The Sentence

In a quiet voice, heavy with strain, Frau Meyer told how she had been "supremely happy" with SS Major General Kurt Meyer, whose five children were "very much attached to him." Then, for ten minutes, the prisoner protested his innocence. But five high-ranking officers, conducting Canada's first war-crimes trial (TIME, Dec. 31), needed only half an hour to reach a verdict. Up rose tight-lipped Major General Harry W. Foster to read out the sentence in a gruff, soldierly voice. In more subdued tones, an American interpreter translated it for the prisoner. As the import of the words became clear, Kurt Meyer turned beet-red: for responsibility in the killing of 18 Canadian prisoners of war, death by a firing squad.

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