Hi Michel,
Is there more information on the 147 Canadian soldiers killed after being captured by the Waffen-SS "Hitlerjugend" Division between 7 and 11 June 1944?
Margolian's book is the best published work on the incidents that I've seen. Some of the trial documentation is available on the web. Hubert Meyer's two-volume Hitlerjugend divisional history also has some information. There are bits of additional information scattered here and there in other published works.
Any information on the circumstances of the killings? For example, were they shot while trying to surrender, walking towards the German troops with their hands up? Were they accepted as prisoners, marched to a rear area, and then gunned down en masse?
The incidents that came to the attention of the Canadian War Crimes investigation team were more of the latter.
To my mind, there is a difference between the two situations. Judging from anecdotal evidence (which admittedly is often untested in court), it was quite common for members of any army to simply shoot surrendering enemy soldiers, or soon after surrender, in the midst of an ongoing battle. The reason is obvious; no unit engaged in heavy combat wants to be encumbered with prisoners, when all its members are needed in the front line, and none can be spared to guard prisoners or take then to the rear without detracting form the unit's overall fire-power.
Waffen-SS historian Michael Renyolds also mentions this particular set of circumstances and/or motivation in his writings on the "Malmedy Massacre" incident during the Battle of the Bulge.
The situation is different in cases where prisoners have been accepted, disarmed and taken to the rear, out of the combat zone. In this case, it is possible for the captors to spare men to guard the prisoners, and there is far less jusitification for summarily executing them.
Absolutely.
What was the situation with the 147 Canadians? I get the impression from the short quoted passage that this was not a single massacre of assembled prisoners, but that there was a number of incidents.
You are absolutely correct in discerning that there were multiple incidents; the circa 147 Canadians weren't all gunned down at the same time on the same day.
Here's a brief, rough synopsis of the incidents:
Authie, France - June 7, 1944:
12th SS tanks push Canadian forces back. SS-PGR 25 troops follow along behind. Two platoons from the Canadian 9th Novas C Company and a platoon from A Company, plus stragglers from the Ottowa Cameroons, doggedly defend Authie, reinforced by one Canadian Sherman tank and several Vickers gun carriers. Under the German tank, infantry and artillery assault, the Canadians are forced to withdraw from Authie after an hour of heavy combat. The 9th Nova Scota Highlanders withdraw to Les Buissons after suffering 242 causalties. The Sherbrooke Fusiliers lose 63 men and 25-30 tanks (Canadian and German after-action reports differ as to the exact number of Canadian AFV’s lost). III/SS-PGR 25 losses are: 28 KIA, 70 WIA, 12 MIA; 5th and 6th Company of 12th SS Panzer Abt: 13 KIA, 11 WIA plus 9 Panzer IVs. I/SS-PGR 25 losses are 15 KIA, 73 WIA, 10 MIA. SS-PGR 26 has lost 7 KIA and 19 WIA by Allied air attack. Canadian 24th Lancers report the capture 40 12th SS POWs near Martragny.
The Hitlerjugend counterattack has forced the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade back three miles. Milius’ attack prevents the Canadians from seizing Carpiquest Airfield and keeps Caen in German hands.
Upon the capture of Authie, III/SS-PGR 25 troops summarily execute 37 Canadian POWs, many of them wounded. SS panzergrenadiers drag a half-dozen Canadian bodies into the street to be run over by German vehicles. However, at least in one instance senior SS officers intervened to prevent a Canadian POW from being executed. Of the 37 Canadian POWs killed that day, at least nine were summarily executed on the Authie-Cussy Road.
Abbaye d’Ardenne, (KG Meyer's HQ) - June 7, 1944:
SS-Obersturmführer Gunther Doldi & SS Feldgendarmerie troops process Canadian POWs at an orchard at the southern end of the village of Cussy. Doldi decides to send the POWS onto the SS-PGR 25 HQ at Abbaye d’Ardenne. SS military police march the POWs to the Abbaye, where in the courtyard the Canadians are forced to relinquish their paybooks, papers and military identification.
At 8PM, Meyer order Doldi to move the Canadian POWs out. Senior SS Feldgendarmerie are ordered to Bretteville to establish a POW holding cage. Grenadiers from SS-PGR 25 are assigned to guard the prisoners. While the main group of POWs are marching towards Bretteville, SS guards segregate eleven POWs and escort them back to the Abbaye chateau. The eleven Canadian POWs are briefly interrogated individually in the chateau garden, and then executed. SS troops kill six of the Canadians by crushing their skulls with a club and the remaining five are dispatched with a bullet to the brain. CO Meyer is present at the chateau during the interrogations and executions.
Chateau d’Audrieu/Pavie - June 8, 1944:
24 Canadian and two British troops captured by the 12th SS AA at Brouay are transferred to a escort guard from the III/SS-PGR 26 and marched down the road to Pavie. But the POWs are then stopped at a crossroad just easy of Pavie, and searched. A small group of POWs is separated from the main body and interrogated by 12th SS AA CO Gerhard Bremer and a Capt. Gern von Reitzenstein (AA company HQ CO) at the Chateau d’Audrieu. Bremer, who speaks English fluently, interrogates Canadian Major Frederick Hodge, CO of A Company, Royal Winnipeg Rifles, and two enlisted men for fifteen minutes. Bremer then orders SS-Obersturmführer Willi-Peter Hansmann to kill the prisoners. Hansmann and a small execution squad gun the POWs down at the edge of a nearby wood.
Bremer then calls for another set and interrogates three more Canadian POWs, all enlisted men, one a Pvt. David Gold a medic from the Royal Winnipeg Rifles. Again, after a brief conversation, Bremer orders the POWs to lie on their stomachs, and then the SS guards under a NCO fire their rifles point-blank into the skulls of the prostrate POWs. The SS executions then visit the chateau kitchen for cider and food.
Word of a nearby Allied probe forces Bremer to briefly halt the interrogations as the surviving 20-odd POWs are held under guard. By 430 PM, Bremer has the remaining POWs executed in two batches. By early evening, Allied shellfire forces Bremer to withdraw from Pavie and Chateau d’Audrieu. The British Dorset’s Regiment occupies the building and discovers the bodies of the 13 executed Canadian prisoners.
Abbaye d’Ardenne, (KG Meyer's HQ) - June 8, 1944:
SS private Jan Jesionek, a Polish volksdeutsche conscript from Hitlerjungend’s 15th Recon. Company, SS-PGR 25, is busy repairing his motorcycle’s engine in the courtyard when he is approached by SS troops guarding seven Canadian prisoners. The guards ask for the whereabouts of CO Meyer. Upon seeing the POWs, Meyer angrily shouts "WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THESE PRISONERS!? THEY ONLY EAT UP OUR RATIONS!” Briefly conferring with one of his subordinates, Meyer then announces "IN THE FUTURE, NO MORE PRISONERS ARE TO BE TAKEN!” The unknown SS subordinate then briefly interrogates each of the seven POWs, who are then each lead individually into the Abbaye garden, where the escorting SS NCO fires his machine pistol at the back of the prisoner’s head. Soon all seven POWs lie in a bloody heap in the garden. Later in the day while riding a sidecar, Kurt Meyer is slightly wounded and his driver killed when hit by MG fire.
Fontenay-le-Pesnel /Mohnke's Murderous Madness Part I - June 8-9, 1944
Regimental CO Mohnke is annoyed at news of the pending arrival of 100 Canadian POWs to his headquarters. He phones II Battalion CO Siebken and orders him to stop sending POWs. Siebken tells Mohnke that he will continue to send POWs to the rear.
At 9PM, a high-ranking SS officer (possibly Mohnke) stops the POW column and issues a stream of angry orders to the SS NCO in charge of the prisoners. Canadian Lt. Reg Barker of the Third Anti-tank Regiment, who speaks German, informs his fellow captives that the SS officer has ordered the POWs to be shot, but that he would try to talk the guards out of it.
The SS guards escort the POWs to the Caen-Fontenay Road, where they are ordered to sit down in several rows in a field at a crossroads less than a mile from Fontenay-le-Pesnel while a column of SS AFV’s rolls by. A half-track pulls up to the sitting prisoners, and the SS guards exchange their rifles for submachine guns from the vehicle. The guards, with weapons at the ready, then turn to face the sitting POWs. Lt. Barker, seated in the first row, shouts out "WHOEVER IS LEFT, AFTER THEY FIRE THE FIRST ROUND, GO TO THE LEFT!!”
The SS guards raise their machine pistols as one announces in English, "NOW YOU DIE!”
Thirty-five of the forty POWs are killed in the fusillade. Five manage to escape, but are eventually recaptured by other German units. Postwar, Canadian investigators attempt to identify the perpetrators, but can not determine which exact 12th SS members are responsible for the massacre. The Fontenay-le-Pesnel murders remain the biggest war-crime in Canada’s history.
Mohnke's Murderous Madness Part II/ British killing of German POWs - June 8-9, 1944
After Mohnke orders the 40 POWs shot, he proceeds to Siebken’s HQ to berate him. But an unexpected arrival alters the situation. Count Clary-Aldrigen, a captain in the Heer Panzer Lehr Artillery Regiment, is brought to Siebken’s HQ wounded. Clary-Aldrigen recounts that he was captured by British troops near Hill 102 earlier in the day along with several other senior officers of the artillery regiment, including the CO, a Col. Luxenburger, and a battalion commander, Major Zeissler. The British forces are an armored car detachment from C Squadron, Inns of Court Regiment. The British troopers order the prisoners to ride on the armored cars, possibly to be used as human shields. The German POWs refuse. The British beat Col. Luxenburger unconscious and tie him to the front of one of the cars. The British then shoot at the remaining POWs as they pull out. Clary-Aldrigen claimed to be the only survivor of the shooting and that the armored car Luxenburger was strapped to was soon hit by gunfire, killing Luxenburger.
In his postwar history of the division (Vol I, p. 172-173), Hubert Meyer recalled the account as follows:
"...The Panzer Lehr Division suffered further heavy losses during this say through a terrible occurrence of a completely different nature. Two English scouting parties, numbered 2 and 6A, had crossed unnoticed thorough the thin security line of Panzeraufklarungsabteilng 12 on the left flank of the division. They were part of C Squadron of the Inns of Court Regiment…Near a hill, probably Hill 102, one kilometer south of Cristot, the two scouting parties encountered a group of members of the staff or the Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 130 of the Panzer-Lehr Division. This group was made up of the regimental commander, Major Zeissler, the regimental adjutant, Hauptman Graf (count) Clary-Aldringen and some six NCOs and men. They had driven ahead to this location which offered a view of the area to prepare the action of the Regiment for the attack which had been ordered for 9 June.
According to the report by Graf Clary, these German soldiers were completely surprised by the English scouting parties and taken prisoner. After the German officers refused to voluntarily ride on the English armored reconnaissance vehicles as shields against bullets, the badly disabled Oberst Luxenberger (he had lost an arm in the First World War) was bound by two English officers, beaten unconscious and tied to an English ARV, covered with blood. After respective orders had been received by radio, Major Zeissler, Graf Clary and the NCOs and men of the group were shot to pieces by the retreating British armored reconnaissance vehicles. Except for Graf Clary who was saved from further bullets, after having received a number of wounds, by a dead comrade who had fallen on him, all German soldiers were killed. When the British reconnaissance vehicles crossed the German lines from the rear they were knocked out by a German anti-tank gun. Oberst Luxenberger, tied to one of the vehicles, was wounded. He was taken to a German hospital where he die soon after. Graf Clary regained consciousness after some time and crawled, badly wounded, in the direction of the village of Le Mensil-Patry. Members of the II/26 found him and took him to the command post where he was given first aid and by the battle reporter, Sturmann Klödin. 24 (footnote states: “Petition by lawyer Dr. jur (LLD) A. Oehlert of 20.11.48 to the supreme military justice authorities)
The war diary of the Inns of Court Regiment reports on this event on 8 June:
'2 and 6A captured three German officers, among them a Colonel and 3 [this probably means other ranks]. Upon withdrawing they were knocked out and lost all vehicles. Lieutenant Yodaiken and Lieutenant Wigram were killed, two other ranks missing. Four other ranks, led by Corporal Fowler, retired on foot use the compass for guidance.(footnote 25)'
In retaliation, three Canadian prisoners of war were ordered shot near the command post of the II/26 on the following day. After the war, a so-called “War Criminals Trial” took place because of this against Obersturmbannführer Siebken, Untersturmbannführer Schnabel and two men of the battalion. "
At any rate, Mohnke hears this account of British troops killing German POWS and flies into a rage, ordering Siebken to execute all POWs. Siebken in turns argues that this approach would do little than lead to escalating and counterproductive tit-for-tat reprisals between Allied and German forces.
Around midnight, three additional Canadian POWs, all wounded, are brought into Siebken’s HQ and are treated by a Dr. Schütt, the II Battalion’s medical officer. Mohnke orders the prisoners shot, but storms out of the command post after yet another heated argument with Siebken. After Mohnke leaves, Siebken calls division headquarters and speaks to divisional Chief of Staff (Ia) Hubert Meyer. Siebken asks Meyer if there is a standing order to execute prisoners. Hubert Meyer denies the existence of any such order and mentions that on the contrary, as many POWs as possible are to be taken for intelligence gathering.
Concerned about Mohnke’s erratic behavior, Hubert Meyer calls the SS-PGR 26 command post. Mohnke is not there, so Hubert Meyer speaks to his adjutant, a SS-Hauptsturmführer Kaiser. Hubert Meyer tells Kaiser that POWs are to be taken and treated according to the Geneva Convention.
On June 9, Mohnke returns to SS-PGR 26 HQ and upon arrival, telephones II Battalion HQ to see if the three wounded Canadian POWs have been executed. AGAIN Mohnke travels to the Battalion HQ. Siebken is away at the front, and Mohnke again storms out. Returning in the early morning, Mohnke looks for Siebken, who is still away. Mohnke then pulls his pistol out and threatens the battalion’s special mission officer Dietrich Schnabel to execute the Canadians or else.
Circa 9AM, Schnabel drives over to the Moulin farmhouse where the three Canadian POWs have had their wounds dressed and have been given a pitcher of milk for breakfast. Schnabel orders the three prisoners into an adjacent garden along with three attending SS medical orderlies. The Canadians, one of whom cannot walk unaided, limp into the garden. At Schnabel’s command, the three SS medics shoot the Canadians in the back. Schnabel then puts a bullet into the brains of Privates Harold Angel, Ernest Baskerville and Frederick Holness.
Cheaux via Le Mesnil-Patry, June 11, 1944
The Canadian Armored Brigade (6th Armored Regiment) and Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada launch an attack on Le Mesnil-Patry against the II Battalion, Panzer Regt. 12, SS-Panzer Pionier Abt. 12 and Hitlerjugend panzergrenadiers. The First Hussars lose 34-37 tanks in two hours of extremely heavy combat; 12th SS tank losses stand at six. The Queen’s Own Rifles suffer 95 casualties out of a compliment of 136. Hitlerjugend troops execute circa 13 captured Canadian tank crewmen in six separate incidents. However, both sides maintain a brief ad-hoc cease-fire as Canadian ambulances pick up wounded from the battlefield.
Mohnke's Murderous Madness Part III - Le Haut de Bosq, June 11, 1944
Mohnke orders three Canadian POWs executed at his regimental HQ.
Mouen - June 17, 1944
SS-Panzer Pionier Abt. 12 troops kill an additional seven Canadian POWs
:roll:
