Recollections Concerning Canadian War Crimes Investigations and Prosecutions
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Canadian Military History Volume 11 Issue 4 Article 7 2002 Recollections Concerning Canadian War Crimes Investigations and Prosecutions Wady Lehmann Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Lehmann, Wady "Recollections Concerning Canadian War Crimes Investigations and Prosecutions." Canadian Military History 11, 4 (2002) This Feature is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Lehmann: Recollections Concerning Canadian War Crime Recollections Concerning Canadian War Crimes Investigations and Prosecutions Wady Lehmann fter the fighting ended in May 1945, I was followed by specialized courses in signals and Aposted to the Northwest Europe Detachment battle intelligence with the British Army in of 1 Canadian War Crimes Investigation Unit Cambridge, Matlock, and London. (1CWCIU). My service with 1 CWCIU covered a broad range of cases. Some led down blind I sailed to Italy in January 1944 with the alleys, while others did not involve Canadian Canadian Wireless Intelligence detachment servicemen. In due course I was assigned to the serving 1 Canadian Corps. In this capacity I was Kurt Meyer case as translator for the defence. seconded to the 13 British Army Corps on the Sangro River and at Cassino. Then I served for I was born near Tallinn, Estonia on 22 a few months as prisoner of war interrogator at October 1917. My mother was Baltic German 8 British Army POW cage near Rome. I and my father a Moskow Russian, an artillery subsequently served as intelligence officer with captain in the defeated Russian army. We fled to 1 Canadian Infantry Division, and finally on the Denmark from the Russian revolution the same intelligence staff of 1 Canadian Corps, year. I acquired a basic knowledge of the German specializing in enemy documents, weapons, and language from my family. I started school in dispositions. Copenhagen in the St. Petri school, which also taught German. We emigrated to Canada in I accompanied Corps headquarters to 1927, living successively in Calgary, Vancouver Holland where I was promoted to captain. There and Burnaby. I attended Burnaby South High I accompanied Lieutentant-General Charles School, concentrating on Latin, French and Foulkes on the dykes near the town of Ede to sciences. I began work during the Depression at his truce meeting with German Army Group the Swift meat packing plant in New Westminster. commander Blaskowitz in March 1945. This I enlisted in 1941 in Vancouver, after the fall of meeting was held in preparation for the ceasefire, Paris. so that food shipments could be carried by road to the starving population of western Holland My military background to mid-1945 was which was cut off altogether by the German with the Canadian Intelligence Corps (la) - Battle occupation troops. Intelligence. I had taken basic training with the Westminister Regiment reserve in 1941, A few months later the war ended and I was whereupon I trained for a year with the 12 assigned to the North-West Europe Detachment Canadian Field Ambulance. At Debert Camp in of No. 1 Cdn War Crimes Investigation Unit at Nova Scotia, I transferred to the 3rd Armoured Bad Salzuflen, Germany, under the command Brigade as intelligence clerk/driver. I was of Lieutenant-Colonel Bruce Macdonald at commissioned in the UK in 1943 into the newly CMHQ (Canadian Military Headquarters) in formed Canadian Intelligence Corps. This was London. The detachment was commanded by © Canadian Military History, Volume 11, Number 4. Autumn 2002, pp.71-80. 71 Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2002 1 Canadian Military History, Vol. 11 [2002], Iss. 4, Art. 7 moustachioed major of horse-drawn artillery, who invariably dressed for dinner in formal blues complete with spurs and mail. Tennis and soccer matches were laid on, and the spa provided evening relaxation to the music of a string ensemble. We shared these amenities with ladies of UNRRA (United Nations Refugee Relief Agency, paraphrased as ‘You Never Really Relieved Anybody’), and other organizations. On one occasion, ENSA, the British services entertainment corps, even featured a troupe of Above: A detached vehicle of the Canadian War Crimes Investigation the Rambert ballet. These diversions, however, Unit crossing the Dutch border. did not deter us from diligently pursuing our Right: A jeep of the Canadian War Crimes Investigation Unit sits assignments. outside its headquarters.. could not determine the identity of the SS unit two alleged victims were not to be found. An We regularly exchanged information with the which was alleged to have committed the crime. interesting trip to Ostend in a drenching British War Crimes unit at nearby Bad downpour aggravated by a broken axle resulted Oyenhausen at the headquarters of the British A case in east Berlin involved a plane which in a futile exhumation. The witness, an Army on The Rhine (BAOR - nicknam ed ‘Beyond had crashed into one of the lakes. After futilely ex-medical sergeant named Lehmann, had All Ordinary Reason!’). Many of our cases were interviewing the two witnesses referred to us, misconstrued the spinal opening in the base of filtered to us through them. we were only too eager to exit from the east zone the skull for a bullet hole! We learned from him as the Russian patrols were beginning to take the incidental information that German POWs Wady Lehmann Much of the investigation consisted of too great an interest in our activities. Even the still in camps could get accelerated repatriation routinely checking out these leads. This could Allied Control Commission pass was not enough points by clearing mines on the beaches - they Major Neil C. Fraser, who was later succeeded be very frustrating. After explaining the to prevent a lengthy detainment. East Berlin was had a separate cemetery plot for those who did by Wing-Commander Oliver Durdin. My role with procedure to the witness and the swearing in, an eerie city by day as well as by night. In the not make it! That summer we also had to travel the detachment was that of interpreter, there would follow the invariable opening remark daytime refugees and German soldiers in to Grenoble and Aix-les-Bains in southern translator, interrogator and investigator. “That I can no longer remember today.” As tattered uniforms and feet wrapped in rags were France on a long trip which was more memorable interpreter, I was then caught between a drifting in from the eastern battlefields. At night for its beauty than for our achievement. The detachment operated in several teams perplexed witness and an infuriated legal rubble in the darkened streets lay in huge of about five people each. These included interrogator. Often we barely got a corroboration mounds etched against the starry sky. Yet in the In the industrial Ruhr a British security linguists - German and one French. They acted of the original testimony, which would bring the shell-pocked opera house I sat in a capacity detachment showed us an arsenal of improvised both as official interpreters and as investigators. case to a dead end. However routine, the audience of survived Berliners and Allied service weapons: sawed-off Mauser rifles, vicious Their army or air force operational experience excursions were never dull. people alike taking in a performance of Fidelio. skull-cracking lengths of steel cable welded at helped them to understand the military aspects the ends, etc. These had been taken off liberated of the German organization and customs. Our There was the case near Paderborn which The Johann ‘Neitz’ case1 took us to Russian forced labourers who roamed the ruins legal components, the lawyers and court turned out to be an Australian fighter pilot. He Wilhelmshaven, to its vast harbour installation nightly to extort food and avenge themselves on reporters, had valuable experience in military was identified through one of his dentures which ravished by war; huge block-sized air raid their former German masters. Everywhere were law and procedures. Indispensable to each team I found in the turf about ten yards from the skid bunkers for the workers; twisted wreckage the rusting remains of huge foundries and rolling was the driver, untiring, resourceful and patient. mark made by his downed Spitfire. I believe that spread across the docks; the huge brooding hulk mills with massive armour plate still in place. We usually managed to pack ourselves, our we located his grave and had his body exhumed, of the moored heavy cruiser, the Prinz Eugen, On a street corner civilians crowded around a rations and our belongings into one vehicle - a although without my presence; there were three in the mist. Our experience included being piped spouting end of a water pipe protruding through Jeep, passenger car, or HUP (Heavy Utility, men accused of the killing, and we turned the aboard a German minesweeper, still manned by the pavement to fill their pots and pails. Personnel). Our work routine consisted of case over to the British unit for trial. its former German crew, to be ferried out to Overhead droned a four-engined Lancaster tracking down witnesses who might be dispersed interview a lighthouse keeper out at sea. anywhere in Europe, including the Russian A case near Verneuil-sur-Avre, Normandy, taking sightseers over the ruins of armaments Unfortunately the witness had nothing to add. factories it had taken part in bombing a short Zone, take down depositions which would later concerned a Canadian airman who had joined the Resistance. As he had not been wearing the time before. We worked in a sort of twilight zone stand up in court, and examine public records, The Detmold case took us into a Displaced distinctive armband of the French Resistance between the shooting war and conditions of and, of course, ultimately apprehend and deliver Persons camp.