Growing up in Canada as I did, I often heard from here and there how the German soldiers of WW2 feared and respected the Canadian soldiers because of their tenacity, skill, and grit, and that this reputation had come from the efficiencies and abilities of Canadian soldiers during WW1.
Some have said that the Canadians were recognized as some of the best soldiers the British Empire had, and others have said that the term and concept of the original German stormtroopers of WW1 was based off of Canada’s successful usage of the ‘creeping barrage’ as made famous at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
But is there any truth to any of this from recorded statements or other documented evidence as given by German soldiers and officers in either conflict? Is this a genuine truth of Canadian military history, or is it a puffed-up nationalistic narrative?
Additionally, are there any notable written statements/recorded interviews/etc. from German veterans recalling their experiences with Canadian soldiers which would support the claims made above? And overall, what was the general German sense towards Canada during WW2? And what were Nazi Germany’s diplomatic relations like with Canada?
I can’t think that the Germans held any particular contempt for Canada even then, not only since Germans had long been a notable ethnolinguistic group in Canada for generations by that point, but also because many thousands migrated to Canada in the immediate aftermath of WW2 for a better life.
There's always more to be said, but in the meantime you can find answers in this post u/enygma9753 that explains how Canada in WWI actually gained a reputation among German soldiers as an army of "no mercy" in the battlefield.
In WWII, those in the Wehrmacht's officer class who had served in WWI would likely have heard about or witnessed the tenacity, even savagery, of the Canadian troops then, so there was lingering respect for their competency and ability.
Sadly, some British imperial propaganda blamed "colonial" troops for the early losses on the Pacific front, esp. in the 1941 fall of Hong Kong where inexperienced Canadian and colonial troops were overwhelmed by a battle-hardened Japanese Army. The disaster at Dieppe in 1942 also demonstrated to Germany that the Allies seemed to be ill-prepared for what awaited them in Normandy.
When Canada landed on Juno Beach in 1944, they managed to penetrate deeper into enemy territory than other Allies on D-Day and would eventually run into units of the Waffen SS and newly conscripted Hitler Youth, true believers of Nazi propaganda. Some Canadians were summarily executed upon capture by the SS. As the Allies advanced into France, some Canadian units would later encounter or capture SS troops, remembered these massacres and paid them back in kind upon capture.
Operation Market Garden may loom large in the histories of WWII, esp. in America, due to the campaign's size and brutality, its failure as a strategy and the disagreements between British general Montgomery (who pushed for it) and Allied supreme commander Eisenhower (who ultimately allowed it, arguably to keep Monty happy). They had hoped the campaign would end the war sooner.
The Battle of the Scheldt is little-known, but succeeded where Market Garden had failed. It was this battle that played a large part in the eventual liberation of Flanders, and one where Canada paid a very high price for victory.
The British had captured the port of Antwerp, which was necessary as a supply port for the Allied invasion. But, the estuary was still occupied by crack German troops of the 15th Army and would need to be cleared if Antwerp was to be viable for the Allies. There was debate about whether to concentrate Allied efforts on clearing out the Germans from the estuary of the Scheldt River, or to pursue Monty's ambitious plan to make a deep strike into the Netherlands and a rapid push into Germany itself.
The Allies went ahead with Market Garden, leaving the Canadians to clear the estuary. Hitler had ordered his troops to hold the mouth of the Scheldt at all costs, as he prepared for the Ardennes Offensive. For the Canadians, it was hard and brutal work. And unnecessarily so, historians have said. They argue that the Allies could have made securing the Scheldt estuary a top priority, not Market Garden. Instead, it took more than a month to clear it.
6,000 Canadians died in the Battle of the Scheldt. They achieved their objective, taking 40,000 German prisoners and helping to pave the way for the liberation of the Netherlands.