Good Family Man

In Germany, Canada's first big war crimes trial was on. In a paneled room in the onetime naval barracks at Aurich (18 miles northwest of Emden), impassive SS Major General Kurt ("Panzer") Meyer, 33, stood trial for his life before a Canadian military court. To five charges against him he answered a crisp nein.

The prosecution had spent 15 months preparing the evidence in the impressive 8,000-word indictment. It charged that Meyer had ordered his men to take no prisoners, had been directly or indirectly responsible for the murder of 48 Canadian soldiers taken in the fierce fighting in the Caen beachhead area after Dday.

For the first seven days, prosecution witnesses were heard: Canadian soldiers who had seen the shooting of fellow prisoners, former members of Meyer's regiment, some French civilians. Much of the testimony was conflicting, some inconclusive. One star witness, Jan Jesionek, a 19-year-old Pole who had been drafted into the German Army, told a damning story:

One June day at his Abbaye d'Ardenne headquarters, General Meyer was notified that seven Canadians had been taken prisoner. He exploded: "They eat up our rations." Shortly afterwards, as Jesionek was washing himself nearby, he saw the seven Canadians led from a stable, then shot from behind by a black-helmeted SS corporal as they walked into the Abbey park.

Unmoved by this evidence, General Meyer strode into the witness box, smoothed his grey-green tunic, gesticulated freely through a voluble denial. He claimed that he had not known about the shooting of the Canadians for three days, had been "incensed" by it.

When the trial recessed for Christmas, there were few in the courtroom who doubted Meyer's fate. He had an ally in his wife, who sat listening tensely as her husband's life hung in the balance. To newsmen she said: "He is a good family man."

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