Revenge and Vengefulness during the Battle of Normandy (I)

German Fallschirmjäger Feldgendarmerie studying the Normandy terrain

Tiger Commander Leutnant Richard Freiherr von Rosen

Panzerkampfwagen Königstiger n°301 of s.Pz.Abt.503

Both sides frequently failed to observe the Geneva Convention during the Normandy Invasion. It is not as if Allied war crimes are not known - it is just that it tends not to get talked about. The worst of these were the bombing raids on medical stations and ambulance convoys, many of which contained Allied servicemen being treated by the German Red Cross or the DRK. Historian Peter Lieb has found that many U.S. and Canadian units were ordered not to take prisoners during the D-Day landings. If this view is correct it may explain the fate of 64 German prisoners who did not make it to the POW collecting point on Omaha Beach on June 6 1944. An example is the U.S. Army General Maxwell D. Taylor who instructed the men of 101st Airborne Division to take no prisoners according to American historian and Professor Stephen Edward Ambrose. Some 30 German POWs were in fact massacred by U.S. paratroopers at the French village of Audouville-la-Hubert. A documentary made by CBC News confirmed British eyewitness Edward Ashworth's accounts of Canadian troops cutting the throats of German POWs and that Canadian tanks run over German soldiers with their arms in the air during the battle of Normandy. The rumor spread through the entire 12.SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend that the Allies were killing fellow soldiers trying to surrender. In the days and weeks that followed, Canadian soldiers were executed following their capture by men of the Hitlerjugend. SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 25 was responsible for the killing of seven Canadian POWs at its Headquarters at L’Ancienne Abbaye Ardenne. SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke was implicated in the killing of another 35 Canadian POWs, all of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, at Fontenay-le-Pesnel on June 8 1944, though he never faced a trial for any conclusion as to any query of involvement. Canadian war crimes investigators were never able to establish with certainty the units involved, much less the individuals. After WWII, Allied investigations established that separate atrocities were committed by German troops in 31 different incidents involving 134 Canadians, 3 British and 1 American. Top image: German paratroopers wearing military field police gorgets while studying the terrain of Normandy in 1944. Photo by KB Zimmermann. c. Bundesarchiv. Middle image: screenshot from a captured propaganda film showing Tiger commander and Normandy veteran the then Leutnant Baron Richard von Rosen in 1944. In his first encounter with the allied forces in Colombelles on July 11 1944, he succeeded in destroying 12 Sherman tanks and captured two Shermans intact. U.S. NARA. Bottom image: Richard von Rosen's Königstiger n°301 of schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503 getting a camouflaged paint scheme in Mailly-le-Camp in June 1944. Oberleutnant Richard v. Rosen passed away on Oct. 26 2015. Photo by KB Wagner. Credit: Paul Reynolds. c. Bundesarchiv.