Helmut Knochen

Dr. Helmut Herbert Christian Heinrich Knochen (14 March 1910 - 4 April 2003) was commander of the Sicherheitsdienst in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France. He was convicted in 1947 of ordering the murder of captured SAS soldiers in 1944 and sentenced to death, but the sentence was never carried out because he was extradited to France to face trial for the deportation and murder of French Jews and Resistance fighters. He was sentenced to death a second time for this crime, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and Knochen was released in 1963 after 16 years in prison.

Biography

Knochen joined the SS in 1936 and became involved in the SD administration. He was appointed commander of security in Paris in 1940, a capacity in which he was responsible for the torture of captured SOE and SIS agents, the deportation of Jews to concentration camps and the execution of captured Resistance fighters, reporting directly to Horst Kopkow. He and his immediate subordinate Hans Kieffer oversaw the capture of enemy agents through funkspiel operations: feeding the enemy false information in order to lure them in and then capture them. The prisoners would then be interrogated and tortured for information before being sent to prison camps or else shot in accordance with the Commando Order and the Night and Fog Order. Kieffer and Knochen operated out of the Gestapo headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch.

During the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler, conspirator Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, military governor of Paris, ordered the arrests of Knochen and Carl Oberg in order to get them out of the way. The plot failed and both Knochen and Oberg were released after von Stülpnagel's arrest.

Noailles Wood Massacre

On 5 July 1944, the elite SAS team SABU-70 parachuted into France but were ambushed by the Gestapo, having been entrapped by a funkspiel operation. Eight were captured and taken back to Avenue Foch, where they were tortured for information by Richard Schnur and Alfred von Kapri. After an escape attempt, Knochen and Kieffer were ordered by Kopkow to terminate the prisoners (although one, Lieutenant Rex Wiehe, was still under interrogation in hospital and was exempted from the order). A firing squad consisting of Schnur, von Kapri, Karl Haug, Julius Schmidt and two others was assembled to execute the SABU-70 team. The seven condemned captives were dressed up in civilian clothes to disguise them as Resistance captives and lead out to the Noailles Wood to be shot on 8 August 1944. However, just before they were shot Captain Patrick Garstin ran forward towards the firing squad, giving the other prisoners the opportunity to run away while he was shot down. Five of the prisoners, including Garstin, were shot, but two, Serge Vaculik and Thomas "Ginger" Jones, escaped.

Post-war

Following the liberation of France, Knochen was arrested by French authorities to face trial for the murders of Jews and Resistance fighters. However, the British War Crimes Group were conducting an investigation into the Noailles Wood Massacre after Vaculik and Jones informed them of the events. Knochen and the other perpetrators were identified by former Avenue Foch prisoner John Starr. After the rest of the perpetrators were captured (except von Kapri and Schmidt, who were dead), the War Crimes Group were able to convince the French to hand over Knochen for trial.

After testimony from Vaculik and Jones about the SABU-70 team's capture and murder, the defendants were cross-examined. Knochen took the stand first, claiming that he had been forced to join the Nazis and that he had not wanted the prisoners shot but had been obliged to order them killed in accordance with the Commando Order on pain of death. He also claimed that he and Kieffer had chosen to spare the wounded, hence why Lt. Wiehe was not killed, but this was undermined when the prosecution pointed out that Captain Garstin had been seriously injured at the time of the execution but had not been spared, and that if they were able to avoid executing Wiehe they probably could have gotten away with not executing any prisoners.

After each defendant was cross-examined, Kopkow, now in Allied custody, was called to testify. He undermined Kieffer and Knochen's argument that they would be punished if they spared the prisoners by explaining that nobody had ever been executed for failure to comply with the Commando Order, despite Kieffer and Knochen's claims. Ultimately, all six defendants were convicted of murder and war crimes on 12 March 1947; Kieffer, Knochen, Schnur and Haug were sentenced to death. Knochen however was not executed, instead being extradited back to France to face trial for his crimes against Jews and Resistance prisoners.

Knochen was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his actions as the Paris SD chief and sentenced to death a second time. However, the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He was ultimately released from prison on 28 November 1962 and retired to Baden-Baden, where he died in 2003.