During the Second World War, many different war crimes were committed by different armies.
As the conflict came to an end, many trials took place to bring those perpetrators of
atrocities and massacres to justice. One of the most shocking war crimes that was discovered
that affected the US Army was the Malmedy Massacre, in which 84 American Prisoners of
War had been executed on the 17th December 1944. Along with the massacre of American
soldiers, there were many more civilians found dead in Belgian villages and towns around
the area of Malmedy. These were committed by the Waffen SS, and a trial was brought
after the Second World War to bring those responsible to justice. So join us today as
we look at the Brutal Executions of the Malmedy Massacre, and remember to support our channel,
please make sure to subscribe.
Towards the end of the Second World War, there were many war crimes uncovered that had been
committed by the Germans. As the Allies gained more territory they came across a number of
concentration camps. But there were many other examples of mass murder committed by the German
Army and also the Waffen-SS. The Allies knew of many of these, and they added an element
of fear to the SS soldiers, that if any were captured they were dealt with brutally. However
Hitler himself ordered that the Western Front should be fought in the same savage way that
the Eastern Front was, with many ruthless acts of aggression. One of the last rolls
of the dice Hitler had was to order the Ardennes counteroffensive, known as the Battle of the
Bulge. The 6th SS Panzer Army led by SS General Sepp Dietrich was ordered to try and penetrate
the Allied front, in the hope of then crossing the River Meuse and then capturing eventually
Antwerp.
One element of the 6th SS Panzer Army was the Kampftgrupper Peiper, which was the armoured
spearhead of the left wing of the force. It was led by SS Oberstrumbannfuhrer Joachim
Peiper, and he managed to advance his tanks and armoured vehicles forward through the
towns of Stavelot, Werbomont and Trois-Ponts. He did this to take the bridges over the River
Meuse, near to the city of Huy. The convoys of Peiper’s forces used secondary roads,
and they consisted of the colossal Tiger II tanks, nicknamed King Tigers. These were huge
in their weight and size, and were notoriously bad for breaking down and reliability. The
Waffen-SS and Kampfgrupper Peiper advanced during the Ardennes counteroffensive, and
were tasked with capturing towns and villages west of the international highway. However
destroyed bridges and terrain made Peiper’s armies advances slower.
The weight of the Tiger II’s and other tanks and military vehicles ruled out using the
railroad overpass bridge which was selected, and the German engineers were too slow to
repair damaged roadways. However the American’s then launched their counter offensive, and
on the northern front they encountered lots of resistance. They managed to delay many
Waffen-SS troops, and Kampfgrupper Peiper’s convoy of tanks and armoured vehicles was
stopped from reaching the River Meuse and Antwerp, which allowed the US time to reinforce
against Waffen-SS attacks. There was heavy fighting in the area, and the German 9th Parachute
Regiment managed to capture the American Reconnissance platoon that was delaying the advances. Following
this, the paratroopers then stopped their advances and attacks cautious that there were
more American infantry soldiers and tanks hiding in the woods waiting for them. They
paused for over 12 hours, and then the SS paratroopers explored the woods finding them
empty.
At around 4:30am on the 17th December 1944, the 1st SS Panzer Division was around 16 hours
behind when it should have departed the village of Lanzerath towards the town of Honsfeld.
Following capturing Honsfeld, Peiper’s troops then detoured to take a small fuel depot in
Bullingen. It was here when there the Waffen SS encountered a number of US Prisoners of
War. After this, Peiper’s soldiers then decided to execute dozens of prisoners of
war, shooting them dead near to the fuel depot. Following this he advanced west towards the
River Meuse, and Peiper then left his plan for his route. He decided to advance towards
the Baugnez crossroads, which was between the city of Malmedy and Ligneuville and Waimes.
Peiper’s movement was part of the general German advance during the Battle of the Bulge.
But at the same time, a US convoy of around 30 vehicles and 140 men of Battery B of the
285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion were heading south from the Hurtgen Forest
towards Ligneuville. They were planning to join up with the Us 7th Armoured Division,
however they were spotted by the Germans. To the American’s the Baungez Crossroad
was known as Five Points. The lead jeep of the US Convoy came under fire from Peiper’s
tank division near to the crossroads, and Peiper commanded his tanks to fire upon the
convoy. Joachim Peiper himself was known for ordering the killings of prisoners in cold
blood, and he had a feared reputation for committing war crimes. He himself was a former
adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, and he was known for being a skilled commander. On this day,
he was rather tired and frustrated.
Peiper’s forces opened up fire on the US Convoy and many of the American vehicles were
left abandoned with the destruction that the German tanks caused. The Panzer Iv’s of
the battalion opened up the machine guns forcing many of the Americans to take cover in ditches,
and the US soldiers had no heavy weapons at their disposal. Many of the Americans quickly
panicked, and some tried to flee but those who did not escape quickly surrendered indicating
to Peiper’s soldiers their intention to come quietly. The surrendering Americans were
then marched down the road towards the crossroads, and stopped near to the tank at the head of
the convoy to await further orders. Joachim Peiper was furious at the delay added by the
incident with the Americans and he entered his halftrack and then at around 1:30pm ordered
his soldiers to continue moving.
The American survivors of the attack were gathered in a field near to the crossroads
south of the Cafe Bodarwe. As they were being gathered, a number of American trucks came
up the hill from Malmedy and these too were fired upon by the Germans. By around 2pm,
113 Americans had been gathered in the field by the Cafe. They included 90 members of the
285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, 10 men from five ambulances, a military policeman
and 11 men who had been captured by Peiper’s forces before and more soldiers from different
regiments.
At around 2:15pm, soldiers of Kampfgrupper Peiper opened fire on the American Prisoners
of War in the field. They opened up their machine guns mowing down and murdering dozens
of Americans in cold blood. They were technically prisoners of war after wilfully surrendering
to the enemy, but for some reason Peiper, ordered the execution of the prisoners. Panicked
by the machine gun fire, a number of the Americans ran from the field however where the men were
grouped up the Waffen-SS managed to kill most of them. Some of the American soldiers hit
the floor, pretending to be dead.
The Germans who had fired on the Americans then walked around the corpses of the dead,
searching for those who were only wounded. They then armed with pistols shot those who
were wounded in the head with a coup de grace gunshot. Some of the prisoners who managed
to escape the field had sought refuge inside of the cafe at the crossroads, but because
of this the Waffen-SS then set the cafe on fire, and every US prisoner of war who was
inside then left the cafe and was shot by the Waffen-SS.
The bodies of those who died at the crossroads massacre on December 17th were left in no
mans land until January 14th 1945. There was clear evidence that an atrocity had taken
place as witnesses confirmed to the US Army that the Germans had committed a massacre
of American soldiers, but they made no attempt to recover the bodies before the area was
retaken.
The snow-covered bodies of 71 victims of the massacre were then recovered and autopsies
on the corpses confirmed they had been shot dead. The vast majority of the victims still
had valuables, money and other items on their possession, leading to the idea that the Germans
quickly dispatched them to then continue their advances. 43 of these bodies had been killed
by gunshots to the head, and 3 had been beaten over the head. Three victims had been crushed,
and a couple had been given first aid before dying. However 9 were found with their arms
frozen above their heads, indicating their surrender as the Germans stood opposite them
with their machine gun fire. In total there were 84 corpses recovered from the massacre,
including those from near the cafe.
The Malmedy massacre was just one of a number of atrocities committed by Peiper’s division,
and it was claimed he was responsible for the killings of hundreds of American soldiers
and civilians, as well as committing other massacres on the Eastern Front. However after
the war, a war crimes trial did take place for those who were responsible for the Malmedy
Massacre. This occurred from May to July 1946 and was part of the Dachau Trials that were
held to bring those responsible of crimes at Dachau to justice. The defendants including
SS-oberstgruppen fuhrer Sepp Deitrich who commanded the 6th Panzer Army, and Joachim
Peiper who’s unit was the one who committed the massacre.
The prosecution team indicted the defendants on the massacre of more than 300 American
POWs in the areas of Malmedy and surrounding towns and villages, along with the massacre
of over 100 Belgian Civilians during the Battle of the Bulge. The defendants during the trial
complained they had been beaten and threatened to make them confess to war crimes.
On the 16th July 1946, the verdict for the Malmedy Massacre Trial was passed, on the
74 members of the Kampfgruppe Peiper. 43 of them including Peiper were sentenced to death,
to be executed by hanging. This consisted of those who fired the bullets executing the
prisoners in the fields, however Peiper’s own death sentence was later commuted to 35
years in prison, and he was later released. The death sentences were later reviewed, and
only 12 of these were deemed legal but none were carried out. Peiper’s was one deemed
unlawful. 22 people were sentenced to life imprisonment, 2 were sentenced to 20 years,
1 for 15 and 5 for 10 years in prison.
However as mentioned, with the review of the sentences because of the way the confessions
were obtained through unlawful means as in torture and beatings, it meant that many of
the men who committed the atrocity got off relatively easily. None of the SS soldiers
convicted were ever executed and by 1956 all of them were released from prison. The trial
waited to show the world that the SS soldiers were heartless murderers, however it became
a controversial case that dragged on for over a decade because of how the Americans treated
the defendants.
The Malmedy Massacre was a war crime that resulted in the deaths of 84 US Prisoners
of War and the mass killing of Belgian civilians around the area of Malmedy. These prisoners
should have been dealt with accordingly and spared, however Peiper ordered his men to
fire and shoot them all dead, committing a terrible war crime that due to the treatment
of the defendants, went largely unpunished. Today it is an event that should not be forgotten,
with the mindless slaughter of American soldiers at the hands of the Waffen-SS, when they should
have been transferred to a prisoner of war camp.
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