12th SS Hitler Jugend - why did the killings stop

boomchicawawa

I'm putting this up in the vain hope that someone might have an insight into a topic that's a bit more specific than usual.

I have recently been drawn in to researching the execution of Canadian Soldiers after their capture by the 12th SS HJ in Normandy. The majority of the large scale killings happened in the first few days after the D Day landings. The view of many authors and people on forums is that the HJ were fanatical ideological boy soldiers, who refused to surrender and were more than happy to execute any POWs that fell into their 'care'. This earned them the name of the 'murder division'. The HJ had many high ranking officers who had previously served with the 1st SS Leibstandarte and it was many of these men that were accused of ordering and in some cases of personally carrying out the executions. Has anyone read up on this subject?, I would like to know the different viewpoints on why the killing started in the first place and moreover why they stopped. The HJ continued to fight in France until the third week of August 1944 but most of the incidents that were cited at Kurt Meyers trial happened in early June.

I have seen an uncorroborated/unsourced quote from Kurt Meyer that the Divisional Commander Fritz Witt ordered it stopped, but this was not suggested by Meyer during his interrogation on the matter (TS26/856) and I don't think any order was found to this effect. It could have been a verbal command as all the alleged culprits would have been personally known to Witt. I am aware that there was an enquiry through Swiss channels about the illegal killing of Canadians and that Witt was aware of this enquiry before his was killed on June 14th, was this pressure enough for him to order the killings to stop ? I haven't read anywhere yet, anyone's opinion of why, except for a vague sense that the killings ran out of steam, which makes no sense really as they should have escalated with reprisals on both sides. As to reasons on why they started in the first place, I have found evidence that the Germans felt that the Canadians had a 'take no prisoner' policy, but this does not go far enough to explain the large scale killings in my opinion. I do think it had more to do with the fact that the Canadians had the misfortune to come up against the most brutal elements of the Leibstandarte rather than the HJ.

Any insights welcomed !

Balaclava1991

The murders of British and Canadian prisoners would appear to be in retaliation for the killings of members of the 12th SS Panzer Division on or around 7-8 June 1944. Killing tailed off probably because of the demands of a brutal war of attrition which led to horrendous casualties on both sides. The perpetrators of the original massacres were most likely killed, wounded or missing and Kurt Meyer who took over from the fallen Witt was preoccupied with the increasingly desperate business of trying to hold back the Allies and towards the end of the Battle of Normandy trying to get as many of his men out of the Falaise Pocket alive and back to Germany.

long range shooter

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1189604/The-untold-brutality-D-Day-Antony-Beevor-carnage-suffered-beaches-Normandy.html

boomchicawawa

Thanks for replies and insights. I have a few niggles though. I have not heard about any large scale Allied killing of 12th SS at all in the campaign, and not especially in the first few days that might warrant a reprisal of large scale executions. Can you give details of this if you have a source, tks. Also most the men who were accused of the execution style killlings (that is the killing after surrender and after interrogation back at HQs as opposed to small scale reprisal killings) survived the war. Most notable were Bremer, Mohnke, Milius and S Mueller. Mohnke was also heavily suspected of involvement in the execution of British POWs at Wormhoudt in 1940, so no excuse of being 'brutalised' on the Eastern Front can be made here. So my issue is that as there were so many named as suspects, it would be highly unlikely that they would have all made the decision individually to stop the large scale executions.

I have seen the British/Canadian Prosecution file (TS26/856) which includes interrogations of German POWs and eyewitness testimony from Allied soldiers, it also includes Kurt Meyers interrogation, he was asked if the Canadians had killed his men unlawfully, but he denied this and even said that any who escaped were well treated. This may have been a ploy as he was denying that his troops had committed any unlawful killings at all and at the time this file was published, the bodies in the Abbey Ardenne had not been found.

Secondly,I do have a problem with Anthony Beevor's piece in the Daily Mail of June 3rd as it was this particular report that got me into researching the allegations against Kurt Meyer in the first place. He stated in this piece:

" Kurt Meyer, the divisonal commander, had shot 50 Jews near Modlin in Poland in 1939. Later, during the invasion of the Soviet Union, he ordered a village near Kharkov to be burned to the ground. All its inhabitants were murdered."

There is some judicious word changing in this piece, in his book 'D Day battle for Normandy' on page 181 if memory serves me right....Beevor wrote that Meyer was 'accused' of killing 50 Jews.....and 'accused' of burning a village......

So I'm slightly sceptical about the other details when an author is word changing like this just when his book is being launched...

However as an aside, I have found a lot of evidence in relation to these allegations and if anyone is interested in that story, feel free to PM me. While doing that research, I focused mainly on the Eastern Front activity and skipped over the Normandy parts of the files, but as I say, I'm now looking into Normandy and hence the post and questions asked.

I know there were reprisal killings and actually its interesting the Beevor states that the Americans has a 'take no prisoner' policy too. I still have trouble trying to believe that this happened whole scale, but that's why I'm trying to dig more. The Germans stated at Bernard Siebkens trial post war that they had found documentation of a dead Canadian on June 7th that indicated the Canadians had a 'take no prisoner' policy. Why Kurt Meyer did not bring this up at his interrogation is a mystery as it could have formed some defence albeit no justification in my opinion. Other German POWs stated in their interrogations that they had heard that the Allies were taking no SS prisoners but again its unclear if this story had been fed to the HJ before battle to make them fight to the death or that it started after the fighting began.

Thanks again for posting and any further insights welcome.

Balaclava1991

boomchicawawa wrote: »

Thanks for replies and insights. I have a few niggles though. I have not heard about any large scale Allied killing of 12th SS at all in the campaign, and not especially in the first few days that might warrant a reprisal of large scale executions. Can you give details of this if you have a source, tks. Also most the men who were accused of the execution style killlings (that is the killing after surrender and after interrogation back at HQs as opposed to small scale reprisal killings) survived the war. Most notable were Bremer, Mohnke, Milius and S Mueller. Mohnke was also heavily suspected of involvement in the execution of British POWs at Wormhoudt in 1940, so no excuse of being 'brutalised' on the Eastern Front can be made here. So my issue is that as there were so many named as suspects, it would be highly unlikely that they would have all made the decision individually to stop the large scale executions.

I have seen the British/Canadian Prosecution file (TS26/856) which includes interrogations of German POWs and eyewitness testimony from Allied soldiers, it also includes Kurt Meyers interrogation, he was asked if the Canadians had killed his men unlawfully, but he denied this and even said that any who escaped were well treated. This may have been a ploy as he was denying that his troops had committed any unlawful killings at all and at the time this file was published, the bodies in the Abbey Ardenne had not been found.

Secondly,I do have a problem with Anthony Beevor's piece in the Daily Mail of June 3rd as it was this particular report that got me into researching the allegations against Kurt Meyer in the first place. He stated in this piece:

" Kurt Meyer, the divisonal commander, had shot 50 Jews near Modlin in Poland in 1939. Later, during the invasion of the Soviet Union, he ordered a village near Kharkov to be burned to the ground. All its inhabitants were murdered."

There is some judicious word changing in this piece, in his book 'D Day battle for Normandy' on page 181 if memory serves me right....Beevor wrote that Meyer was 'accused' of killing 50 Jews.....and 'accused' of burning a village......

So I'm slightly sceptical about the other details when an author is word changing like this just when his book is being launched...

However as an aside, I have found a lot of evidence in relation to these allegations and if anyone is interested in that story, feel free to PM me. While doing that research, I focused mainly on the Eastern Front activity and skipped over the Normandy parts of the files, but as I say, I'm now looking into Normandy and hence the post and questions asked.

I know there were reprisal killings and actually its interesting the Beevor states that the Americans has a 'take no prisoner' policy too. I still have trouble trying to believe that this happened whole scale, but that's why I'm trying to dig more. The Germans stated at Bernard Siebkens trial post war that they had found documentation of a dead Canadian on June 7th that indicated the Canadians had a 'take no prisoner' policy. Why Kurt Meyer did not bring this up at his interrogation is a mystery as it could have formed some defence albeit no justification in my opinion. Other German POWs stated in their interrogations that they had heard that the Allies were taking no SS prisoners but again its unclear if this story had been fed to the HJ before battle to make them fight to the death or that it started after the fighting began.

Thanks again for posting and any further insights welcome.

Under the Geneva convention prisoners of war have to be fed and housed just as the captors are.

The priority for the Allied troops in Normandy was to expand the bridgehead and get as many bullets and shells over the Channel from Britain to keep their men fighting. Food water and the evacuation of the wounded was next. The welfare of POWs would have been much less of a priority. If some soldiers were murdering prisoners and many officers were turning a blind eye you can imagine that in the middle of a horrific battle where men on both sides were killing each other anyway that holding war crimes trials of men who were needed to plug gaps in the lines would have been a nonsense.

In the movie Apocalypse Now, Capt Willard says sarcastically about the Vietnam War : "Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500."

boomchicawawa

I take your point indeed, the reprisals and attrition make unpalatable reading for non combatants and the 'blind eye' policy would have been used by every side on every front I'm sure. Kurt Meyer was quite disdainful of having 'armchair generals' stand in judgement over him, he only had respect for General H Foster who had fought against Meyers 12th SS, he asserted that only men who had fought in battle would understand the conditions and stresses on the troops, and indeed it was because of these very 'grey areas' that Meyers death sentence was commuted as the Canadians felt that they too had been guilty of such conduct on other fronts.

But the fact of the matter remains that no one from the Allied side stood trial for the unlawful killing of German POWs (as far as I know, I am happy to be corrected on this score if anyone has the evidence) and the feeling is that the executions by the HJ went above and beyond what the 'normal' grey area of unlawful killing.

Balaclava1991

boomchicawawa wrote: »

I take your point indeed, the reprisals and attrition make unpalatable reading for non combatants and the 'blind eye' policy would have been used by every side on every front I'm sure. Kurt Meyer was quite disdainful of having 'armchair generals' stand in judgement over him, he only had respect for General H Foster who had fought against Meyers 12th SS, he asserted that only men who had fought in battle would understand the conditions and stresses on the troops, and indeed it was because of these very 'grey areas' that Meyers death sentence was commuted as the Canadians felt that they too had been guilty of such conduct on other fronts.

But the fact of the matter remains that no one from the Allied side stood trial for the unlawful killing of German POWs (as far as I know, I am happy to be corrected on this score if anyone has the evidence) and the feeling is that the executions by the HJ went above and beyond what the 'normal' grey area of unlawful killing.

Some Western Allied troops behaved brutally - for instance rape of French women was rife and killing of surrendering Germans was rife - but compared to the unrestrained violence of the Nazis and the terrible retribution the Soviets inflicted on the German people its a storm a tea cup.
A number of American soldiers were executed for rape and murder but the majority of them were blacks.
Rear echelon troops were the worst offenders when it came to crime and corruption and many of them made fortunes from the black market.

boomchicawawa

I think its only now with the time and distance that has elapsed that the crimes of Allied troops are being more openly discussed, and in fairness to Anthony Beevor he was about the first UK author to publish such allegations. There are published accounts of French civilians who were incensed with the Carpet bombing of villages in Normandy during the liberation and of Brothel Madame's bemoaning the loss of custom from the 'civilised' SS as opposed to the undisciplined US troops. All these accounts have only slowly come to light in the past decade and they put add to the 'grey' that exists in the old black and white version that was so long portrayed by the Allied media. I find these aberrations very intriguing.

Stovepipe

there was an allegation that the Canadians had strapped live HJ onto their tanks and it went downhill from there..........there is also a documented case where FJ shot the surviving crews of Wasp flamethrowers and it allegedly resulted in a direct exchange between the OCs of the units to the effect that further execution of PoWs would result in, at the very least, totally unrestricted warfare, ie, no holds barred with regard to PoWs and that postwar charges would follow and it was also pointed out to the FJ commander that the Germans were frequent users of flameweapons since the start of the war and were in no psoition to complain...how true this is, I don't know, but it is said to have been told about in a Regimental War Diary.

regards
S

Manach

The mistreatment of civilians/POWs in war, from a very modern legal perpective is of course wrong. But in the long history of warfare, this is the norm not the exception: Confiscations, hostage taking, pillage etc [K. Nabulsi, Traditions of War, (Oxford, 2005].
However, in general the Western Allied forces behave well withing that theatre of operations, both at the front and behind the lines. There were no 'Commissioner' type orders that were issued and accepted by regular army and civil infractions were on the most part dealt with - offhand, mentioned in Sandford's 'Endgame, 1945'

boomchicawawa

Thanks guys, your comments and insights are very welcome. I have heard about the lashing of Germans to the front of an armoured vehicle and there appears to have been a reprisal carried out for this, but not a large scale one. This is why it is puzzling that the large scale killings, (over 10 in groups) ended on the German side, instead of escalating so early on. It had to have been an order from Witt or higher that put a stop to it on the German side, I can think of no other reason, but why was this not made public after the war? Is there evidence that other divisions besides the HJ encountered this 'take no prisoner' policy? Was it against the German forces in general or only against Waffen SS troops ?

BlaasForRafa

The officer lashed to the front of the British armoured car was actually from the Panzer Lehr division, he was the commander of the divisions artillery regiment and was captured with some of his staff while scouting new positions for his unit. The commander was lashed to an armoured car as a human shield while the other command staff were machine-gunned. Where the HJ came in was that it was members of Mohnke's 26th panzergrenadier regiment that found a survivor of the killings.

http://books.google.ie/books?id=zAbDS7uLVIMC&pg=PT114&lpg=PT114&dq=inns+of+court+regiment+war+crime&source=bl&ots=01uw0weejA&sig=nny6oFDAaNX2q6cbURzXumkuL4I&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pzaMUvHKDqTE7Aa06YGIDQ&ved=0CEoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=inns%20of%20court%20regiment%20war%20crime&f=false

boomchicawawa

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

The officer lashed to the front of the British armoured car was actually from the Panzer Lehr division, he was the commander of the divisions artillery regiment and was captured with some of his staff while scouting new positions for his unit. The commander was lashed to an armoured car as a human shield while the other command staff were machine-gunned. Where the HJ came in was that it was members of Mohnke's 26th panzergrenadier regiment that found a survivor of the killings.

Yes, this account also appears in K Myers book 'Grenadiers', if was for an alleged reprisal that Bernard Siebken (12th SS HJ) stood trial post war. Siebken was apparently under orders from Mohnke and many feel Mohnke should have been hung instead of Siebken. The Panzer Lehr fought side by side with the HJ and K Meyer told his interrogators that in the first few days of the fighting he came across the bodies of P. L. men who had been executed (not the men in the above account), he denied that there had been a reprisal for this killing (obviously) he said he reported it to higher command.

I am hoping to read more on Mohnke in the book 'Hitlers last General' by Ian Sayer/Douglas Botting. Mohnke was featured in 'the Downfall' he was the SS officer that lead the last group from the Bunker and was then surrounded by Soviet forces as some of the group shot themselves. He spent 10 years in Soviet captivity and was surprisingly released by them, he lived freely to see the new millennium but with the English press always lurking in the shadows.

boomchicawawa

This is the evidence given at the Siebken trial.

“Colonel Meyer-Detring, who had been the intelligence chief on the staff of the German C-in-C on the Western Front, Field Marshal von Rundstedt, stated in the witness-stand that at the very beginning of the Allied landing he twice received documents through channels proving that the Canadian army did not intend to take any prisoners. ‘I specially remember the notes in the pocket-book of an officer killed in action’ Colonel Meyer-Detring told the Court ‘-I cannot know with certainty whether he was Canadian or British – containing an extract from some order concerning the invasion. In these notes I sound the sentence: ‘No prisoners are to be taken’

On the same question the next witness, Hubert Meyer, who had been chief operations officer on the divisional staff of the 12th SS Panzer Division, stated that on 7th June 1944 a notebook was found on a Canadian Captain containing notes on the pre-invasion briefing. ‘Apart from tactical instructions, ‘Hubert Meyer told the court ‘these notes also contained rules on the actual fighting. These rules stated: ‘Prisoner are not to be taken’. Meyer affirmed that he had personally seen this notebook and had handed it over to the Commander of the Seventh Army, Colonel-General Dollman, to be forwarded to a higher authority. He had also seen the minutes of the interrogation of other prisoners, officers and other ranks made during their interrogation by the divisional staff. ‘They confirmed the fact that they had received orders from their commanding officers not to take any prisoners,’ Meyer stated. ‘One of them stated they were not to take prisoners whenever these would be in their way. These violations of the rules of war mainly took place during the initial period’.

The next witness was Lt-Col von Zastrow, who had been intelligence chief on the staff of General Lew Geyr von Schweppenburg, the Commander of Panzer Group West. (Evidence given of Germans being shot unlawfully)….von Zastrow also described his interrogation of a Canadian Captain who had been taken prisoner in the Somme region later in the campaign in France. As the captain had belonged to the same unit which had been found in possession of the incriminating orders immediately after the landing, and had been guilty of corresponding violations of the rules of war, he was charged with these offences under International law. To the question whether he had any knowledge of the shooting of German prisoners of war, this Captain had replied that he had heard that violations had taken place, but later on strict orders had been given threatening severe punishment for such actions. “
(Hitler's last General. Ian Sayer/Douglas Botting - pages 202/203)

There was also evidence given about the 'lashing of human shields' to the armoured vehicle as per previous post. It is worth noting that there were many very gruesome and inhuman evidence about how the HJ treated the Canadians. Most were shot execution style after capture which was totally against the rules of the Geneva Convention which Germany had signed. But for many years the accounts from the German side was ignored, I publish the above as it is not as well known in the English language world but for anyone interested in this subject there is many accounts of what happened to the Canadian troops online and in english language books including : Conduct Unbecoming: The Story of the Murder of Canadian Prisoners of War in Normandy - Howard Margolian