Kurt Meyer accusations against Canadians (was North Nova Scotia Highlanders History)

[klambie]

I have started a new thread on this since I've already contributed once to hijacking John McGillivray's NNSH thread here:

http://www.mapleleafup.org/forums/sh...&threadid=2302

See that thread for additional background.

The gist of Meyer's accusation from that thread:

Originally written by Tony Foster

The rumour of Canadian troops killing German prisoners that Kurt Meyer had heard two days earlier was confirmed with an on-site inspection by motorcycle. Dr. Gatternigg rode in the sidecar with him.

"After the Breteville attack I drove back to Authie. Wünsche reported that the attacking troops on the west side of Rots had dug in and that by now Kraa's 3rd Battalion of the 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment had made contact with my left wing. Whereupon I drove from Ardenne to Kraa's Battalion HQ at Rots and discussed the situation with Hugo personally. After leaving Rots I drove south, under the railway viaduct."

A few hundred yards beyond the viaduct he came across a burned-out armoured troop carrier of the 21st Panzer Division and a radio car belonging to the 12th SS. On the opposite side of the road he saw ten bodies lying in a semicircle, one medic still holding a field dressing who had apparently been in the middle of giving aid to a wounded comrade when he was gunned down.

"They were all shot through the chest or head. Their weapons were still on the burned vehicle. Within the semicircle of bodies there were no weapons. In all my battles I have very rarely found a whole group of infantrymen dead in one bunch. That sort of thing happens in street or house fighting or on roads, but never in open countryside… After I returned to the Abbaye I spoke to the Divisional Commander on the telephone about the tactical situation and after… made this report…

"On 7 June, a notebook was taken from the body of a dead Canadian captain. In it were notes written apparently a few hours before the invasion. In addition to tactical orders the handwritten notes stated that 'prisoners are not to be taken'. Some Canadian prisoners were asked to verify these instructions. They confirmed that their orders were to take no prisoners if they were a hindrance to their advance."*


* Quoted from the petition of Hubert Meyer given before the Hamburg court in 1948 during the trial of SS Obersturmbannführer Bernhard Siebken.


Source:
Tony Foster
Meeting of Generals
Authors Choice Press, Lincoln 1986
ISBN 0-595-13750-4
pages 322-323

I had speculated that D Coy of the Regina Rifles had been in this general area on 7 June. In some recent research on war crimes against the Reginas, I came across the following affadavits that confirm this idea. These affadavits were gathered in order to refute Meyer's accusation of Canadian atrocities at his trial. Ultimately, the court ruled Meyer's contention was not relevant to that proceeding, so this never went any further. I've only recently seen brief references to these affadavits in 'The Trial of Kurt Meyer' by BJS MacDonald and 'Casual Slaughter and Accidental Judgements' by Patrick Brode, but never any detail. Despite their existence, Meyer's accusation continues to pop up in discussions of crimes by 12 SS.

As John pointed out on the previous thread, the distances south of the railway viaduct mentioned by Meyer and the Canadians don't quite seem to match up. However, at least in December 1945, there seemed to be some consensus that these referred to the same incident. Other than that, most of the details seem to match up remarkably well.

It's also interesting to note that Meyer's account indicated that he saw these bodies on the morning of 7 June, while the Reginas indicate that this incident did not occur until around 1800 that day. MacDonald intended to use this to demonstrate that Meyer's accusation was a post facto rationalization.

***Edit: Although I saw the claim that Meyer said this happened on 7 June in multiple locations, a closer look at the blurb from Foster's book indicates he says it was after the Bretteville attack, which was the night of 8/9 June.