CHAPTER
5
If ever the punishment fit the crime, this was it: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and a neck for a neck. Two victims were hanged by a lynch mob; five of the murderers were hanged by the law, four on the same day. It was the largest legal mass hanging in Canada in the 20th century. And that was only the tip of the iceberg.
This amazing murder story had, under the surface, elements never seen before anywhere in Canada. The two victims—one beaten up and hanged in 1943 and the other suffering an identical death in 1944—were German prisoners of war (POWs) in Internment Camp 132 at Medicine Hat, Alberta. And their merciless killers, five of whom ended their days swinging at the end of a rope off a prison gallows in Lethbridge, were all fellow prisoners. They were Nazi Gestapo men who ran a regime of brutality and terror among their fellow Germans inside the POW camp.
Faced with this incredible problem, who would be tasked to sort it all out? The men were all German military personnel in a prisoner-of-war environment. Should they be court-martialled by the German military? Or by the Canadian military? In Germany? Or in Canada? Or even in Britain? Eventually, it fell to none of these. It fell to the RCMP, who treated the two cases as straightforward murders committed on Canadian soil. The trials were processed through Alberta’s criminal justice system, with civilian prison nooses tightening round the necks of the guilty.
By the time the Allies won the battle of North Africa in May 1943, they had taken hundreds of thousands of prisoners. Canada played a major role in the logistical nightmare of dealing with this mass of prisoners. Five of the largest German POW camps were built in Alberta, at Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Kananaskis, Ozada and Wainwright. By 1943 more than 12,000 Germans were being housed in Medicine Hat Internment Camp 132. Dealing with such huge numbers of prisoners made it impossible for the Canadian authorities to closely control everything happening inside the camp. This allowed the forceful Nazi element among the Germans to develop a powerful Gestapo presence. The prisoners who were Nazis saw it as their duty to use bully-boy violence and intimidation to instill their extreme pro-Hitler doctrine in their fellow Germans.
Two categories of German prisoners were especially despised by the Gestapo leadership in the camp. One consisted of former members of the French Foreign Legion, whom the leadership considered to have been a major weakness in the German war effort in North Africa. The leaders believed the Legionnaires had been the cause of Germany losing that continent. The other category were those considered traitors to Hitler, especially Communists.
Among the ranks of the former French Foreign Legionnaires in the camp was August Plaszek, who had been a farmer as a young man. He served in Africa after the First World War. In the 1930s he returned to Germany, left the Legionnaires when the Nazis were coming into power, and joined the German army. He was sent to North Africa, where he fought in the 361st Afrika Regiment, a unit consisting entirely of former Legionnaires. Plaszek was captured by the Allies on December 12, 1941, and shipped as a POW to Canada, ending up as prisoner number me04024 in Internment Camp 132. The Gestapo terror squads soon targeted the 40-year-old prisoner as one of the despised ex-Legionnaire outcasts. Many Germans in the camp believed that anyone who’d joined the French Foreign Legion must have had a criminal background and that those among the Legionnaire ranks were perverts and outcasts from society.
On June 22, 1943, Plaszek was found hanged from a beam in the west recreation drill hall of the camp. He had been beaten bloody and smashed in the head with a stone before being strung up. Word was the Gestapo leadership claimed to have chalked up two strikes against the ex-Legionnaires. First, they said, they’d uncovered a plot by a group of the despised prisoners to overthrow their control of the camp. Second, they claimed the hated men had tried to negotiate their way out of the camp so they could join the Free French forces in the war again—against Germany.
They rounded up four Legionnaires, intending to interrogate them in a kangaroo court one after the other. They found the first man, Christian Schulz, guilty. But before Gestapo punishment could be meted out to him, he had the presence of mind to make a bolt for it. He ran towards the Canadian prison guards, pursued by hundreds of prisoners intent on stopping him from escaping his due retribution. Several guards helped him over the interior barbed wire and into their safekeeping, firing a warning shot into the air to keep the crowd at bay. Now the mob, incensed at losing their prey, herded back to where the next three men were awaiting interrogation. They seized on Plaszek, who hadn’t even been questioned yet, and dragged him outside where someone smashed him over the head with a large stone. Then he was beaten, dragged inside the recreation drill hall and hanged.
There was no point in the camp’s murder squad killing an enemy they considered a traitor to the Nazi cause unless the slaying was carried out in public. It had to be in full view of other German POWs to maximize their message of terror. Many prisoners witnessed the defenceless Plaszek being dragged into the hall by the Gestapo mob and hanged. The witnesses knew better than to talk about what they’d seen with anyone from outside the camp. After all, they had to survive day after day, possibly for years, locked in the camp with the paranoid Gestapo killers who ran the place. Imagine the difficulty faced by the RCMP when they tried to persuade witnesses to reveal what they’d seen, let alone convincing them to stand up in court and testify against the camp’s Gestapo.
Within 24 hours of Plaszek’s body being cut down and taken into Medicine Hat for autopsy, RCMP corporal Arthur “Johnny” Bull, a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) detective, arrived at the camp and was taken straight to the crime scene in the drill hall. His next stop was the Pattison Funeral Home in Medicine Hat, where he examined Plaszek’s badly battered body. So ended the first day of an investigation that would take years to reach the courts. Corporal Bull was soon travelling to other POW camps across Canada where some of his potential witnesses had been transferred. This was to become the most frustrating and time-consuming investigation of his career.
If the fall of the German armies in North Africa had played an obscure role in the hanging murder of August Plaszek in a far distant POW camp on the prairies of Canada, another major moment in the war led to a second hanging murder in the same camp. This connection was far more obscure and seized on by the camp’s Gestapo with even greater relish. This time they were acting on words from the Führer, Adolf Hitler himself, or so they said.
It was September 11, 1944, when German POW Dr. Karl Lehmann, 38, a well-educated professor of languages who was fluent in English, French and Russian, was found hanged from a pipe in the ceiling of Barracks D6. Lehmann was an Afrika Corps veteran corporal who had fought at the battle of Stalingrad. Like Plaszek, he had been beaten before being strung up. Once again, there were witnesses among the German prisoners who watched the camp’s Gestapo death squad take a helpless victim from among their ranks and apply their inevitable justice. As before, these were not witnesses who were going to offer testimony voluntarily. None of them wanted to put his head in the Gestapo noose.
Word running through the camp this time was that the Gestapo leadership had Lehmann near the top of their death list for five reasons. The professor, who’d taught at the University of Erlangen in Germany, was better educated than the Gestapo leaders. He had strong anti-Nazi views, and some said he’d been a reporter for a Communist newspaper in Germany. He was, apparently, quick to spread his Communist doctrine to other German POWs. In addition, they claimed he was an informant, ratting on the Gestapo leadership in the camp to the Canadian authorities. Above all, he wasn’t afraid to tell anyone who’d listen that Germany would lose the war.
Adding to Lehmann’s slim chances of survival were the explicit words of the Führer. On July 20, 1944, back in Germany, one of Hitler’s senior military officers, Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg, was about to attend a meeting at Hitler’s heavily defended headquarters in Rastenburg. The colonel was the spearhead of a highly organized team of senior German officers who were sure the Führer was leading Germany to annihilation, and who were planning his assassination. As the meeting began in the map room where the Führer plotted out the conquest of the world, Stauffenberg put his suitcase down under the table, as close to Hitler as he could wedge it. Then, suddenly called to deal with an urgent telephone call from Berlin, Stauffenberg left the room and never looked back—not even when an enormous explosion ripped through the room, his suitcase bomb having exploded exactly on time. Pleased they had obviously rid the world of this hated megalomaniac, Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators began plans to set up their alternative government, which would run Germany now Hitler was gone. Except—a few minutes after the blast—Hitler miraculously stumbled out of the debris of the shattered building. Four of his senior officers were dead, others were critically injured, but he suffered only minor injuries. In a bizarre twist of fate, a sturdy wooden table support between him and the bomb had saved his life.
Hitler, in a speech hours later, vented his fury against the conspirators, and vowed that this “gang of criminal elements,” this “gang of ambitious and miserable creatures” would be “ruthlessly exterminated.” Hitler gave general orders that any good German soldier finding a traitor anywhere should kill him instantly. He gave instructions to the hangman who was ordered to execute the conspirators, “I want them to be hanged—hung up like carcasses of meat.”
Several POWs in Medicine Hat had secret radios on which they could pick up transmissions from Germany. And the words—straight from Hitler’s mouth—were taken literally by the Gestapo fanatics in the camp. They undoubtedly had a traitor in their midst: Dr. Karl Lehmann with his Communist teachings and his predictions that the Fatherland was about to be destroyed by the Allies. But time was running short. The POW Gestapo leaders knew that the hard-core Nazis in the camp were being shipped out to a different camp the next day. So if Hitler’s words were to be obeyed and this traitor was to be hanged, it would have to be that night. And it was. The murder squad was assembled in a hut classroom, and Lehmann was summoned. He went in and never came out. He was later found hung like a carcass of meat from a pipe near the ceiling.
RCMP corporal Johnny Bull was soon calling his senior officers back to the camp for the new murder. At least with the Plaszek murder, Bull knew the killers were already physically in custody inside the Medicine Hat POW camp. All he had to do was find out which of the 12,500 POWs they were! But now, immediately after the Lehmann hanging, his potential suspects were being farmed out to other POW camps across Canada. Although this set of killers was also in custody, Bull would have to work to find out not only who they were, but also in which camp they were being held.
This time, the influence played by the Second World War on the drama inside the Medicine Hat camp worked to Bull’s advantage. When the war ended and Germany was smashed, the threat from the Nazis inside the POW camps diminished. The German prisoners, who had been too terrified to reveal what they knew, now began talking and even began naming names. Most of those said to have been involved in the Plaszek murder had been shipped some time ago either to the Neys POW camp in Ontario or to the Lethbridge POW camp in Alberta, which was where the RCMP carried out extensive interviews. On October 10, 1945, more than two years after Plaszek was killed, three men were arrested. And on November 16, they were formally charged with his murder.
When the first of the three trials started in 1946, the Medicine Hat Daily News identified the three prisoners, now formally in custody, and told something about their backgrounds. Sergeant Werner Schwalb, 30, who was born during the First World War, was a baker and a cook. He joined the German army shortly before the Second World War and won the Iron Cross, First Class, as a Panzer tank gunner when the rampaging Germans were sweeping across France in 1940. On January 17, 1942, while serving as an infantryman in Egypt, he was captured by South African troops who were fighting for the Allies. Four months later, he was one of thousands of POWs shipped to Canada on the HMS Queen Elizabeth. Schwalb eventually ended up as prisoner number me038848 in the Medicine Hat internment camp.
The other two accused men were Adolf Kratz, 24, from Koblenz in Germany and Lance Corporal Johannes Wittinger, 30, from Graz in Austria. They were both captured on the same day—May 29, 1942—in Tobruk by the Free French forces as the battle for North Africa raged. Kratz had been a carpenter before the war. After joining the German army, he served in France, then the Russian front and Italy, before being sent to North Africa, where he was captured. Wittinger, a truck driver, also served in Italy before being sent to North Africa, where he was wounded and received the Iron Cross. He was captured only 10 days after he arrived.
Schwalb was the first to stand trial in the Medicine Hat courthouse, his case opening on February 25, 1946. Witnesses first described how they had seen one prisoner running for the wire and escaping from a mob of prisoners to the safety of Canadian guards. Next they described seeing a second prisoner being dragged into the recreation room where he was found hanged. Then Crown Prosecutor Walter Donald Gow, KC, introduced evidence to prove one of the killers was Schwalb. The judge allowed some prisoners to remain anonymous to save them from possible reprisals back in Germany. One testified that Schwalb came into his room in the camp after the murder, his hands covered in blood, and uttered what turned out to be some very prophetic words: “This walk can lead to a hanging for me. We hanged one there. Should they hang me, I will die as a German soldier.”
Another anonymous POW, a Luftwaffe pilot, pointed out Schwalb as one of those who hanged Plaszek. Yet another POW testified that he went into the recreation hall moments after the killing, saw Plaszek’s body hanging, and saw Schwalb standing in the hall with blood on his hands.
To combat the seemingly damning evidence pointing straight at Schwalb, his defence lawyer, L.S. Turcotte of Lethbridge, submitted that the real murderers weren’t those in the recreation hall that night, but instead were the three Nazi Gestapo camp leaders who had incited the men to take action. The jury didn’t buy that, and on March 13, 1946, they came back after deliberating for just over an hour with a verdict: guilty of murder. Chief Justice W.R. Howson sentenced Schwalb to be hanged on June 26.
Adolph Kratz came to trial next, when a different jury heard the same general description of the killing, followed by testimony proving that Kratz was another of the killers. One witness told the jury Kratz spoke to him twice, once going into the recreation room and again as he left the building. On the way in, Kratz said he was going to take part in hanging a prisoner. On the way out he said, “Now we have hanged one of those swine,” and bragged how they had wound the rope around the prisoner’s neck. Another witness said Kratz told him it was his duty to kill the traitors.
Defence lawyer Turcotte, faced with the same damning evidence against Kratz that he faced against Schwalb, tried to deflect the blame again onto the Nazi Gestapo leadership. It failed again, although this time it took the jury a few more hours to reach a guilty verdict. Kratz was sentenced to hang on the same day as Schwalb.
As soon as Kratz was sentenced, a new jury was sworn in and the trial of Wittinger began. Defence lawyer Turcotte had more ammunition to work with this time. He pointed out that the Crown hadn’t found a single witness who picked out Wittinger as being among the killers. And astoundingly, Sergeant Werner Schwalb, the already-condemned prisoner awaiting the hangman’s noose, testified that he didn’t see Wittinger at the recreation hall that night, nor that whole day. This time, after deliberating for more than two hours, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty, and Wittinger was later sent home to Austria.
Less than 48 hours before the death sentences were to be carried out for the two who were found guilty, a telegram was delivered from the governor general saying that he had taken note of the plea for mercy submitted by the jury that had found Kratz guilty. He then commuted Kratz’s sentence to life imprisonment. No such telegram came for Schwalb, though. On June 26, 1946, they walked him to the gallows. His final words as they placed the black hood over his head were, “My Führer, I follow thee.” His prophecy of being hanged and dying as a soldier came true.
While these three Plaszek trials were under way in Medicine Hat, Corporal Bull and other RCMP detectives were still chasing down suspects in the Lehmann murder in various POW camps across Canada. On April 6, 1946, they arrested four German POW suspects and charged them with the murder. Three of these four were bomber pilots in the Luftwaffe, whose planes had gone down over Britain. The fourth was a soldier. They were Sergeant Major Bruno Perzonowsky, Sergeant Willi Mueller, Sergeant Major Heinrich Busch and Sergeant Walter Wolf.
Perzonowsky, 34, from East Prussia, joined the Luftwaffe before the war and had flown 60 operational bombing raids over Britain. He won the Iron Cross, First Class, before his plane was shot down and crashed in the Welsh mountains on April 14, 1941. The career of Mueller, 31, began in the German Navy, but he transferred to the Luftwaffe and had flown 87 bombing raids over Britain before a Spitfire shot his aircraft down in Scotland on May 6, 1941. Mueller broke both his legs and his back in the crash. Busch, 29, was less experienced, having flown 26 bombing raids before he flew his aircraft into a barrage balloon cable over Norfolk, England, on February 18, 1941, and was brought down. Wolf, a 29-year-old soldier in Rommel’s Afrika Corps, was a former tax inspector. He had served in the German invasion of France in 1940 and was later sent to fight with Rommel’s army in North Africa, where he earned the Iron Cross, Second Class, before being captured on January 17, 1942.
On June 24, 1946, the day word reached the Lethbridge jail that Kratz’s death sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment, Perzonowsky’s trial opened in Medicine Hat. This time the prosecution had the added strength of a confession from the accused man. Perzonowsky repeated to the court that he had given the order to have Lehmann removed. Perzonowsky was, therefore, perceived as the ringleader. His defence lawyer, George Rice, KC, faced with his client’s statement of guilt, worked hard to persuade the judge that the trial was being heard in the wrong place. He submitted that Perzonowsky’s actions as a military man in time of war were an act of war, not a crime, and that he should be subject to a military court martial, not a civilian trial. Further, he argued that the trial should be held in Germany, not Canada. Rice’s argument failed, and the jury took just 60 minutes to find Perzonowsky guilty of murder. Chief Justice Howson sentenced Perzonowsky to be hanged in the Lethbridge jail on October 16, 1946.
In his book Behind Canadian Barbed Wire, David J. Carter talks about George Krause, one of the RCMP officers who was at the sentencing. Years later Krause recalled that just as the judge pronounced the dreaded words, “You shall be taken to the place of execution and there be hanged by the neck until dead. May the Lord have mercy on your soul,” the nearby school bell started to toll. Krause told Carter that every face in the courtroom turned white. He described it as one of the most gripping moments of his life.
When Wolf came to trial, several witnesses identified him as having been personally involved in hanging the prisoner Lehmann. Even Willi Mueller, his co-accused, gave evidence for the Crown. Wolf himself later admitted his part in the crime, but justified his actions by saying he had been ordered to take part by Perzonowsky. Once again, defence lawyer Rice tried to have the entire hearing declared null and void. Once again he failed. After nearly three hours of deliberations, the jury found Wolf guilty of murder and he too was sentenced to be hanged in the Lethbridge jail.
When Busch came to trial, the jury had an easier task. His own statements spelled out the role he had played in the murder: how he had hurriedly tried to wash Lehmann’s blood off his clothing, and how he couldn’t sleep that night because he knew he had helped murder a man. One witness testified that it was Busch who tied the rope to the pipe under the ceiling from which Lehmann was hanged. The jury found him guilty of murder, and he was sentenced to be hanged with the others.
The fourth and final trial, that of Willi Mueller, was the most open-and-shut case of the four. Mueller had made a sworn statement detailing his role in the murder. He was clearly expecting to receive leniency in return for the crucial evidence he had given for the Crown, which had helped the prosecution secure the convictions of his co-accused. But it didn’t work. The jury soon found him guilty, and he became the fourth man sentenced to be hanged for the murder. All were to die on October 16, 1946, but legal delays put the date back to December 18.
In the final hours before their executions, three of the men—Perzonowsky, Wolf and Busch—tried to cheat the gallows by committing suicide. Apparently they had learned they were to be hanged alongside a Calgary pedophile sex-killer, which they considered too degrading to contemplate. Someone smuggled razor blades, hidden inside a book, to them. But the guards were keeping a close watch on the condemned men and saw what happened. They reached them in their blood-splashed cells in time to save them for the hangman. It is thought that Mueller did not make the attempt to kill himself because he was hoping that his actions in turning on his fellow Germans during the trials might still earn him a last-minute reprieve. It didn’t. All four were hanged two-by-two, with Perzonowsky and Busch going first, immediately followed by Mueller and Wolf. And right after that the Calgary pedophile sex-killer was executed.
After the hangings, all seven of the hanged German POWs—the two victims and their five murderers—were buried under the exercise yard at Lethbridge Provincial Jail. Authorities reckoned they were safe from desecration there. At first no one claimed the bodies, but more than 20 years later, in 1970, the German War Graves Commission requested they be exhumed. The Commission was moving the remains of all German POWs to a central cemetery in Kitchener, Ontario, which has such a rich German heritage that it used to be called Berlin. When the remains were reburied, the authorities kept the German killers together, pairing some of them in the same graves. Schwalb, who killed Plaszek, and Perzonowsky, ringleader of the Lehmann killers, were buried together. Busch and Mueller, two of the Luftwaffe pilots turned murderers, shared another grave. Wolf, the Afrika Corps soldier, was buried nearby. Fittingly, the remains of their two victims, Plaszek and Lehmann, were buried elsewhere in the cemetery with German military personnel—well away from the killers.