Prosecuting Kurt Meyer: The Abbaye d’Ardenne War Crimes Trial

Between 7 and 17 June 1944, the German 12th SS Panzer Division (Hitler Jugend) executed 156 soldiers of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, who had been captured in the first ten days after the D-Day landings. The murders varied from on-the-spot battlefield executions to “cold, calculated, and systematic acts of mass murder.”¹ After the war, Canadian authorities tried only one man – SS Major General Kurt Meyer – for two score of these murders. That trial and the subsequent treatment of Meyer fuelled consternation and controversy in Canada. The trial represented the high water mark in Canada’s brief foray into war crimes