North Nova Scotia Highlanders History

[John McGillivray]

I have not read Tony Foster’s book. However, there is a book entitled “Conduct Unbecoming” by Howard Margolian. It goes into detail about the murders of Canadian Troops by 12th SS. This is from the Preface of the book .(p.X)

“During the first ten days that followed the Normandy landings, 156 Canadian officers, NCOs, and rank-and-file troops, all members of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, were deliberately and brutally murdered after capture by elements of the German formation that opposed them, the 12th SS Panzer Division 'Hitler Youth.' Like the bayoneting of Private Brown, some of the killings were on-the-spot acts of spontaneous battlefield violence.. The vast majority, however, were cold, calculated, and systematic acts of mass murder, carried out well behind the front lines, a considerable time after the prisoners' capture.

“This is the story of the criminal slaughter of Canadian prisoners of war in Normandy and of postwar attempts to prosecute the perpetrators. It does not make for gentle reading. Indeed, most of the killings were so casual in the manner of their execution and yet so ghastly and devastating in their consequences that they beggar the imagination. No one who has read the investigative materials relating to these crimes is apt to forget them - the crushing of several prisoners' skulls with clubs and rifle butts, the machine-gunning of dozens of POWs on a moonlit back road, the murder of the wounded, the indignities done to some of the bodies.”

Five senior officers were implicated in the killings of the Canadian POW’s: Karl-Heinz Milius (CO of III/25 Bn), Kurt Meyer (CO of 25 PzGn Regt), Gerhard Bremer (CO of 12 Recce Regt), Wilhelm Mohnke (CO of 26 PzGn Regt), and Siegfried Muller (CO of PiBn 12). Two of these officers had served in concentration camps earlier in their careers. Muller had done a ten month stint as the commander of a detachment of concentration camp guards, while Milius had spent two years at Dachau where he commanded a platoon of guards. Note that Milius was the commander of the battalion which was responsible for the first murders of Canadian troops in Authie on the 7th of June.

Wilhelm Mohnke was implicated in the murders of British troops in 1940, Canadian troops in June 1944 and American troops in December 1944.

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

This story has only one source: Kurt Mayer. There are no other witnesses or evidence to support his claims. Hubert Mayers makes no mention of this incident in his history of 12th SS.

After leaving Rots I drove south, under the railway viaduct."

The location is interesting in that it is located well behind German lines. No Allied troops had penetrated that far south during the period 7th to 9th of June. Rots was only captured by British and Canadian troops on the 11th of June. The only explanation that makes sense is that Kurt Mayer invented the whole story in an attempt to muddy the waters, and to justify his own actions at the Abbaye d’Ardenne.

"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."*

I think that in Hubert Mayer's book the document reads something to the effect that attacking troops are not to stop to take prisoners. According to Michael Reynolds in the book “Steel Inferno” there is three scenarios where the killing of prisoners is legal. The first is if they are trying to escape. The second is if the taking or holding of prisoners endangers the safety of the captors, and the third is if the taking of prisoners will prevent the achieving of a military objective. Also the Geneva Convention clearly upholds the principle that reprisals may not be taken against prisoners of war but this fact conveniently ignored by German apologists.