Herman Langer
Cutting courtesy of Michael Everitt.
IT is thought that Herman Langer was among the SS troops who marched the unarmed British troops at Le Paradis to the field where they were massacred.
Langer joined the Nazi party in 1938 and in the same year, aged 19, registered in his hometown of Hannsdorf as a volunteer with the SS. At the time he gave his profession as an "unemployed gardener". He joined the SS rather than the Wehrmacht and became a member of the SS Totenkopf after being trained at Dachau.
Langer was allegedly injured in Le Paradis but we don't have any more information at the moment about his involvement. After treatment he worked as an instructor at Wroclaw. He also became a demolition expert. After numerous postings he ended up being stationed at the end of 1944 near Lucca in Tuscany, Italy.
As an expert in ammunition, he was instrumental in planning and executing a raid on the Carthusian monastery at Franeta, about seven km north west of Lucca. This became known as the massacre of Fernata with about 100 civilians being arrested and taken as hostages. As a reprisal for attacks on German troops, 60 people including 12 monks were killed.
Langer escaped prosecution by an Allied military tribunal in the immediate post-war period due to his name being incorrectly given in the investigation as Herman Langer Gartner.
In the 2000s the case was re-opened when more evidence was found. In 2004 Langer was charged by a military court in La Spezia for aiding and abetting multiple murders. Initially he was acquitted but then convicted by an appeal military court in Rome in November 2005 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The following report is taken from the Internet and refers to his initial acquittal:
An Italian military court has acquitted a former Nazi officer charged over the 1944 massacre of 60 people in an Italian monastery where German troops found Jews hiding, a judicial source said. Hermann Langer, 85, was tried in absentia by the court in the northwestern town of Spezia. The former SS lieutenant was found not guilty on Friday of leading a group of soldiers who carried out the massacre on Sept.r 2, 1944, after they found Jews hiding in Farneta Cistercian monastery near the town of Lucca. A Venezuelan bishop and several monks were among those killed, who included Swiss, German, French and Spanish nationals. Prosecutors had called for a life sentence in the case which opened in July. Lucca was liberated by advancing Allied troops a day after the massacre. It brought the civil action against Langer along with the region of Tuscany. Langer is the last survivor of the SS unit that was commanded by General Max Simon. The Spezia court has since late June also been trying six former SS officers for the August 1944 massacre of 560 Italian civilians, including 120 children, in Sant'Anna di Stazzema in Tuscany.
For some reason which we haven't as yet established, Langer stayed out of prison and lived as a pensioner in Giessen. In 2007 a European arrest warrant was in existence and Langer died in August 2016 at the age of 96 in a retirement home in Linden near Giessen.
Langer joined the Nazi party in 1938 and in the same year, aged 19, registered in his hometown of Hannsdorf as a volunteer with the SS. At the time he gave his profession as an "unemployed gardener". He joined the SS rather than the Wehrmacht and became a member of the SS Totenkopf after being trained at Dachau.
Langer was allegedly injured in Le Paradis but we don't have any more information at the moment about his involvement. After treatment he worked as an instructor at Wroclaw. He also became a demolition expert. After numerous postings he ended up being stationed at the end of 1944 near Lucca in Tuscany, Italy.
As an expert in ammunition, he was instrumental in planning and executing a raid on the Carthusian monastery at Franeta, about seven km north west of Lucca. This became known as the massacre of Fernata with about 100 civilians being arrested and taken as hostages. As a reprisal for attacks on German troops, 60 people including 12 monks were killed.
Langer escaped prosecution by an Allied military tribunal in the immediate post-war period due to his name being incorrectly given in the investigation as Herman Langer Gartner.
In the 2000s the case was re-opened when more evidence was found. In 2004 Langer was charged by a military court in La Spezia for aiding and abetting multiple murders. Initially he was acquitted but then convicted by an appeal military court in Rome in November 2005 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The following report is taken from the Internet and refers to his initial acquittal:
An Italian military court has acquitted a former Nazi officer charged over the 1944 massacre of 60 people in an Italian monastery where German troops found Jews hiding, a judicial source said. Hermann Langer, 85, was tried in absentia by the court in the northwestern town of Spezia. The former SS lieutenant was found not guilty on Friday of leading a group of soldiers who carried out the massacre on Sept.r 2, 1944, after they found Jews hiding in Farneta Cistercian monastery near the town of Lucca. A Venezuelan bishop and several monks were among those killed, who included Swiss, German, French and Spanish nationals. Prosecutors had called for a life sentence in the case which opened in July. Lucca was liberated by advancing Allied troops a day after the massacre. It brought the civil action against Langer along with the region of Tuscany. Langer is the last survivor of the SS unit that was commanded by General Max Simon. The Spezia court has since late June also been trying six former SS officers for the August 1944 massacre of 560 Italian civilians, including 120 children, in Sant'Anna di Stazzema in Tuscany.
For some reason which we haven't as yet established, Langer stayed out of prison and lived as a pensioner in Giessen. In 2007 a European arrest warrant was in existence and Langer died in August 2016 at the age of 96 in a retirement home in Linden near Giessen.
Newspaper Story Featuring Langer
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Transcript of Eastern Daily Press article of Saturday July 10th 2004
SS man at Le Paradis
More than 60 years ago, nearly 100 men of the 2nd Norfolks were gunned down in what has been described as one of the worst massacres of the second world war. Although the Nazi SS officer who ordered the killings was hanged for what he did, another man now stands accused of playing a part in the deaths, as ROWAN ENTWISTLE reports.
An 85-year old Nazi SS officer on trial for war crimes was also involved in the slaughter of 97 soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment during the Dunkirk evacuation, a court heard yesterday.
Herman Langer is accused of murdering more than 40 civilians, including monks and a bishop, during a week-long massacre towards the end of the second world war.
But a court in Italy also heard he had been involved in one of the worst wartime massacres, when 97 British soldiers of the 2nd Battalion Royal Norfolks were murdered.
The men had been defending the road to Dunkirk when they were surrounded, disarmed and marched into a field where they were mown down by machine guns and finished off by revolver shots and bayonets.
Only two men survived the slaughter on May 27th 1940 - Bill O’Callaghan and Bert Pooley. It was their harrowing testimony that led nine years later to the death sentence for German officer Fritz Knoechlein who had given the order.
Military prosecutor Colonel Roberto D’Elia told the hearing at La Spezia in Italy yesterday about Langer’s involvement at what became known as the Le Paradis massacre.
Col. D’Elia said “Langer joined the SS when he was very young and quickly became a sergeant in the Totenkopf, or SS Death Head regiment as it was known.
“This unit was responsible for some of the worst massacres in Italy and abroad and Langer was injured on 27th May 1940 while taking part in the massacre of British soldiers from the Royal Norfolk Regiment.
“These men were unarmed and had surrendered.”
Langer, who is now too ill to appear in court, is standing trial for the slaughter of civilians at Certosa di Farneta near Lucca in Tuscany during the first week of September 1944.
Langer, a former lieutenant, is one of several SS soldiers currently on trial in Italy in their absence for war crimes.
The trial has now been adjourned until September.
Both Pte O’Callaghan and Pte Pooley have since died, but last night Dennis O’Callaghan, Bill’s son, said hearing the news brought his father’s ordeal back to him.
Mr O’Callaghan, 58, who lives near King’s Lynn, said “At the end of the day anyone who takes part in an act of atrocity should answer for that and I know my father thought that as well.”
Leslie Eaton, chairman of the Norfolk and Norwich branch of the Dunkirk Veterans 1940, said he would be watching the trial with interest.
“It is a good job they are still finding these people who think they have got away with it.”
Hugh Sebag Montefiore who is writing a book about Dunkirk said he was very interested to learn of the latest developments.
“I have found documents in the German archive discussing how 90 odd bodies were discovered in the area by the side of the building and how the German command wanted to find out what had happened and made inquiring of the Totenkopf regiment but nothing ever came of the inquiry,” he said.
The survivors’ revenge
The last stand of the men of the Royal Norfolks' 2nd Battalion at Le Paradis in May 1940 was one of the many heroic engagements.
Along a stretch of the La Bassee canal, near the village of Petit Cornet Malo and Le Paradis, the 2nd Royal Norfolks were ordered to hold their ground so that other soldiers could escape down an ever narrowing corridor still under Allied control to Dunkirk.
They had contested every field, barn and house, but on May 27th, 100 or more of them were forced to surrender while defending a farm.
What followed was the worst atrocity of the Dunkirk engagement.
A fortunate few who fled from the farmhouse were captured and well treated by decent German troops, but the remainder, 97 men, fell into the hands of a unit of the SS Death’s Head Division.
Herded together, they were stripped of their equipment and roughly treated before being led away to be massacred by two heavy machine guns which were waiting for them as they were marched into a nearby meadow.
German soldiers then went among the victims, finishing them off with pistols and bayonets.
Only two men Ptes Bert Pooley and Bill O’Callaghan survived by feigning death and escaped under cover of darkness. Pte O’Callaghan was hit in the arm and Pte Pooley had four bullet wounds in one leg.
Pooley, about 6ft tall and of big build, was unable to move, so his friend, several inches shorter and a few stones lighter, carried him a half a mile to a farm where they were hidden, fed and helped by Mme Duquenne-Creton.
While they were hiding, they vowed to get the man who had their comrades shot.
When the two men were eventually released from captivity, British officials did not believe their story.
So in 1946 Bert Pooley, by then ill as a result of his wounds and the ordeal he had suffered, travelled from his home in Southall, Middlesex, to Le Paradis, and set in motion the investigation which led to the arrest and trial of the Nazi SS officer Fritz Knoechlein who was hanged in 1949.
The story was recorded in the book. The Vengeance of Private Pooley by the Norfolk author Cyril Jolly and later made into a film.
Bill O’Callaghan, who gave evidence with Bert Pooley at Knoechlein’s trial, died in November 1975 aged 61. Mr Pooley died in 1982, aged 69.
His last wish was that his ashes should be buried at Le Paradis alongside the remains of his fallen comrades.
It was a wish that was honoured later that year.
SS man at Le Paradis
More than 60 years ago, nearly 100 men of the 2nd Norfolks were gunned down in what has been described as one of the worst massacres of the second world war. Although the Nazi SS officer who ordered the killings was hanged for what he did, another man now stands accused of playing a part in the deaths, as ROWAN ENTWISTLE reports.
An 85-year old Nazi SS officer on trial for war crimes was also involved in the slaughter of 97 soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment during the Dunkirk evacuation, a court heard yesterday.
Herman Langer is accused of murdering more than 40 civilians, including monks and a bishop, during a week-long massacre towards the end of the second world war.
But a court in Italy also heard he had been involved in one of the worst wartime massacres, when 97 British soldiers of the 2nd Battalion Royal Norfolks were murdered.
The men had been defending the road to Dunkirk when they were surrounded, disarmed and marched into a field where they were mown down by machine guns and finished off by revolver shots and bayonets.
Only two men survived the slaughter on May 27th 1940 - Bill O’Callaghan and Bert Pooley. It was their harrowing testimony that led nine years later to the death sentence for German officer Fritz Knoechlein who had given the order.
Military prosecutor Colonel Roberto D’Elia told the hearing at La Spezia in Italy yesterday about Langer’s involvement at what became known as the Le Paradis massacre.
Col. D’Elia said “Langer joined the SS when he was very young and quickly became a sergeant in the Totenkopf, or SS Death Head regiment as it was known.
“This unit was responsible for some of the worst massacres in Italy and abroad and Langer was injured on 27th May 1940 while taking part in the massacre of British soldiers from the Royal Norfolk Regiment.
“These men were unarmed and had surrendered.”
Langer, who is now too ill to appear in court, is standing trial for the slaughter of civilians at Certosa di Farneta near Lucca in Tuscany during the first week of September 1944.
Langer, a former lieutenant, is one of several SS soldiers currently on trial in Italy in their absence for war crimes.
The trial has now been adjourned until September.
Both Pte O’Callaghan and Pte Pooley have since died, but last night Dennis O’Callaghan, Bill’s son, said hearing the news brought his father’s ordeal back to him.
Mr O’Callaghan, 58, who lives near King’s Lynn, said “At the end of the day anyone who takes part in an act of atrocity should answer for that and I know my father thought that as well.”
Leslie Eaton, chairman of the Norfolk and Norwich branch of the Dunkirk Veterans 1940, said he would be watching the trial with interest.
“It is a good job they are still finding these people who think they have got away with it.”
Hugh Sebag Montefiore who is writing a book about Dunkirk said he was very interested to learn of the latest developments.
“I have found documents in the German archive discussing how 90 odd bodies were discovered in the area by the side of the building and how the German command wanted to find out what had happened and made inquiring of the Totenkopf regiment but nothing ever came of the inquiry,” he said.
The survivors’ revenge
The last stand of the men of the Royal Norfolks' 2nd Battalion at Le Paradis in May 1940 was one of the many heroic engagements.
Along a stretch of the La Bassee canal, near the village of Petit Cornet Malo and Le Paradis, the 2nd Royal Norfolks were ordered to hold their ground so that other soldiers could escape down an ever narrowing corridor still under Allied control to Dunkirk.
They had contested every field, barn and house, but on May 27th, 100 or more of them were forced to surrender while defending a farm.
What followed was the worst atrocity of the Dunkirk engagement.
A fortunate few who fled from the farmhouse were captured and well treated by decent German troops, but the remainder, 97 men, fell into the hands of a unit of the SS Death’s Head Division.
Herded together, they were stripped of their equipment and roughly treated before being led away to be massacred by two heavy machine guns which were waiting for them as they were marched into a nearby meadow.
German soldiers then went among the victims, finishing them off with pistols and bayonets.
Only two men Ptes Bert Pooley and Bill O’Callaghan survived by feigning death and escaped under cover of darkness. Pte O’Callaghan was hit in the arm and Pte Pooley had four bullet wounds in one leg.
Pooley, about 6ft tall and of big build, was unable to move, so his friend, several inches shorter and a few stones lighter, carried him a half a mile to a farm where they were hidden, fed and helped by Mme Duquenne-Creton.
While they were hiding, they vowed to get the man who had their comrades shot.
When the two men were eventually released from captivity, British officials did not believe their story.
So in 1946 Bert Pooley, by then ill as a result of his wounds and the ordeal he had suffered, travelled from his home in Southall, Middlesex, to Le Paradis, and set in motion the investigation which led to the arrest and trial of the Nazi SS officer Fritz Knoechlein who was hanged in 1949.
The story was recorded in the book. The Vengeance of Private Pooley by the Norfolk author Cyril Jolly and later made into a film.
Bill O’Callaghan, who gave evidence with Bert Pooley at Knoechlein’s trial, died in November 1975 aged 61. Mr Pooley died in 1982, aged 69.
His last wish was that his ashes should be buried at Le Paradis alongside the remains of his fallen comrades.
It was a wish that was honoured later that year.