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| Kurt Meyer | |
|---|---|
| 23 December 1910 – 23 December 1961 (aged 51) | |
 Kurt Meyer. 14 April 1941 |
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| Nickname | Panzer Meyer |
| Place of birth | Jerxheim, Lower Saxony |
| Place of death | Hagen, Germany |
| Allegiance | Germany |
| Years of service | 1930-1945 |
| Rank | Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS |
| Commands held | 14th Anti
Tank Company LSSAH 15th Motor Cycle Company LSSAH 1st SS Reconnaissance Battalion LSSAH SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 25 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend |
| Awards | Knight's
Cross with Oak leaves and Swords German Cross in Gold Iron Cross 1st class Iron Cross 2nd class |
Kurt "Panzer" Meyer (December 23, 1910-December 23, 1961) served as an officer in the Waffen-SS during the Second World War. He saw action in many major battles, including the Invasion of France, Operation Barbarossa, and the Battle of Normandy.
Over the course of his career, Meyer was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, the third-highest military decoration for bravery of the Third Reich. Upon promotion Meyer became one of the youngest divisional commanders in the German Army during the Second World War.
In 'Blood and Honor' by Craig. W.H. Luther, Meyer is described as being 5'10", with 'penetrating' steel-blue eyes and an athletic build. Sepp Dietrich described Meyer as a 'passionate soldier, a classic example of an aggressive and ruthless SS Officer, he pushed his men and himself to the limit'. Meyer was a daring motorcyclist, and during his career favoured motorcycles for communicating with the troops he was commanding, from his actions as Company commander in France in 1940, through Russia, to Normandy, where in 1944 as OC of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend he regularly visited the front lines on a motorcycle. He sustained eighteen broken bones and four concussions during his career, testament to his daredevil personality.
Meyer's record as a brave and daring officer was compromised by his conviction for war crimes committed during the heavy fighting around Caen in 1944, when he was accused of counseling troops under his command to deny quarter to Allied prisoners of war, after which his soldiers shot surrendered Canadians at Meyer's headquarters in Abbey Ardennes. Following the war, he served nine years in British and Canadian prisons. After his release, he became active in the veteran's association HIAG.
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Kurt Adolph Wilhelm Meyer was born in Jerxheim, Duchy of Brunswick (now Lower Saxony) on 23 December 1910. He came from a lower class family, his father being employed as a factory worker. In 1914, his father joined the Imperial German Army and served as an NCO in the First World War, obtaining the rank of Sergeant Major before being discharged for wounds received in battle.
Meyer attended school in Jerxheim. After completing his education, Meyer found work on a factory assembly line, then as a miner. He applied to join the Mecklenburg Landespolizei (Police force), seeing it perhaps as an escape from a labourer's life. He was accepted on 1 October 1929.
Meyer's nickname, "Panzer", has nothing to do with armoured warfare. While in training in the Police Academy at Schwerin, Meyer decided to play a prank on a fellow student. His plan was to throw a pail of water on his classmate from the roof of a two story building, but Meyer slipped and fell. He landed on his feet, but suffered over 20 fractures. He was expected to die, but he recovered to full health. After this, Meyer's classmates christened him "Panzer" because he was as tough as a battle tank.
Meyer joined the NSDAP on 1 September 1930, three years before Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. He then applied to join the Schutzstaffel, commanded by Heinrich Himmler. He was accepted on 15 October 1931, his first posting being to 22. SS-Standarte based in the town of Schwerin. Meyer was commissioned as an SS-Untersturmführer (2nd Lieutenant) in 1932. In May 1934, he was transferred to the SS's most respected unit, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). By September 1936, Meyer had again been promoted, this time to SS-Obersturmführer (1st Lieutenant), and had also taken command of the LSSAH's Anti-Tank unit, 14. Panzerabwehrkompanie. Meyer and the LSSAH took part in the bloodless campaign to annex Austria as a part of the XVI. Armeekorps, and later under General Heinz Guderian in the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Though the command of a static anti-tank company did not suit Meyer at all, he performed admirably during Fall Weiß, the invasion of Poland. The LSSAH was attached to Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt's Heeresgruppe Süd during the campaign. He was shot through the shoulder on 7 September 1939. Despite this, Meyer continued to command the anti-tank company and received the Iron Cross second class on 25 September 1939.
After the campaign in Poland, Meyer requested a more mobile command. He received it in the form of the LSSAH's Motorcycle Reconnaissance company (15 Kradschützenkompanie). He led the LSSAH motorcyclists through the invasion of France and the Low Countries. Commanding the 1st and 2nd platoons were his future comrades Hugo Kraas and Max Wünsche. The LSSAH was attached to General von Wietersheim 's XVI. Armeekorps. During this campaign, Meyer was awarded the Iron Cross first class.
Following the Western Campaign, the 15 Kradschützenkompanie was reorganized into the LSSAH's Aufklärungsabteilung (Reconnaissance Battalion) and Meyer was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer (Major).
Mussolini's ill-fated invasion of the Balkans resulted in the Barbarossa campaign being delayed, and German forces brought to bear on the Yugoslav and Greek forces. Meyer's detachment was to cut off the Greek III Corps, currently retreating from Albania. Meyer's battalion had to storm the formidable Kleisoura Pass, drive for Lake Kastoria and cut off the Greek forces based in the town of Kastoria.
The attack began on 13 April, but by the next day, the attack had stalled in the face of stiff resistance at the Kleisoura pass, near the town of Werjes. The Greek 20th Division was well entrenched in both the town and the heights bordering the pass itself. Meyer organised his battalion into three assault groups, led by himself, Kraas, and Wünsche. The dawn attack resulted in the outer defences being broken by 1100 hours, with Meyer throwing a grenade into a group of his own men to keep the assault moving. By mid afternoon, the town and heights had been cleared and the road to Kastoria was open. The battle for the heights yielded 600 prisoners - all for the loss of only one officer and six men killed, one officer and 17 men wounded. On the 16th, Meyer's battalion penetrated behind the Greek lines and assaulted Kastoria from the south, capturing a further 1,100 prisoners. For these actions, Meyer was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 18 May 1941.
Meyer and his battalion participated in the June 1941 Operation Barbarossa as a part of Heeresgruppe Süd. His lightning quick actions during this campaign gained him the nickname "Der schnelle Meyer" (Speedy Meyer). Meyer ordered his men to literally "charge the guns", which resulted not only in the capture of Mariupol on the Black Sea, but also virtually a whole Soviet division. This was a typical example of Meyer's style of command: daring and brave (Meyer was always at the front of his assaults) though also perhaps reckless. During the invasion, Meyer ordered a village near Kharkov to be burned to the ground. All its inhabitants were murdered.[1]
In October, Meyer fell ill and relinquished command to Kraas. After convalescing with his wife in Berlin, he returned to active duty in January 1942. Soon after returning, he was awarded the German Cross in gold for bravery in combat.
By Meyer's return, the LSSAH had been transformed into SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. After the II SS-Korps had withdrawn from Kharkov, General Paul Hausser ordered its recapture. Eager to reclaim their damaged prestige, the SS launched into the assault. Meyer's reformed SS-Reconnaissance Battalion 1 was constantly in the forefront of the fighting. During the Third Battle of Kharkov, Meyer's battalion frequently co-operated with Wünsche's SS-Panzer-Regiment 1, Theodor ‘Teddy’ Wisch’s SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 2 and Joachim Peiper's III. Battalion, SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 2. These ad hoc Kampfgruppen acted like fire brigades, rushing from one crisis point to another, rescuing trapped German troops and capturing Soviet officers. Meyer’s battalion captured the entire command staff of a Soviet division near Jeremejewka and Aleksandrowka.
In the final phase of the capture of Kharkov, the Leibstandarte's role was to capture the huge central plaza, called Red Square. Meyer, Wünsche and Peiper all led Kampfgruppen which were to take the responsibility of capturing the city. Meyer led his battalion in a high speed charge to the square, capturing part of it before being cut off by Soviet defenders. Meyer and his grenadiers held their ground against vastly larger Soviet forces until they were relieved by Peiper’s Kampfgruppe on 13 March. Together with Peiper’s Kampfgruppe and the rest of Teddy Wisch’s regiment, Meyer’s battalion finally cleared the city centre after a desperate and bloody fight. In honour of this action, Red Square was renamed Platz der Leibstandarte.
The actions of the three SS divisions, Leibstandarte, 2.SS Das Reich and 3.SS Totenkopf, along with the Heer's elite Großdeutschland division, resulted in the blunting of Soviet General Nikolai Vatutin’s offensive and rendering the Soviet Voronezh and South western Fronts impotent. The Third Battle for Kharkov was the last major German victory of the war. For his actions, Meyer became the 195th man to be awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross.
In the summer of 1943, Hitler declared the formation of a new SS division. The 12.SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend was to be filled by members of the Hitler Youth organization born in 1926—all 17-year olds, brought up knowing only the Nazi system. The division's commanding officers were to come from the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. The division was to be commanded by Meyer's old comrade SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Witt, and he was to be joined by Max Wünsche. Despite his desire to lead the Hitlerjugend's Panzer-Regiment, Meyer was selected to command the young Grenadiers of SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 25. Meyer was promoted to SS-Standartenführer (Colonel) on 21 June 1943. Meyer was present during the unit's training at Beverloo in Belgium, and early in 1944, the Hitlerjugend was moved to Hasselt in anticipation of the Allied invasion.
On 6 June 1944, the Allies launched Operation Overlord, the amphibious invasion of France. The Western front came into being. After much confusion, the Hitlerjugend got moving at around 1430 on 6 June, and several units advanced on Sword Beach, until they were halted by fierce naval and anti-tank fire, and by the Allied air cover. Meyer's regiment were ready for combat by 2200 on 7 June. Meyer set up his command post in Ardenne Abbey, whose towers provided excellent view of the rolling fields of Normandy. His first orders were "more realistic" than those of the division; while the division was ordered to break through to the beach, Meyer himself ordered his regiment to take up covering positions during 7 June and await reinforcements.[2] The Canadian Official History described his personal involvement in the battle:
Although Meyer claimed later that only shortage of petrol and ammunition prevented him from carrying the attack on towards the coast, this need not be taken seriously. Indeed, he himself testified that, seeing from his lofty perch "enemy movements deeper in that area"—doubtless the advance of the main body of the 9th Brigade—he came down and rode his motorcycle to the 3rd Battalion to order its C.O. "not to continue the attack north of Buron" (And the Germans did not occupy the latter village that night, in spite of our withdrawal from it. They dug in on a line running south of Buron and through St. Contest. Only towards evening on 8 June did they again enter Buron.) Meyer's 2nd Battalion had been drawn into the fight, north of St. Contest "in the direction of Galmanche". Fierce fighting was going on when Meyer visited the battalion in the early evening; just as he arrived the battalion commander's head was taken off by a tank shot... Meyer ordered both this battalion and the 1st (around Cambes) to go "over from attack to defence".[3]
During their first engagement, the Hitlerjugend of Meyer's regiment proved themselves brave soldiers, destroying 28 Canadian tanks while losing only "5 or 6 tanks" for their efforts, according to what Meyer could recollect when he appeared in court in Aurich after the war. The 27th Canadian Armoured Regiment reported 31 German tanks destroyed, and German casualties were serious enough to halt the SS short of their ultimate objective of pushing back the Allies to the sea. Meyer wrote of this battle:
But what is this? Am I seeing clearly? An enemy tank is pushing through the orchards of Contest! My God! What an opportunity! The tanks are driving right across II Battalion's front! The unit is showing us its unprotected flank. I give orders to all battalions, the artillery and the available tanks. Do not shoot! Open fire on my order only! The commander of our tank regiment has positioned his command vehicle in the garden of the monastery. A wireless link is quickly established with the tank.... Wünsche, commander of the tank regiment, quietly transmits the enemy tank movements. Nobody dares raise his voice. ... An unbearable pressure now rests on me. It will happen soon now. The enemy spearhead pushes past Franqueville and starts across the road. I give the signal for the attack to Wünsche, and can just hear his order, "Achtung! Panzer marsch!" The tension now fades away. There are cracks and flashes near Franqueville. The enemy tank at the head of the spearhead smokes and I watch the crew bailing out. More tanks are torn to pieces with loud explosions.
It was during this period that the shooting of Canadian prisoners occurred. Meyer would later be charged with and convicted of ordering that no prisoners be taken, and also found guilty of responsibility for the shooting of eighteen prisoners of war.
Days of furious fighting followed, and over the next two weeks, the regiment was to suffer badly in the battles for Carpiquet Aérodrome and the villages of Contest, Buron, and Authie.
On 14 June, SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Witt was killed when British naval gunfire hit his command post. Meyer, as the next highest ranking officer, was promoted to divisional commander; at 33 years of age, he was the youngest German divisional commander of the war.[4] Meyer managed to hold the line north of Caen in spite of several British and Canadian offensives. By 4 July, the division was reduced to a 'weak battlegroup'. Despite this, Meyer still clung to the Carpiquet Airfield while wave after wave of Allied troops and tanks tried to wrest it from his grasp. By 9 July, Meyer realised he had to withdraw his division or watch it be annihilated. On the 10th, despite Hitler's 'No Retreat' order, Meyer ordered that the Hitlerjugend be pulled back behind the Orne River, abandoning Caen to the Allies. In just over one month of fighting, the Hitlerjugend had been reduced from 22,000 men to just under 5,000.
While the division rested and refitted, Meyer went to visit Erwin Rommel, the overall commander of the Army Group. When he requested air cover, Rommel replied:
Why are you telling me this? Do you believe that I drive around with my eyes closed? I have written report after report. In Africa I drew attention to the fatal impact of the fighter bombers, but the gentlemen in Berlin, of course, know much better, they simply don't believe my reports any longer! Something has to happen! The war in the west has to end! But what will happen in the east?
Later that afternoon, Rommel's own staff car was strafed and he was wounded. Soon after this, he was forced into committing suicide for alleged complicity in the July 20 Plot to assassinate Hitler.
The Canadians began their assault on Falaise, meaning to meet up with the Americans who were circling behind the German lines, hoping to surround and destroy the German divisions around Caen. Meyer realised at this point that further resistance could only end with death or capture; nonetheless he set up his battered division to attempt to defend the road to Falaise. After several days fighting, Meyer realised again that he had to try to save the remainder of his division, reduced to about 1,500 men. He led his men in an attempt to break out of the Falaise pocket. Here he speaks of the terror felt when surrounded:
The misery around us screams to high heaven. Refugees and soldiers from the broken German armies look helplessly at the bombers flying continuously overhead. It is useless to take cover from the bursting shells and bombs. Concentrated in such a confined space, we offer unique targets for the enemy air power. The forest areas are full of wounded soldiers and the sundered bodies of horses. Death shadows us at every step. We are lying as if on a salver in full view and range of the 4th Canadian and 1st Polish Divisions' guns. It is impossible to miss.
Despite this, Meyer made it out of the Falaise pocket. On 27 August, he became the 91st soldier to be awarded the Swords to the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves. Meyer and the remnants of the Hitlerjugend joined the retreat across the Seine River and into Belgium. On 6 September 1944, in the town of Durnal near Namur in Belgium, he was captured by partisans and handed over to American forces disguised as a German Army captain, knowing he would likely otherwise have been identified as an SS officer and killed. Because he was missing and presumed dead, he was retroactively promoted to Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen SS effective from September 1.
Meyer was held as a prisoner of war until December 1945, when in the town of Aurich Germany he was charged with five war crimes.
After a brief trial, he was convicted of three of the five charges:
The War Crimes Commission prosecutor for the trial was Canadian Army Lt. Col. Clarence S. Campbell.
He was sentenced by Major General H.W. Foster, commander of the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade and his opponent during the battle of Normandy, to death by firing squad. When later considering Meyer's plea for clemency Major General Christopher Vokes conceded that "there isn't a general or colonel on the Allied side that I know of who hasn't said, 'Well, this time we don't want any prisoners.'"[5] Vokes commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment in January 1946, whereby he stated, "When I studied the evidence against Meyer I found it to be a mass of circumstantial evidence". This was, however, in spite of eyewitness testimony by members of the 25th SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment that they were ordered to take no prisoners. However, these eyewitnesses had been interrogated heavily, one refused to make this accusation in court and the other could not be found at all.
Meyer served five years in Dorchester Penitentiary, in New Brunswick, Canada. He was then transferred to a British military prison in Werl, West Germany. During his time in jail, he corresponded with several Canadian officers who had faced him in Normandy, and continued to keep in contact with some of these former adversaries after his release.
After nine years imprisonment, he was released on 7 September 1954 and after several unsuccessful job applications went to work for the Andreas Brewery in Hagen.
Meyer became very active in the Waffen-SS veteran's organization HIAG, and was very outspoken in its battle to have war pensions awarded to former members of the Waffen-SS.
In 1957, his war biography Grenadiers was published. Meyer used the book to defend himself from the war-crimes charges of which he had been convicted, arguing in the final chapters for the rights of Waffen-SS veterans, his Grenadiers.
Suffering from failing health, Meyer had three mild strokes in 1961, eventually dying of a heart attack in Hagen, Westphalia on 23 December, 1961, his 51st birthday.
His release from prison and the ensuing celebrations led to a song written by Eric Blau in the form of a parody of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” The song, entitled “Twelve Days” attempts to highlight the presence of unreconstructed Nazis in postwar Germany. It was recorded by the Chad Mitchell Trio on their 1963 album Singin’ Our Mind. The sleeve notes, written by Henrietta Yurchenco, the folk music editor of Musical America and the American Record Guide, state:
This was inspired by a news item in the Herald Tribune on December 25, 1961, stating that SS Major General Kurt “Panzer” Meyer, a favourite of Adolf Hitler, died of a heart attack. Meyer had been sentenced to death for the wanton slaying of thousands [sic] of Allied prisoners. His sentence was commuted to life, then reduced to 14 years, with time off for good behavior. Freed in 1954, he was given a hero’s welcome in his home town, Muchen Gladbach [sic]. Former members of his division staged a celebration, choirs sang in the streets and a torchlight procession wound through the ancient cobblestones of the town far into the night.
| Military offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Witt |
Commander of 12th SS Panzer
Division Hitlerjugend June 14, 1944-September 6, 1944 |
Succeeded by SS-Obersturmbannführer Hubert Meyer |
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   | Formal War Crimes Charge Sheet - Kurt Meyer Charge Sheet |
| | Feldgrau - The History of the German Armed Forces in WWII - Feldgrau.com - The German Armed Forces 1919-1945 |
| | Axis History Factbook - Axis History Factbook: Home |
| | d'Ardenne Massacres Memorial - Abbaye d'Ardenne - Veterans Affairs Canada |
| | Abbaye d'Ardenne Massacres Memorial - Veterans Affairs Canada - Anciens Combattants Canada |
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