A BATCHLEY war veteran whose arm was blown off as he escaped a Nazi massacre has condemned a new film about Hitler's last days for portraying a German general behind the atrocity as a hero.

Bert Evans, 84, is the last man alive who survived the 1940 ''barn massacre'', thought to have been ordered by SS commander Wilhelm Mohnke - Hitler's so called ''Last General'' - who is featured in the new movie Downfall.

Mr Evans, was one of 85 unarmed Tommies who were rounded up in a barn near the French village of Wormhoudt by the Nazis, who then threw grenades in to kill them, on the supposed orders of Mohnke.

He and his comrades had been fighting a vicious rearguard action against the Germans about 20 miles from the Dunkirk beaches where the British Expeditionary Force was evacuating.

Mr Evans, of Willow Way, was one of the few to escape alive together with the late Alf Tombs, from Droitwich.

The pair had regularly campaigned to bring Mohnke to justice after the war.

Now the German film about the last days of the Third Reich, which has been nominated for an Oscar, has been criticised by Mr Evans and Second World War historian Dilip Sarkar, of Worcester.

Mohnke is also accused of murdering scores of civilians, Canadian and American PoWs and the execution of SS-General Herman Fegelein, Hitler's brother-in-law.

They accuse the film of wrongly portraying Mohnke as a ''humanitarian and hero''.

Mohnke was eventually captured by the Russians, incarcerated for a decade and later led a ''luxury life'' in Germany, complete with a war pension. Despite being investigated, he was never tried and he died in 2001, aged 90.

"How he can be seen as a humanitarian I don't know. He was the worst man you could possibly meet, pure evil," said Mr Evans.

"I'm shocked he could be portrayed in such a way.

"Alf died at the age of 91 last year and he'd have been deeply upset to hear about this film."

Mr Sarkar MBE said: "Mohnke's portrayed as pleading with Hitler to save civilians. If you look at history it's clear that's a fabrication.

"I think the problem with a film like this is so many people don't understand the background, watch this and take it as fact but it's wholly inaccurate. It was the same with Saving Private Ryan.

"The generation who know the truth about the war are dying out and it is rapidly escaping from our living memories."