The evil the Dunkirk film doesn't show: Michael Coren

The new movie Dunkirk is an extraordinary display of filmmaking, as much a story of the human spirit as it is just another war epic. As someone born and raised in England, the story of the rescue of the British army at the beginning of the Second World War is part of my DNA, and I find some of the petty criticisms of the film to be pedantic and churlish.

It's true that a Spitfire can't land on a beach; no the Luftwaffe didn't paint their aircraft noses yellow until a month after the evacuation; and yes, the vast majority of soldiers were sent home on Royal Navy destroyers rather than small, civilian boats. But the quintessence remains: the forces of evil didn't have their way, and the good guys got to fight another day.

What the movie doesn't show, however, is an incident of profound importance in the history of the war. The general view is that while Nazism was, of course, inherently evil, it took time for its repugnance to become obviously manifest. It's assumed that it wasn't until the Holocaust that the authentic nature of National Socialism was revealed, and that on the battlefield it was the eastern front and the war against the Soviets that exposed the genocidal nature of Adolf Hitler's creed. Not so.

Dunkirk is unlike any war movie you've ever seen

7 years ago

Duration 5:38

In May 1940, in Wormhoudt in France during the allied retreat to Dunkirk, more than 80 soldiers, mostly British, were murdered by Waffen-SS troops of the 1st SS Regiment Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. Remember, this was in context of what was still considered a "civilized" conflict against a foe that the Nazis, in their warped mentality, regarded as racial kin. The British had not committed any atrocities — the mass bombing campaign against German cities was years away, Berlin had not faced defeat or humiliation. This was pure sadism, a war crime of the first order.

We know specific details because there were a few survivors. On May 28, 1940, a brigade of the 48th South Midland Infantry Division successfully delayed a German advance until they had run out of ammunition. Many of them, mainly from the Royal Warwickshires, the Cheshire Regiment, the Royal Artillery and some French allies were moved at gunpoint towards a barn. They were immediately shocked at the casual violence of their captors: unarmed soldiers were beaten and wounded men were simply shot dead. The highest ranking officer present, Captain James Lynn-Allen, was threatened when he protested.

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Around 100 exhausted, hungry and defenceless men were marched into a barn, thinking that perhaps they were there to rest and be fed. At one point Lynn-Allen banged on the locked door and shouted, ''For the love of God, there is no more room in here'' and demanded water for his men. A Nazi soldier laughed and said, ''Where you are going there will be a lot of room.'' The Germans then threw in a number of grenades.

Two sergeants, Stanley Moore and Augustus Jennings, gave their lives by throwing themselves on the grenades so as to save some of their men. At this point, the SS marched the rest of the prisoners out of the barn in fives and shot them. Concerned that the massacre was taking too long and providing the British with time to try to escape, the Germans then simply machine-gunned everybody in the barn.

In spite of all this, a handful of British soldiers did indeed manage to escape, even though some of them had been shot. Eighty men were killed and 15 more badly wounded – nine of whom would die within two days.

The SS unit was under the overall command of Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich, and the specific battalion largely responsible for the event led by Hauptsturmfuhrer Wilhelm Mohnke.

The former would, in 1944, command a unit responsible for murdering 84 U.S. prisoners in Belgium. After the war, he spent some time in prison but on release was publicly proud of his wartime service and campaigned on behalf of other Waffen SS members.

Mohnke would later be accused of ordering the killing of prisoners in Normandy — among them three Canadians — also in 1944, but he was never charged and denied that he ordered any murders during the war. He was imprisoned by the Soviets until 1955 but would then return to Germany where he lived to be 90 years old and died in his bed.