Ardenne Abbey
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Ardenne Abbey, or "l'Abbaye d'Ardenne", is the site of a Premonstratensian monastery in Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-Herbe, near Caen, France containing a chapel built in 1121 and other medieval buildings.
The Abbey was used as an observation post by the Germans in the Battle of Normandy, and was heavily damaged by Allied forces. As a result, much of the Abbey visible today has been rebuilt or restored. The Abbey is most notorious for being the site of a massacre of prisoners of war during World War II.
[edit] World War Two
In June 1944, during the Battle of Normandy, Ardenne Abbey was the location of the headquarters of SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25, commanded by SS-Standartenführer Kurt Meyer. On June 7, eleven captured Canadian soldiers of The North Nova Scotia Highlanders and the 27th Canadian Armoured Regiment were taken to the abbey and killed by the Hitler Youth 12th SS Panzer Division. The remains of the soldiers were moved to the Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery, along with those of other soldiers killed in the early stages of the Battle of Normandy.
The murders were possibly retaliation for an incident that took place earlier that day, when at a location behind the dunes on the Courselles beach Canadian soldiers cut the throats of six German soldiers. This suppressed Canadian war crime was revealed by a British eyewitness, Edward Ashworth, in Cornelius Ryan's epic account of the historic invasion The Longest Day (1959).
Elements of The Regina Rifle Regiment liberated the abbey after an intense, bloody battle the following month, at which time evidence of the atrocity was discovered. Following the end of the war, the SS commander Kurt Meyer was charged with five war crimes, three of which he was convicted of. These included responsibility for the killings at Ardenne Abbey, and for ordering his men to take no prisoners. However, Meyer denied knowing anything about the killings, and none of the alleged eyewitnesses appeared at his trial to contradict him. Meyer was imprisoned until 1954, when he was released from a West German prison.
