• Normandy Massacres

Date of death:

January 20th, 1949 (Hameln British prison/Lowersaxony, Germany)

Nationality:

German

On 9 June 1944, three wounded Canadian soldiers captured near Caen were executed in Le Mesnil Patry, Normandy. SS officer Siebken was initially believed to have ordered the killings, but later investigations pointed to his superior, Wilhelm Mohnke, who allegedly issued the command during Siebken’s absence and even threatened SS-Untersturmführer Dietrich Schnabel at gunpoint to carry it out.

After the war, Schnabel was detained by Allied forces and identified as a suspect in the killings. In 1948, Schnabel, and four others were tried by a British military court in Hamburg. Witnesses later testified that Schnabel not only gave the order but may have personally participated in the shootings. Schnabel did not testify during the trial and gave contradictory statements during earlier interrogations about the existence of execution orders.

Schnabel and Siebken were convicted and hanged on 20 January 1949. The verdict drew criticism, including from British war correspondent Basil Liddell Hart.

Promotions:
?: SS-Untersturmführer

Units:
II Battalion, SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 26, 12. SS Panzer-Division "Hitlerjugend"

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• Photo 1: National Archives
• - CHINNERY, P.D., Hitler's Atrocities Against Allied PoWs, Pen & Sword Military, 2018.
  - LUTHER, C.W.H., Blood and honor, Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 2012.
  - ZUEHLKE, M., The Juno Beach Trilogy, Douglas and McIntyre Limited, 2012.
  

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