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The Not-So-Nice Canadians of World War I

Khalid Elhassan December 9, 2024 15 min

Canadian - A WWI Canadian recruitment poster — A WWI Canadian recruitment poster. Library and Archives, Canada

6. Canadian Treatment of German Prisoners

Canadians believed the “Crucified Canadian” myth, and that Germans routinely committed such atrocities upon prisoners. Unsurprisingly, they responded by often brutalizing surrendering Germans, whom they mistreated as retaliation for what they believed to be German mistreatment of captive Canadians. To be sure, over 42,000 Germans survived after they surrendered to Canadians. However, it became clear from numerous frontline accounts that many Germans who tried to surrender to Canadians were killed out of hand by bayonets or bullets. For example, a 2006 study revealed dozens of accounts of Canadians who slaughtered German prisoners. They did so in fits of rage, as payback, or for mere expediency because they disliked the hassle of escorting them to prisoner collection points in the rear.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.