Kharkiv
Kharkiv is the second largest city in Ukraine and is being shelled and bombarded by the Russians in their 2022 “Special Military Operation”. Kharkiv was shelled and bombarded by the NAZIs in WW2.
Kharkiv, known as Kharkov during WW 2 Soviet Era, was attacked and occupied by the NAZIs in October 1941. Immediately, the Mobile Death Squads, the Einsatzgruppen, arrived and began killing people. The NAZI Death Squads killed thousands. They focused their brutality on Jews but indiscriminately killed communists, prisoners of war (POWs) and average citizens.
Battles at Kharkiv (Kharkov) and Waffen SS Member Kurt Meyer
Kurt Meyer participated in the World War operations against the Soviet Union. He was no stranger to NAZI ideology. At age 25 Meyer joined the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, the “LSSAH”. The Unit was Hitler’s personal bodyguard. Meyer’s NAZI Party membership card was 316,714. His SS card was #17,559.
The ‘LSSAH’ killed thousands of POWs on the Eastern (Soviet) Front. In Kharkiv (Kharkov) they murdered wounded Soviets troops in the hospital. After capturing Kharkiv they changed the name of the city square from Dzerzhinsky Square to Platz der Leibstandarte.
When two SS Officers were wounded near a small village the LSSAH killed more than 800 men, women and children. The Waffen SS, which included the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler were brutal.
Kharkiv was re-taken by Soviet troops in 1942. The NAZI ‘Donets Campaign’ of February and March 1943 recaptured the city. The killing intensified and most of the city was destroyed.
Soviet troops recaptured Kharkiv in December 1943. They had a quick War Crimes trial, found Wilhelm Langfeld, 52, Reinhard Retzlaff, 36, and Hans Ritz, 24, guilty and hanged them the next day.
WW2 NAZI War Criminal Kurt Meyer
Waffen SS member Kurt Meyer commanded the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth). They played a role in the Kharkiv atrocities. ‘Panzer’ Meyer escaped justice in Ukraine when his unit as sent to France in 1944 where the SS continued to commit atrocities.
In Normandy Waffen SS Standartenführer Kurt Meyer, commanded of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment and the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth). Kurt Meyer’s SS soldiers were responsible for the murder of up to 156 Canadian Prisoners of War.
Canadian Soldiers
Most War Crimes are committed by ‘special units’ within the military. The Waffen SS was such a Unit. The Waffen SS was an army within the regular Army. They were brutal and operated independently.
In 1944 Standartenführer Kurt Meyer and his units moved west in anticipation of the Battle of Normandy. As commander of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment and 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend he was responsible for the actions of his soldiers.
Murder of Canadian Prisoners of War at the Ardenne Abbey near Caen, France – June 1944
Quote from Veteran’s Affairs Canada
“As many as 156 Canadian prisoners of war are believed to have been executed by the 12th SS Panzer Division (the Hitler Youth) in the days and weeks following the D-Day landings. In scattered groups, in various pockets of the Normandy countryside, they were taken aside and shot.
“A total of 20 (18?) Canadians were executed near Villons-les-Buissons in the Abbaye d'Ardenne, a massive collection of mediaeval buildings -- including an early Gothic church and several farm buildings -- encircled by walls and surrounded by grain fields. This was where Kurt Meyer, Commander of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment (of the 12th Panzer Division), had established his headquarters.”
As the Normandy Invasion advanced: “The Abbey quickly filled with POWs captured during and after the fighting. Ten of them were randomly picked and dispatched to the chateau adjacent to the abbey; the rest were moved to Bretteville-sur-Odon. An 11th POW, Lieutenant Thomas Windsor was brought out to join the group after the first ten men had been selected. That evening, the 11 POWs were taken to the chateau's garden and killed. Several months later, six of the bodies were discovered with crushing blows to the head. Four more were also found afterwards; it was evident they had been shot in the head”. (Veterans Affairs Canada)
Meet Lieutenant Thomas Alfred Lee Windsor, Shot as a POW on June 7, 1944
Lt. Windsor was 29 years of age, a member of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment, Royal Canadian Armoured Corps, 27th Armored Regiment. He was born November 10, 1914, in Montreal, Quebec and enlisted on April 27, 1942. “Tom fell in love with and married Roma Helen Jackson, also of Montreal, Quebec.”
Tom is buried in the Bretteville-Sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery. Calvados, France in grave XIV. E. 2.
The 11 executed Canadians were from the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and the 27th Canadian Armoured Regiment. None were from Saskatchewan.
