A German-Canadian's search for the truth about the murder of a Canadian
airman near his hometown, and his quest for truth, justice and
reconciliation in Canada and in Germany
Growing up in Hitler's Germany, Peter Hessel witnessed the Allies'
ruthless bombing of his hometown, Chemnitz. Nearly sixty years later in
Canada, Hessel heard about a brutal, fatal beating of a nameless
Canadian POW in the streets of a small town just a few blocks from where
Hessel's own family had taken shelter.
Who was this unknown Canadian airman, and who were his murderers?
Canadian authorities had forgotten the deed and never completed their
investigation. Hessel felt compelled to reopen the file. His search for
answers to these troubling questions would take him back and forth
between Canada and Germany, as he combed through stacks of wartime
records and tracked down eyewitnesses.
The Mystery of Frankenberg's Airman is the account of painstaking
research in a quest for the truth about an unsolved war crime. As Hessel
chronicles his discovery of the airman's identity and details
surrounding his death, he also describes the RCAF's role in the
destruction of Chemnitz, Dresden, and other cities, and honours not only
the 10,000 Canadian airmen who lost their lives for a cause they
believed in, but the countless civilians caught under their bombs.
His research leads him to the identity of the murder victim, to the
victim's sister, and then to a moving reconciliation where Germans who
remember the airman's final days and witnessed his murder participate in
a private memorial near the site of his death.
This book offers a nuanced account of the morality of ordinary people,
and of the actions of nations at war.
