Murder at Le Paradis

Only a determined attack, pressed home with heavy fire by the division's 2nd Regiment, seemed to restore the situation. The British troops holding the canal broke contact and re-established a new position farther back that was soon reinforced with fresh troops and anti-tank guns. It was during this period that 100 soldiers from the Royal Norfolk Regiment surrendered in the village of Le Paradis after they ran out of ammunition. The British had caused the SS unit that captured them several casualties during the battle. In revenge, a Totenkopf company commander then ordered the prisoners to be shot as they stood in front of a barn. Miraculously, two British soldiers survived to give evidence against their comrades' murderers.

Totenkopf losses

The Totenkopf Division continued to advance during the night of 27/28 May and drove into the new British positions, with heavy resistance forcing it to pull back temporarily. During 28 May, the division launched another large-scale assault to clear out the British position around Estaires. Fatigue and heavy casualties again took their toll, and by the afternoon the attack was stalled. By nightfall, Eicke's men had advanced less than a mile. Overnight, an attack was prepared to punch through the British left flank, but as Eicke's men were gathering in their assembly area before dawn British artillery fire enveloped them, causing chaos and forcing the attack to be called off. By the time Stukas had been called up to silence the guns, the British troops had escaped north. The SS men spent the rest of the day following up the retreating British, to no avail. By nightfall the High Command ordered the pursuit to be taken over by army units. The division had suffered heavily, losing 1140 casualties including some 300 officers. It had also lost scores of vehicles.

Over the next week the German Army closed in on the Dunkirk perimeter, but it was unable to prevent more than 300,000 British, French and Belgian troops escaping. The SS troops were not directly involved in this fighting, but were used to mop up isolated pockets of resistance. The Totenkopf linked up with the Leibstandarte and pressed on all the way to Boulogne, taking some 6000 prisoners. This time was vital to allow it to regroup and reorganize for the next phase of the campaign.

The Battle of France

The German High Command now redirected its panzers south to smash the remaining French units defending Paris along the Somme. The SS units moved to their jump-off positions. The Leibstandarte was poised to strike at Soissons, north of Paris. The SS-VT was posted nearby and the Totenkopf was positioned to the east.

German troops surged southwards on 5 June and met only minimal resistance from the demoralized French Army. Columns of Leibstandarte troops skirted to the east of Paris and headed towards Vichy in central France. The regiment fought several brief skirmishes with pockets of French troops, but its main problem was finding a route through the roads jammed with German supply columns and refugees. Thousands of French soldiers were captured, and Dietrich also took the opportunity to enhance his art collection from several French chateaux. In one notable incident the élite SS regiment found itself in a brief battle with a detachment of World War I French tanks, which were impervious to its 37mm anti-tank guns. The regiment's 105mm field guns had to be brought up to knock them out.

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