Kurt Adolf Wilhelm Meyer was born in Jerxheim, Germany on December 23 1910. He was the son of an Army veteran of World War I who eventually died of complications resulting from wounds he received during the war. At the age of nineteen, Kurt Meyer became a member of the Landespolizei in 1929, serving as a police officer until 1934. He received the nickname Panzermeyer for an exploit which did not take place during World War II and had nothing to do with the military. In 1929, when Meyer began training at the Police Academy at Schwerin, he tried to play a prank on a fellow policeman, planning to dump a pail of water on the man as he passed by a building. Unfortunately, Meyer accidentally slipped from the roof of the building and fell nearly three stories, landing on his feet. He suffered more than twenty fractures and was not expected to live. In spite of his injures, he amazingly recovered, although almost losing a leg. Out of admiration for his physical toughness, his respectful fellow policemen began calling him
Panzermeyer.
Meyer joined the Nazi Party in 1930 and was accepted in the SS on October 15 1931. The fiery Meyer flourished under
Sepp Dietrich's command. He showed aggressiveness and understanding of the proper employment of mobile units and won the Knight's Cross for his leadership and accomplishments during the Greek campaign. The fighting against Canadian troops during the days after D-Day in
Normandy 1944 was bitter and marked by brutalities on both sides.
Meyer was placed on trial for the death of a number of Canadian prisoners near his divisional headquarters, convicted and sentenced to death by a Canadian Army court. The sentence was subsequently changed to life imprisonment after being evaluated by a Canadian court of inquiry. He was finally released on September 6 1954. After his release, Meyer said:
A United Europe is now the only answer. He became very active in HIAG, the organization for former members of the Waffen-SS and his excellent memoirs
Grenadiere were published. The Knight's Cross with Oakleaves and Swords holder SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS Kurt Meyer died of a heart attack while celebrating his 51st birthday in Hagen, Westfalen on December 23 1961. Widely admired by men who served with him, as well as other SS veterans, his funeral was attended by over 15,000 former Waffen-SS soldiers. A cushion-bearer bore his medals. Left image: the 30-year-old Kurt Meyer, here as SS-Sturmbannführer and commander of Aufklärungs-Abteilung Leibstandarte SS in May 1941. Commons: Bundesarchiv. Right image: replica of the Knight's Cross with Oakleaves and Swords. Recently in 2017 an original 3-piece was sold for approx. US$75,000. Fair use.
Of the estimated 13-15 million men who served in the German Armed Forces in World War II only 160 were awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak-leaves and Swords.
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ReplyDeleteWhat is known is that Meyer even ordered an investigation into the killing of the POWs in Normandy, but the battle was too fluid for this to be carried out. Before the Canadian war crimes trial began Meyer was convinced that it was to be a show with the outcome already decided. He made no excuse for his Nazi orientation, and was convinced that the Allies should join the defeated Germany to push Russia out of eastern Europe before it was too late. Meyer's memoirs "Grenadiers" is well worth a read. Quite biased of course, but very detailed and well written. He would have been a national hero if he had been American rather than German.
ReplyDeleteGrenadiers is an excellent historical reference book. It provides another viewpoint to the Allied histories of the war. Kurt Meyer obviously tells his story from a German perspective, but is generally fair enough and certainly not the raving Nazi that some might expect.
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