimony was the remark that he had some “doubts as to the genuineness of these (dum-dum) bullets” that had been gathered up all over the battalion sector. There is no doubt that the “dum-dum” bullets were genuine, but for the purposes of this “kangaroo court,” Stuerzbecher had instructions to discount them. The next two prosecution witnesses gave similarly incriminating accounts of the shooting, placing Knoechlein on the scene, but failing to explain how he managed to commandeer a machine-gun section from 4th Company. They also followed their interrogator’s coaching about the alleged British use of “dum-dum” bullets, etc. A third witness confessed to being the section commander of the machine- guns that had done the dirty work, but as luck would have it he had just happened to be relieved of command at the time of a shooting by another NCO who was later killed in action. The defense counsel was able to extract from this witness, Theodor Emke, tacit admission that he had been beaten during his interrogations. The Judge Advocate moved with alacrity to curtail this line of thought! After some browbeating, fraught with hidden meaning, by both the prosecutor and the Judge Advocate, the witness got back in line.

 

On 15 October the prosecution placed the second “survivor” (William O’Callaghan — the first survivor was Albert Pooley), on the witness stand. After having been exposed to photographs of Fritz Knoechlein in advance, O’Callaghan was easily able to pick him out of a courtroom “line up.” Unfortunately for the prosecution, O’Callaghan’s description of the German officer who ordered the execution at Le Paradis did not match that of Knoechlein. In his preliminary report O’Callaghan gave Knoechlein a hooked nose (not true), a peaked cap (not true) and red lapels (impossible). The whole appearance of this witness proved to be another embarrassment for the prosecution.

 

Following one more German witness who added little to the story. The prosecution introduced a number of supposedly original documents from captured German files that confirmed that some sort of shooting of British prisoners probably took place in the Le Paradis sector on 27 May 1940. The following document was released only in an edited version since it hinted at possible shooting of German prisoners by the British:

 

Document 3.

 

To XVI Army Corps: Battle HQ/SS “T” Inf. Rgt. 2

 

29 May 1940 1055 hours

 

1. The English used dum-dum bullets which was proved by our own wounded and by the evidence of our own officers.

 

2. Furthermore a swastika flag was exhibited luring our soldiers from cover, whereupon they were wiped out by machine-gun fire from ambush. The result at Malo:

 

4 officers, 153 NCO’s and men killed.

 

18 officers, 483 NCO’s and men wounded.

 

Most of the wounds were in the back...(at this point the Judge Advocate terminated the transcript!). Another 52 NCO’s and men were listed as missing, but they were most certainly killed, probably most of them — as we now know — in captivity!

 

On 18 October, Knoechlein voluntarily took the witness stand in his own defense and testified in English and German. He described in some detail the battlefield action of his battalion on 26 and 27 May 1940 near the La Bassee Canal and reported several instances that he had either heard of or observed where the British failed to “fight according to the laws and usages of war as laid down in the Geneva Convention.” He asserted that the location of the alleged massacre was in the sector of 2nd Company, which did most of the fighting for the town of Le Paradis, and not in his 3rd Company sector. He claimed not to have heard of the shooting incident until 28 May, while attending a conference at the regimental HQ in Bailleul. His own opinion of the Le Paradis shooting was that it probably was a spontaneous outburst on the part of the men who had been embittered by the inhuman methods of British fighting. Knoechlein had no alibi for his whereabouts between 1300 and 1500 hours on 27 May 1940 (the alleged time of the shooting), except that he was with the 1st Platoon of his Company, first around the Le Paradis crossroads and then to the east of the town.

 

At the regimental conference in Bailleul on 28 May, reports were circulated on the British “dum-dum” ammunition and samples were examined. Knoechlein denied wearing a peaked cap at Le Paradis (as the French woman and O’Callaghan stated he was), since this item of dress had to be left behind far to the rear at the SS “T” Division motor transport park. There is no doubt that Knoechlein was telling the truth on this part. During the combat engagements in France, he wore only a steel helmet and/or a soft field cap and photographs bear him out on this.

 

Knoechlein also mentioned that he wore a camouflaged jacket, which made him difficult to distinguish from an enlisted man. The prosecution witnesses all missed this, yet again, he was undoubtedly correct. Testimony then revolved around his alleged facial twitch (he never had one), his inability to speak a word of French at the time and the fact that his service revolver never left his holster. Knoechlein then ripped apart the absurd testimony given by some of the prosecution witnesses.

 

The prosecuting counsel then took over and tried to get Knoechlein to recant his testimony about “illegal British methods,” including the “dum-dum” bullets. Knoechlein refused to do so, and 33 years later his testimony was fully borne out! So helpless was the prosecutor to “score any points” that he tried next to give Knoechlein the “facial twitch” that the French woman had attributed to him in this little absurd “question”: Prosecutor: “When you get rather excited you have a little bit of a nervous twitch in your face, haven’t you?” Knoechlein: “I have never noticed it, nor have my relatives.”

 

Needless to say, no observation of Knoechlein in court turned up such a trait! Next a futile effort was made to bestow upon Knoechlein a silver-braided, peaked cap in the battle area, but the prosecutor again could gain no ground. In a discussion of the movements of Knoechlein’s 3rd Company, the closest that the prosecutor could place the Company to the massacre site was 600 yards and even at that point the Company was clearly passing by. It did not bivouac in Le Paradis. In the end, the prosecutor again tried to get Knoechlein to disavow the “dumdum” stories and this line of questioning continued on into the next day. He responded fully and accurately and at no time gave any ground to the prosecution’s assertions that the use of such ammunition was improbable. Knoechlein has been thoroughly vindicated in this regards, but it showed the interest of the British in covering up their abuses through a sort of ridicule, because at this time no one in the Allied camp gave any credence to the idea that their ‘noble’ soldiers could have done such things!

 

On 19 October 1948, Knoechlein spent further time describing the British “dum-dum” ammunition to the Judge Advocate. Two defense witnesses that had served in Knoechlein’s 3rd Company during the Le Paradis fighting were then called to the stand. The first witness, Walter Fripes, had been a corporal in 3rd Company’s 2nd Platoon. He described the fighting that took place on 27 May, as very hard and made mention of the fact that all prisoners taken by the Company at Le Cornet Malo were immediately sent to the rear. He testified to having handled some of the British “dum-dum” ammo, and to having submitted a report on same to the platoon leader. He further noted that 3rd Company did not reach the Le Paradis church until 1700 hours (or four hours after the shooting) and that Knoechlein was wearing either a steel helmet or a soft forage cap on that day. Fripes noted that the Company had been lectured about the proper treatment of prisoners and that no orders had ever been issued that “prisoners were not to be taken.” He first heard about the shooting incident when the Company reached Bailleul.

 

The second witness, Franz Backwinkel, also a corporal in the same platoon more or less reiterated Fripe’s testimony and also confirmed the British use of “dum-dum” bullets. On the next day of the trial, 21 October, Captain Charles William Long, Adjutant of the 2nd Battalion/Royal Norfolk Regiment (the unit which allegedly suffered the massacre), testified for the defense. He noted that he and about 30 other soldiers from the Battalion had received “extremely good” treatment from the members of the SS “Totenkopf” Division company who took them captive; they had even let them go about unguarded to pick up British wounded. Captain Long placed the surrender of his battalion in Le Paradis at 1700 hours on 27 May, or hours after witnesses had said the massacre took place. The testimony was certainly damaging to the British position, although he also denied the use of “dum-dum” ammo by the battalion’s soldiers.

 

Earlier, on 19 October, Fritz Knoechlein made one important statement to the court that bears repeating: “I want the court to know I was a professional commissioned soldier with many years experience. I have always been trained to accept responsibility. None of my officers or NCO’s was concerned in this matter.” Knoechlein was probably well aware that he was a condemned man from the start, and by making this brave statement (which was totally within his demonstrated character), he hoped to make sure that at least none of his subordinates would go to the gallows with him!

 

On 22 October, Knoechlein made his statement about being tortured with his comrades in the “London Cage,” so the prosecution spent the whole day trying to defame his character and behavior and once again brought up the famous “dum-dum” bullets. The next day, 23 October, Knoechlein’s defense counsel, Dr. Uhde, made his final address to the court. His first points are worth repeating:

 

“The main charge against my client is quite clear. But the authorities are trying to find a responsible person to fit this crime and the only person they can find who is sufficiently implicated is my client. Firstly, I would point out that it happened eight and a half years ago. Secondly, most of my witnesses are either killed or cannot be traced.

 

“...I submit the Prosecution have not proved that the accused was responsible for the shooting, and only that he was present in the village where it took place. Nor have they proved that he knew of the shooting but did not prevent it. Even if both these points are answered in the affirmative then one asks: was the shooting legally justified for some reason or other?”

 

On the last point, we now know that the British massacre of SS “Totenkopf” prisoners touched off the Le Paradis shooting and if a field tribunal had been carried out asserting that the British were acting as “irregulars” through their action, a reprisal shooting could have been legally (perhaps not morally), justified.

 

The defense counsel then attempted to prove that Knoechlein was not present at the shooting. In a devastating address he tore apart the testimony of the prosecution witnesses, in particular by pointing out their inability to identify Knoechlein and their bestowal upon him of all sorts of weird uniform designs and physical characteristics. He noted also that the given time for the shooting was impossible since the British hostilities did not cease until hours later. His closing remarks were as follows:

 

“What [Captain] Long said is highly remarkable. He has mentioned treatment that was on the whole irreproachable, and given facts which make it even more certain the accused was not at the place at the time.

 

“My client Knoechlein had hoped for proceedings before a military court to clear his name of the shameful charges against him. I have shown that he was awarded the Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd Classes, for the fighting in May 1940. I hardly believe he would have been awarded these honors had he committed an irregular action.

 

“Before closing, a word remains to be said in connection with British fighting methods. It appears to me that “dumdum” ammunition and white flag incidents [at one point near Le Paradis, some British soldiers ambushed some SS troopers after having pretended to surrender with a white flag], had taken place...In that case it would have been possible to put the guilty British prisoners before a court martial. If a court was held the German officer passing sentence would not be liable for punishment. We know that a group of commissioned and non-commissioned officers were present at the place of the shooting. It can neither be disregarded nor disproved that these men had formed a court martial, but if a German court martial had sentenced the British prisoners to death for a violation of international law the presence of these German soldiers at the shooting would not have been a war crime.

 

“I would revert to what I said before, namely, to ask the court to find the accused ‘not guilty’ because he was neither present at, nor concerned in, the shooting of the British prisoners-of-war.”

 

In reading all of his statements one can only conclude that the defense counsel, Dr. Uhde, did the best possible job under the circumstances. It should be remembered also that the Allies shot German prisoners whenever they felt that they had breached international law. The case of Otto Skorzeny’s commandoes in the Ardennes in December 1944 is but one example.

 

The summing up of the prosecution was simply a “go through the motions to get the thing done with” affair, and has nothing in it that is even worth quoting. All the Prosecutor tried to prove was that: a) British prisoners were shot at Le Paradis, b) it was a war crime, and c) the accused (Knoechlein) was on the scene and was thereby guilty for either “ordering the massacre” or for “failing to prevent it.” It mattered not, which charge stuck, Knoechlein would be hung either way!

 

On 25 October 1948, the Judge Advocate who ran the trial, somewhat dissatisfied with the ineptness of the prosecution, then told the panel/jury of British military officers why Knoechlein was guilty! In the process he made it clear that he considered any possible British provocations [such as the “dum-dum” ammo] to be irrelevant. To have the administrator of the ‘trial’ present such a lopsided and biased report against the defendant is somewhat unusual, but he wished to make absolutely sure that there would be no foul-ups: Knoechlein must hang!

 

After an extremely brief recess, the jury delivered up the expected guilty verdict, to the surprise of no one but Knoechlein’s wife who was in attendance. The defense was then entitled to call character witness in an effort to stave off the death penalty. The first witness was the former SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff, who had commanded all Waffen-SS formations in Italy. Wolff knew Knoechlein from the year 1933, or one year before he had entered the SS. The questioning went as follows:

 

Dr. Uhde: “What was the impression you got of Knoechlein?”

 

Wolff: “He was a nice young man. He knew how to behave in public, and was popular and a good comrade.”

 

Dr. Uhde: “What was his character as a soldier?”

 

Wolff: “When I made enquiries he was an officer with his heart and soul in his job. I have never heard anything unfavorable about Knoechlein. I only heard he was a brave soldier and commander.” [Wolff subsequently underwent numerous ‘war crimes’ proceedings and spent most of the rest of his life in and out of Allied prisons].

 

The next character witness was the former Standartenführer Otto Wilhelm Kron, who had been a regimental commander in the “Totenkopf” Division with Knoechlein as one of his direct subordinates. He noted that Knoechlein was one of his best officers and that he was very careful and beyond reproach in his conduct. Kron denied every hearing that anyone in Knoechlein’s units had ever violated the rights of prisoners-of-war. Kron died not long after the trial, under mysterious circumstances, at the age of 38 in Dachau. Two other witnesses testified on behalf of Knoechlein, and the last, Gunter Putze, mentioned that Knoechlein had used his own staff vehicle to take care of wounded prisoners-of-war around Anzio in Italy.

 

Of course what the witnesses had to say was immaterial to this trial; Knoechlein was a dead man from the beginning. But it was important to the afore mentioned witnesses since they found themselves repeatedly harassed by the Allied Occupation Authorities for years afterwards as a result of their having come forth to testify. Their treatment helped keep down the number of defense witnesses who were willing to testify at subsequent ‘war crimes’ trials!

 

Knoechlein was then sentenced to “death by hanging,” with the sentence carried out on 28 January 1949. As usual, he com-ported himself with complete dignity and courage right through to the end. The British authorities, moral hypocrites all, had extracted their “pound of flesh.”

 

It is the opinion of this writer, after years of studying the matter, that Fritz Knoechlein was guilty of being only the sole company commander in his battalion in France 1940, to survive the war! At no point could it be proven that he conspired to or had directly ordered the execution of the British prisoners. He had been placed on the scene of the shooting by some German eyewitnesses, but they could not say for a certainty that he gave the fatal orders. Besides all of the German witnesses for the prosecution had been tortured and beaten during their interrogations by the British, and their testimony was highly suspect to say the least.

 

It can be said that a shooting of some British prisoners did take place at Le Paradis as a direct reprisal for similar British actions. The soldiers responsible for this shooting came from 4th Company/I. Btl./SS “T” Inf.Rgt.3 and not from Knoechlein’s own 3rd Company. The company commander for 4th Company, Hauptsturmführer Schroedel was present at the site of the executions and it could have been he, and only he that gave the orders for the 4th Company machine-gunners to open fire. It is possible that Knoechlein was at the scene, but his responsibility for what transpired can now never be fully determined. Under the British logic, he deserved to die simply because he might have been in the area and was therefore an accessory to the crime. But of course, the people who ran the trial saw to it that all of the blame was bestowed on Knoechlein. It is interesting to note that a majority of the survivors from Knoechlein’s own 3rd Company felt that he probably bore the sole responsibility for the shooting, but a minority of the survivors dissent rather vigorously. In any case, none of them own up to having been on the scene and all of their opinions were formed therefore through either rumor or hearsay.

 

Unfortunately, the documentation that would have proved British culpability in war crimes against the “Totenkopf” Division was deliberately kept from Knoechlein’s defense attorney, although, as has been noted many times, it is now available today. If this evidence had been presented at Knoechlein’s trial it is hard to see how the proceedings could have led to a guilty verdict for the defendant. At any rate, we must also note again, that Knoechlein was consistently misidentified by the primary prosecution witnesses, his company did not take part in the shootings and he had no command authority over 4th Company, which carried out the shooting, whatsoever. Had the battalion commander been disabled (which he was not), Knoechlein in his position as senior company commander/assistant battalion commander then would have had authority over 4th Company, but this never came to pass.

 

There is nothing in Knoechlein’s service record to indicate that he ever acted in a manner contrary to law or authority. He rapidly moved up in rank and command position on the basis of his proven military ability. The fact that he was awarded the Knight’s Cross to the Iron Cross, also demonstrates the quality of his character. While in captivity, Knoechlein vehemently protested his innocence over the Le Paradis shootings to his fellow prisoners. This writer fully supports this conclusion. A brave and superior military officer, with still much to contribute, was deliberately sacrificed to 1) stir up British public opinion and 2) help maintain a cover-up of the British misdeeds and crimes committed in the defense of the Dunkirk perimeter.

 

From the perspective of 35 years in the future, I feel that it is past time for the mask of hypocrisy to be shredded off the “Le Paradis Massacre.” Fritz Knoechlein’s name should be exonerated from the onus of bearing sole blame for the incident. That is the least that honest historians can do!

 

***

 

Readers are invited to read the “authorized” account of Fritz Knoechlein’s trial in the book titled, The Vengeance of Private Pooley by Cyril Jolly. Printed in Britain in 1956, the text at the time seemed convincing enough for the East German communists to bring out a translated edition of this work as an example of how a good “anti-Fascist” trial should function! In retrospect, the book has now taken on a distinctly ludicrous and hypocritical tinge at points — given what we now know about how such trials were run and the activities of the British forces near Dunkirk. It is possible to say that parts of the book are fair as far as they go and that read today, Fritz Knoechlein comes off as a far more sympathetic character than Mr. Jolly had originally intended.

 

To further emphasize some of the points made in the article, the author felt that it would be constructive to quote from Nicholas Harman’s detailed work entitled, Dunkirk: The Patriotic Myth.

 

On the question of the “dum-dum” ammunition found by the Germans but denied and ridiculed by the British at Knoechlein’s ‘trial,’ comes this quote from Harman:

 

“Patrick Turnbull had better founds for worry. ‘With my revolver I had eight rounds, two of them soft-nosed, justification I was told with relish for my instant execution were I captured with them in my possession.’ Soft-nosed dumdum bullets were banned by the Geneva Convention on the rule of war.” (p. 88)

 

Page 98 details a large-scale massacre carried out by men of the Durham Light Infantry on 21 May 1940. Records were subsequently doctored, but on that day at least 400 German soldiers were slaughtered in British captivity, a good many of them from the SS “Totenkopf” Division.

 

This was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. On page 230, a soldier in the Coldstream Guards, James Langley, provided this bit of information: “He remembered the strict orders given to all platoon commanders of the Coldstream Guards: take no prisoners, unless specifically ordered that they are needed for interrogation.” The same orders were apparently given to most of the British units defending the Dunkirk perimeter. Also according to Harman and recently revealed military records, British troops in Flanders murdered civilians upon the slightest pretext, conducted mass executions of suspected “fifth columnists,” and looted to their heart’s content.

 

Who were the real “war criminals” in France in May 1940? In any event, Fritz Knoechlein was not the perpetrator of a “war crime,” he was the victim of one!