Position:Home>History> Does anyone know about an incident where SS soldiers murdered Canadians in Norma

<<Three days after the D-Day invasion in June 1944, the British army occupied a Normandy mansion called Chateau d'Audrieu and found a row of 13 Canadian soldiers lying dead along a fence!.

Beatrice Delafon, the young woman who had been left in charge of the mansion by its owner, her uncle, said the men had been prisoners murdered by their German captors!.



The killings are blamed on the 12th SS Panzer Division!. Its rank and file soldiers were teenage members of the Hitler Youth!.

"They were young, they had been completely drowned in this propaganda, instilled with all of these Nazi virtues and they were fanatical," says Whitney Lackenbauer, a history professor at St!. Jerome's University, an Ontario college affiliated with Waterloo University!.

Their leaders, the officers and NCOs, were hard-bitten Nazis, many of whom learned their craft in the pitiless crucible of the Russian Front!.

"These are seasoned veterans," Lackenbauer added!. "They've been hardened in that particular theatre, where there was no love lost on either side and 'No prisoners' was a common order that was just accepted!.

"They were obviously inculcating that same spirit in 17-and 18-year-olds!."

The young fanatics and the bitter veterans made a volatile mix!.

They fought to the death, in many cases, and likely did more to slow up Allied advances in Normandy than any other German unit!.

In the end, though, the 12th SS was broken and retreated from Normandy without a single tank, self-propelled gun or artillery piece!.

Brigadefuehrer Kurt Meyer, who was a regimental commander in the division before succeeding to command of the unit in June 1944, was captured by Belgian partisans in September 1944, during the great retreat!.

He was marched into a Canadian court in Germany in October 1945, charged with the murder of 41 prisoners of war!. He was the only man Canada ever tried for the killings!.

His was Canada's first war crimes trial and although it riveted the country's attention and focused anger on the 34-year-old major general, it was also to prove that justice can be a tantalizingly elusive goal!.

Bruce Macdonald, a Windsor, Ont!., lawyer and wartime lieutenant-colonel who investigated the Normandy murders and prosecuted Meyer, said the case captivated Canadians!.

"Probably no single event of World War II aroused more widespread and continued interest in Canada than the trial and subsequent treatment of SS Maj!.-Gen!. Kurt Meyer," he wrote in his 1954 book on the trial!.

Meyer was eventually found guilty on two counts and sentenced to death, but that was commuted to life in prison and he was freed after 10 years!.

In the end, one German officer was found responsible for killing Canadian prisoners and was executed!. But he was tried and sentenced by a British court!.

Wilhelm Mohnke, another SS officer who is widely believed to have ordered the murder of 35 Canadians in Normandy, spent 10 years in Soviet captivity, returned home and became a car salesman!. He died in 2001, a 90-year-old pensioner!.

Macdonald's Canadian War Crimes Investigation Unit was formed in June 1945 to gather evidence against the 12th SS!. His investigators tracked down witnesses, conducted autopsies and scoured records to build their case, particularly against Meyer!.

The SS general was a highly decorated soldier who had fought in Poland, France, Greece and Russia!. He was noted for his drive and ruthlessness - he was said to have tossed a grenade at his own men to get them moving in one skirmish!.

The man who had been the youngest division commander in the German army went on trial in December 1945 before a court martial made up of five Canadian generals, all combat veterans!.

Macdonald had Lt!.-Col!. Clarence Campbell, later head of the NHL, as his assistant in the prosecution!.

Meyer was defended by Lt!.-Col!. Maurice Andrew, a lawyer from Stratford, Ont!., who had risen through the militia ranks to wartime command of the Perth Regiment!.

The key evidence for the prosecution was delivered by Jan Jesionek, an ethnic German from Poland who had been pressed into the 12th SS!. The young private testified he heard Meyer deliver a fateful line at l'Abbaye d'Ardenne: "In future, no more prisoners are to be taken!."

Later that afternoon, Jesionek said, he watched as seven Canadians were marched, one by one, down a passageway into the chateau's garden, where each was shot in the head!.

He said the young Canadians seemed to know what was coming!. They shook hands with each other and said their goodbyes before walking, heads high, into the garden!.

Andrew, though no fan of his Nazi client, conducted a spirited defence!. He tried hard to cast doubt on Jesionek's testimony!.

Among other things, Meyer offered a "you, too" defence, claiming that Canadians had killed German prisoners and if the SS killed any prisoners, it was in retaliation!. He also claimed that written orders to take no prisoners had been found on the body of a dead Canadian officer!.

Chris Madsen, a historian who teaches at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, discounts both these defences!.

"That shouldn't enter into it, what Meyer did," he said!. "It's not an excuse if Canadians committed war crimes!."

As for the mythical order to take no prisoners: "There's no proof there was ever an order like that!."

Lackenbauer is even more unequivocal on that count: "There is absolutely not one, single shred of evidence that such an order ever existed!."

The historian concedes that there likely were instances, in the heat of battle, when Canadians might have killed Germans trying to surrender or who had just surrendered!. But there's a difference between that and the acts of the 12th SS!.

"If Canadian soldiers committed individual acts of indiscretion, which they likely did, these were in no way comparable to the widespread and systematic atrocities of the 12 SS Panzer!."

The trial ran Dec!. 10-28 with a two-day Christmas break!.

After 25 minutes of deliberation, Meyer was convicted of three of the five charges against him: that he counselled his troops not to take prisoners; that he was responsible for the deaths of seven soldiers at l'Abbaye; that he was responsible for the deaths of another 11 men at l'Abbaye!.

He was acquitted on a charge connected with the murders at Authie and of giving a direct order for the murder of the Canadians at l'Abbaye!.

The key was that Meyer was found responsible for the murders, by virtue of being the division commander!.

But Lackenbauer said it is clearer than that!. The l'Abbaye d'Ardenne was Meyer's headquarters!. It's hard to believe he missed the repeated gunshots and the bodies!. He gave at least tacit consent!.

"Clearly, he had to be aware what was going on," Lackenbauer said!. "Even if he didn't give explicit orders, was he giving de facto consent!?"

The court sentenced Meyer to death by firing squad, but the sentence still had to be confirmed by the military chain of command and Maj!.-Gen!. Chris Vokes, the senior Canadian officer in Europe, wasn't happy with it!.

In his memoirs, he says he studied the trial transcript and found much of the case against Meyer was circumstantial!. He also says he was aware, as a divisional commander "that certain things probably did go on that were not always according to the rules!."

"There was hearsay evidence," he wrote!. "There was nothing direct!. There was nothing that appeared to indicate Meyer said: "Shoot the bastards!" or words to that effect!.

"So I ordered the execution stayed!."

Meyer's sentence was commuted to life in prison and with that, much of the steam seemed to go out of Canada's war-crimes process!. >>Www@QuestionHome@Com

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On D-Day+1, SS Lieutenant Colonel Karl-Heinz Milius threw his 3rd battalion at the Canadians during the battle for Authie!. The North Nova Scotia Regiment and Cameron Highlanders thwarted this German counterattack, stopping the grenadiers in their tracks and bloodying the 12th SS Panzer division for the first time!.

The 23 Canadians captured by the Germans in Authie suffered a horrific fate that foreshadowed future atrocities at the hands of the SS troops!. At the main intersection (at the southern end of the village) Canadian soldiers were disarmed, told to remove their helmets, and shot at close range!.

Other Canadians were captured and taken to the Abbaye d'Ardenne, the headquarters of the German division where Meyer had watched the battle unfold!. In the abbey garden eleven Canadians were interrogated and then killed on 7 June, each Canadian prisoner shaking hands with his comrades before being executed!.

At noon the next day seven more Canadians were shot at the Abbaye; their murders coincided with the execution of Canadian POWs on the Caen-Fountenay Road!. The following evening Canadian prisoners were taken to the 12th SS's 2nd Battalion headquarters to meet their death!. On the now tranquil grounds of the Chateau d'Audrieu, Canadian POWs were interrogated and duly executed, first

in threes and later in more efficient larger numbers!. These large-scale incidents represent 120 of 156 murders committed by the Hitlerjugend during the first 10 days of the Normandy CampaignWww@QuestionHome@Com

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This website may help out:

http://www!.junobeach!.org/e/2/can-eve-rod!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Yes, he did order it!. He denied housing to allied soldiers and than he shot them!. It was in Normandy!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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the link below is the Charge Sheet against Mayer that resulted in his Court Martial!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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