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Kurt Meyer on Trial: A Documentary Record. Edited by P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Chris M.V. Madsen. Kingston, Ontario, Canada: Canadian Defence Academy Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-662-46169-2. Photographs. Glossary. Notes. Index. Pp. xi, 697.
Kurt Meyer was a model SS officer. Trained as a policeman, he joined the SS in 1931 as a twenty-one-year-old officer candidate. In 1939 he commanded companies during the invasions of Poland, France, and the Low Countries. He then commanded the SS Division reconnaissance detachment and distinguished himself and his unit as they spearheaded the invasions of Greece and then Russia. By early 1943 he was a battalion commander, leading a series of bold and successful counterattacks in the Kharkov region. One of the selected officers and NCOs withdrawn from Russia to form the 12th SS, "Hitler Jugend," 8000 Hitler Youth recruited from the class of 1926, boys who had known only the Third Reich, he was responsible for division training which emphasized live fire and movement exercises and physical fitness, and didn't utilize standard training manuals. As the unit was deployed to Normandy in Spring 1944, higher headquarters noted: "The quality of the conscripts was high, but that...