With the D-Day anniversary almost upon us, the UK press is full of 'comment', some good, a lot...well, not so good. [img]graemlins/no.gif[/img]

The 'Sunday Telegraph' ( a 'serious' newspaper ) carried an anti-war article yesterday ( 'The Huge Cost Of D-Day' ) by someone called Kevin Myers. In it he states the following : -

'Men of Kurt Meyer's abominable 12th ( Hitlerjugend ) Division would routinely tie British and Candian prisoners of war to trees and cut their throats. And as the battle progressed, Meyer's SS men used to strap parcels of explosives to themselves and blow themselves up beside British tanks'.

Is this true ?

I know that we've already discussed the Canadian/12 SS atrocity subject on the forum previously and it is known that prisoners were shot ( eg at the Abbaye d'Ardenne and elsewhere ). But I cannot recall the 'human bomb' story from any other source.

Anyone else ever heard of this ?

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

He may be refering to Emil Durr, who used a satchel charge (?) to destroy a Churchill Crocodile in Normandy. He features in the book Infantry Aces of the Reich by Gordon Williamson, will dig it off the bookcase and post more but the basics of it are the explosives kept falling off and Emil Durr decided to hold them on to ensure the crocodile exploded. He was fatally (not surprising) injured in the attempt. Sounds like a nice piece of propagande by the journalist, a twisting of the truth, so to speak. Is their an email address for the paper or the writer? I would like to set him straight...

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"Watch that Fu*ker, he'll 'ave someones eye out!" King Harold at Hastings 1066.

Interestingly there is also been a book released about so-called allied attrocities. Can't remember the title but would be an interesting read methinks.

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Thoughts on Military History
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Ross' Military Modelling and Art

Many thanks for the correct info, RedBaron.

I might have guessed that this was ignorant distortion. Of course, 'suicide bombers' has a nice, modern topical ring so - hey, the Waffen-SS must have done it, right ? They probably bit babies heads off, too..... [img]graemlins/no.gif[/img]

How many people will read something like that and be convinced that it's 'right' ?

Sadly, the perpetrator of this article does not give an email address so it appears that he won't be sharing his source with us.....

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

What a surprise! will post up Emil Durr's citation as a seperate topic... its quite good, very gallant, not a 'suicide bomber' but a determined young man, trying anything to save his comrades.

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"Watch that Fu*ker, he'll 'ave someones eye out!" King Harold at Hastings 1066.

I have an email address, the article was repeated in the Irish Times... Am going to write to them...

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"Watch that Fu*ker, he'll 'ave someones eye out!" King Harold at Hastings 1066.

Go for it, RB. I think that this was one of the most disgraceful distortions I've read over the D-Day commemorative period.... [img]graemlins/no.gif[/img]

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

My letter to the Times...


Dear Editor,

I have read this article in both the english and irish times and have found part of it to be the sensationalist propaganda usually associated with the tabloid press.

I would like to state my background before discussing Mr Myers comments. I have a Masters and Honours degree in War Studies, I teach the subject at University level and teach on a university Normandy module that conducts a field trip to Normandy each year. I have performed interviews with veterans of both sides and have written two research papers directly concerned with Normandy: Waffen-SS Combat Effectiveness in the Normandy Campaign and A Comparative Study of Airborne Operations in World War Two. On a personal level my family served in the war, on both sides, and I have a long standing interest in the Second Worls War.

I do not normally feel the need to 'put pen to paper' but in the case of this article, I can see no other option. The passage that deeply concerns me is as follows:

"The 12th Hitlerjugend SS Division, which made its entrance late on D-day, was a truly abominable force, and foreshadowed the methods of modern zealots. Under the awesomely terrible General Klaus Meyer, at 34 the youngest divisional commander of the war, it routinely mudered its prisoners - mostly Canadian - by tying them to trees and cutting their throats. Some SS soldiers would strap on explosive charges and blow themselves up beside British tanks".

Let me break this passage down further in order to highlight the problems. Firstly, let us look at the basic mistakes in the text. The commander of 12th SS Panzer Division 'Hitlerjugend' on the 6th June was SS-BrigadeFuhrer Fritz Witt. Not as stated by Myers 'Klaus Meyer'. Indeed he even fails to get his name right, it should be Kurt Meyer. Kurt Meyer did take command of the Division, but on the death of Fritz Witt on 14th June.

Next, that the division routinely murdered their prisoners. What evidence does Mr. Myers have for these claims? It is well documented that atrocities did occur between the 12th SS and Canadians but this was on both sides. Mr Myers makes no mention of atrocities committed by Allied troops. His description belies that it was a fate destined for anyone taken prisoner by this German unit which was clearly not the case. I do not dispute that the unit committed terrible acts, but his description of them is somewhat misleading to the general public.

What I find utterly disgraceful is Mr Myers veiled attempts at comparing the 12th SS to sucide bombers of the present time. This is truly unwholesome and smacks of the propaganda issued during the war. I would be interested in seeing the primary source research that Mr Myers has on this. SS soldiers did NOT strap themselves up with explosives to detonate enemy tanks. Either Mr Myers has confused them with the Japanese sucicide efforts or he has twisted the one story that bears a slight resembalance to this: the story of Emil Durr, a young NCO in the 12th SS. I have decided to repeat an abridged version of Emil Durr's citatation for his postumous 'Knights Cross'. It reads:

"At dawn on the 26th June the Allies began a tremendous bombardment of the 12th SS Divisions position. Shortly after the barrage ended, Durr's battalion HQ came under attack by 15 shermans, the HQ force had only light automatic weapons and as if the situation was not desperate enough a Churchill crocodile flame-thrower appeared on the scene.

Emil Durr volunteered to tackle the Crocodile, picked up a panzerfaust and jumped over a wall, took aim and missed. The enemy tanks opend fire on him and he was hit in the chest, but made it to cover. He found a second panzerfaust and despite his wound set off again after the Crocodile. The Allied tanks alerted to his presence drove him back with MG fire, and his second shot also missed. Realising that if the CRocodile reached their position they were finished, he set off again, this time with a satchel charge.

He managed to reach the tank without being hit and placed the charge on its hull. The charge fell off, Durr ran forward, picked it up and held it to the tanks hull. The charge exploded and the tank burst into flames. Durr was blown some distance and was pulled into cover by his comrades, his limbs mutilated, fatally wounded.

"Is it gone?" he asked his comrades and then asked them to say hello to his wife and children before he passed away.

Durr had already won the Iron Cross first and second class in the Normandy battles and the award for the Knights Cross was approved on the 23rd August. He was the first junior NCO in the division to win the award."

If this is the case then Mr Myers has corrupted the actions of a courageous young man trying, as did many soldiers, to save the lives of his comrades. To term such actions as sucicide bombers and to place them in the same model as the terrorists of today is a dispicable act, would the same have been said if they were the actions of a British soldier? I find it utterly foul that Mr Myers should disrespect the fallen soldiers of the German forces. Even though they fought for an utterly evil regime this does not mean that they are fair game to attempt to relate D-Day to the actions in Iraq and the present day. There simply is no comparison and Mr Myers is being an utter sensationalist at the expense of dead soldiers who have no voice for themselves.

I used to buy the Times every day. In future I will not. I used to think that the Times was a serious paper, a reporter of the facts. Mr Myers has proved that wrong. Some will ask why we should be bothered by Mr Myers comments. If the lies of Mr Myers are propagated by a new generation then the efforts at reconsiliation are for nothing. If the French can welcome the German Chancellor then perhaps the Times should employ journalists with some experience of military history, rather than those who twist the truth to suit their sensationalist temperatment.

I will end with Dwight Eisenhowers comments on the 12th SS panzer Division;

"In attack or defence they fought to a man with fanactical courage".

I look forward to reading your response, and hope that in future the Times will tell the facts of history and not allow this poorly veiled propaganda to be published. To compare D-Day to the present war on Terror, is in very poor taste. I would be very interested in discussing these points with Mr Myers as I would in viewing his research on the 12th SS for his article. I hope that this letter gains a response and an apology to the fallen of both sides. Why should we not remeber those German soldiers who scarificed themselves for such an evil regime?

Yours

Piers Brand, MPhil, BA Hons.


Bet ya I dont get a response!!!

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"Watch that Fu*ker, he'll 'ave someones eye out!" King Harold at Hastings 1066.

Excellent letter Baron, in fact I would pay for you to send it to the Telegraph as well!

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

Lets see if the Times replies... [img]graemlins/no.gif[/img]

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"Watch that Fu*ker, he'll 'ave someones eye out!" King Harold at Hastings 1066.

Red, how did this turn out? Did the writer or the paper reply? Was your letter published?

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This information has been posted for non-commercial, educational, and research purposes.
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"The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." - Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 19, 1863
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"The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past." - William Faulkner

No, i got no reply or acknowledgment. But thats not much of a surprise really. And they are up to the usual 'dubious' history with their liberation of Paris article this weekend...

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"Watch that Fu*ker, he'll 'ave someones eye out!" King Harold at Hastings 1066.

Red did you even get a time frame that it might be in print ? Surely they could at least do that even if it is some 3-4 months down the road.

Erich ~

Red, do you know if the Times employs an ombudsman whom readers can contact regarding the accuracy or objectivity of the Times' articles?

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This information has been posted for non-commercial, educational, and research purposes.
- - - -
"The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." - Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 19, 1863
- - - -
"The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past." - William Faulkner