After the war, Knöchlein was convicted of his role in the massacre by a British military court, with the two survivors acting as witnesses against him.

[1][2][3][failed verification][full citation needed] From there, the German forces rapidly advanced to the English Channel over the course of the next week.

[4][5] One of the participating German units, the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf, had been strongly indoctrinated with the Nazi Party ideology by its commander, Theodor Eicke.

[7][8] In total the division took 16,000 prisoners, but on 19 May they refused to accept the surrender of 200 soldiers of the French Army of Africa, killing them on the spot.

However, the division was ordered to retreat the next day to preserve tanks for the upcoming campaign in Dunkirk and to allow the Luftwaffe to attack Allied positions in the area.

[11] It thus had to make the hazardous crossing again on the night of 26 May, and took Béthune after heavy house-to-house fighting with the British, who withdrew to a line between Locon and Le Paradis.

[13] The SS Division Totenkopf emerged from the Bois de Paqueaut wood and attacked Le Cornet Malo at dawn on 27 May.

The Norfolks' last contact with brigade headquarters at L'Epinette was at 11:30, but despite a lack of support and heavy opposition, the defenders held out against the 14th Company, 1st Battalion of the 2nd SS Infantry Regiment until 17:15, when they ran out of ammunition.

[16][18] During the battle, the Germans attacked the farmhouse with mortars, tanks and artillery shelling, which destroyed the building and forced the defenders to relocate to a cowshed.

[17] Graves found near Le Paradis in 2007 suggest that around 20 men of the Royal Scots who surrendered to an SS unit may also have been killed in a separate massacre.

[20][21][22] An account by Private Albert Pooley, one of only two survivors: ... we turned off the dusty French road, through a gateway and into a meadow beside the buildings of a farm.

I saw with one of the nastiest feelings I have ever had in my life two heavy machine guns inside the meadow ... pointing at the head of our column.

'[23]Ninety-seven British prisoners were killed and the Germans forced French civilians to bury the bodies in a shallow mass grave the next day.

The pair then hid in a pig-sty for three days and nights, surviving on raw potatoes and water from puddles before being discovered by the farm's owner, Madame Duquenne-Creton, and her son Victor.

The French civilians risked their lives caring for the two men, who were later captured by the German Army's 251st Infantry Division and transferred to a military hospital.

[16][24][25] On the day after the massacre, 28 May, Gunter d'Alquen, a journalist in the Waffen-SS, arrived at the scene with Thum, the SS-Totenkopf deputy legal advisor.

I believe I was already sitting there in the vehicle when Thum ... told me that in the field, from which he had just returned, the equipment taken from the shot British soldiers was lying in a heap, from which he had come to the conclusion that a summary trial had taken place.

[26]Major Friedkerr von Riedner, who was also at the scene of the massacre on that day, reported that "These people had almost all suffered head wounds from shots that must have been fired at close range.

[34] After the war, O'Callaghan's evidence and the discovery of the SS-run extermination camps prompted the British authorities to look into the reports.

I believe I am entitled to appeal to the Court to pronounce a sentence which will enable my client to come out of prison at an early date.