The Malmedy massacre was a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
war crime committed by soldiers of the on 17 December 1944, at the
Baugnez crossroads near the city of
Malmedy
Malmedy (; german: Malmünd, ; wa, Måmdiy) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.
On January 1, 2018, Malmedy had a total population of 12,654. The total area is 99.96 km2 which gives a popula ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...
, during the
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in ...
(16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945). Soldiers of summarily killed eighty-four U.S. Army
prisoners of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...
(POWs) who had surrendered after a brief battle. The soldiers had grouped the U.S. POWs in a farmer's field, where they used machine guns to shoot and kill the grouped POWs; the prisoners of war who survived the gunfire of the massacre then were killed with a ''
coup de grâce
A coup de grâce (; 'blow of mercy') is a death blow to end the suffering of a severely wounded person or animal. It may be a mercy killing of mortally wounded civilians or soldiers, friends or enemies, with or without the sufferer's consent. ...
'' gun-shot to the head.
Besides the summary execution of the eighty-four U.S. POWs at the farmer’s field, the term "Malmedy massacre" also includes other massacres of civilians and POWs in Belgian villages and towns in the time after their first massacre of U.S. POWs at Malmedy; these war crimes were the subjects of the
Malmedy massacre trial
The Malmedy massacre trial (''U.S. vs. Valentin Bersin, et al.'') was held in May–July 1946 in the former Dachau concentration camp to try the German Waffen-SS soldiers accused of the Malmedy massacre of 17 December 1944. The highest-ranking ...
(May–July 1946), which was a part of the
Dachau trials (1945–1947).
Background
Political
Late in the Second World War, the Third Reich's war-crime violations of the
Geneva Conventions
upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864
The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conv ...
were a type of
psychological warfare
Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and M ...
meant to induce fear of the and of the in the soldiers of the
Allied armies and the U.S. Army in the
Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to:
Military frontiers
* Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany
*Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany
*Western Front (Russian Empire), a maj ...
(1939–1945) — thus
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
ordered that battles be executed and fought with the same
no-quarter brutality with which the and the fought the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...
in the
Eastern Front (1941–1945) in the Soviet Union.
Military
The objective of the Third Reich's
Ardennes Counteroffensive (Battle of the Bulge, 16 Dec. 1944–25 Jan. 1945) was that the
6th SS Panzer Army, commanded by SS General
Sepp Dietrich
Josef "Sepp" Dietrich (28 May 1892 – 21 April 1966) was a German politician and SS commander during the Nazi era. He joined the Nazi Party in 1928 and was elected to the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic in 1930. Prior to 1929, Dietrich was A ...
, was to penetrate and break through the Allied front between the towns of
Monschau
Monschau (; french: Montjoie, ; wa, Mondjoye) is a small resort town in the Eifel region of western Germany, located in the Aachen district of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Geography
The town is located in the hills of the North Eifel, within the Ho ...
and Losheimergraben (a cross-border village shared by the municipalities of
Hellenthal
Hellenthal is a municipality in the district of Euskirchen in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the Eifel hills, near the border with Belgium, approx. 30 km south-west of Euskirchen and 40 km south-east of A ...
and
Büllingen) in order to then cross the River
Meuse
The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a ...
, and afterwards assault and capture the city of
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, .
For their part of the Ardennes counter-attack, the was the
armored spearhead
An armoured spearhead (American English: armored spearhead) is a formation of armoured fighting vehicles, mostly tanks, that form the front of an offensive thrust during a battle. The idea is to concentrate as much firepower into a small front as ...
of the left wing of the 6th SS Panzer Army, under the command of
Joachim Peiper
Joachim Peiper (30 January 1915 – 14 July 1976) was a German ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) officer and a Nazi war criminal convicted for the Malmedy massacre of U.S. Army prisoners of war (POWs). During the Second World War in Europe, Peiper served ...
. After the infantry had breached the U.S. lines, Peiper was to advance his tanks and armored vehicles on the road to Ligneuville and travel through the towns of
Stavelot
Stavelot (; german: Stablo ; wa, Ståvleu) is a town and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.
The municipality consists of the following districts: Francorchamps and Stavelot.
It is best known as the home of ...
,
Trois-Ponts
Trois-Ponts (; wa, Treûs-Ponts; both literally ''Three Bridges'') is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.
On January 1, 2006, Trois-Ponts had a total population of 2,445. The total area is 68.90 km² whic ...
, and Werbomont in order to reach and seize the bridges over the River Meuse that are in the vicinity of the city of
Huy
Huy ( or ; nl, Hoei, ; wa, Hu) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. Huy lies along the river Meuse, at the mouth of the small river Hoyoux. It is in the ''sillon industriel'', the former industrial ...
.
Because the strategy of the Ardennes Counteroffensive had reserved the roads with the strongest
roadway
A carriageway (British English) or roadway (North American English) consists of a width of road on which a vehicle is not restricted by any physical barriers or separation to move lateral movement, laterally. A carriageway generally consists of ...
for the bulk traffic of the tanks of the
1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler
The 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler or SS Division Leibstandarte, abbreviated as LSSAH, (german: 1. SS-Panzerdivision "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler") began as Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard unit, responsible for guarding ...
, the convoys of traveled secondary roads with weak roadways that proved unsuitable for the weights of armored military vehicles, such as
Tiger II
The Tiger II is a German heavy tank of the Second World War. The final official German designation was ''Panzerkampfwagen'' Tiger ''Ausf''. B,''Panzerkampfwagen'' – abbr: ''Pz.'' or ''Pz.Kfw.'' (English: " armoured fighting vehicle"), ''Ausf.' ...
tanks.
German advance to the west
German attack
In December 1944, for the
Ardennes Counteroffensive the Germans' initial, strategic position was east of the German-Belgium border and the
Siegfried Line
The Siegfried Line, known in German as the ''Westwall'', was a German defensive line built during the 1930s (started 1936) opposite the French Maginot Line. It stretched more than ; from Kleve on the border with the Netherlands, along the we ...
, near the town of Losheim, Belgium. To realize the German advance to the west, SS General Dietrich planned for the 6th SS Panzer Army to advance northwest, through Losheimergraben and Bucholz Station, and then drive through the towns of Honsfeld and Büllingen, and through the villages of
Trois-Ponts
Trois-Ponts (; wa, Treûs-Ponts; both literally ''Three Bridges'') is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.
On January 1, 2006, Trois-Ponts had a total population of 2,445. The total area is 68.90 km² whic ...
, to then reach Belgian Route Nationale N23, and then cross the River
Meuse
The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a ...
.
[
For their part in the German advance to the west, was to travel the Lanzerath-Losheimergraben road and advance onto the town of Losheimergraben, immediately following the infantry tasked to capture the villages and towns immediately west of the International Highway. A destroyed bridge thwarted Peiper's tactical plan; earlier in 1944, the retreating Germans had destroyed the Losheim-Losheimergraben bridge over the railroad, which in mid-December of 1944 prevented from traveling that route to their objective — the town of Losheimergraben.
Moreover, Peiper's alternative route also was thwarted, because the selected railroad overpass bridge could not bear the weight of armored military vehicles. In the event, the German combat engineers were slow to repair the damaged ]roadway
A carriageway (British English) or roadway (North American English) consists of a width of road on which a vehicle is not restricted by any physical barriers or separation to move lateral movement, laterally. A carriageway generally consists of ...
of the Losheim-Losheimergraben road, which delay detoured the convoy of tanks and armored vehicles of onto the road through the town of Lanzerath enroute to Bucholz Station.
American counter-attack
The Germans were surprised that the Ardennes Counteroffensive on the northern front — the frontline "bulge" in the Battle of the Bulge — met much resistance from the U.S. Army; for most of a day, an American reconnaissance platoon of 22 soldiers (18 infantrymen and four artillery observer
An artillery observer, artillery spotter or forward observer (FO) is responsible for directing artillery and mortar fire onto a target. It may be a ''forward air controller'' (FAC) for close air support (CAS) and spotter for naval gunfire sup ...
s) battled and delayed approximately 500 paratroops in the village of Lanzerath, Belgium.[ The reconnaissance platoon's defense of the village halted the convoy of tanks and armored vehicles for almost an entire day, slowing it for advancing towards the River Meuse and the city of Antwerp, where the delay allowed the U.S. Army time to reinforce against the expected attacks of the .]
At dusk, the German 9th Parachute Regiment ( 3rd Parachute Division) battled, out-flanked, and captured the American reconnaissance platoon as they withdrew from the fight for want of ammunition to continue the fight — halting the progress of through the village of Lanzerath. In that battle, the paratroops killed one of the artillery observers and wounded 14 of the other American soldiers. Upon capturing the American reconnaissance platoon, the paratroops paused their attack out of caution, believing that a greater force of American infantry and tanks was hiding in the woods. For more than 12 hours, the over-cautious soldiers of the 9th Parachute Regiment did not act until the midnight arrival of Peiper's tanks to Lanzerath; then did the paratroops explore and find the woods empty of American soldiers.[
]
Massacre at Büllingen
At 4:30 a.m. on 17 December 1944, the 1st SS Panzer Division was approximately 16 hours behind schedule when the convoys departed the village of Lanzerath enroute west to the town of Honsfeld. After capturing Honsfeld, Peiper detoured from his assigned route to seize a small fuel depot in Büllingen, where the infantry summarily executed dozens of U.S. POWs. Afterwards, Peiper advanced to the west, towards the River Meuse and captured Ligneuville, bypassing the towns of Mödersheid, Schoppen, Ondenval, and Thirimont. The terrain and poor quality of the roads made the advance of difficult; at the exit to the village of Thirimont, the armored spearhead was unable to travel the road directly to Ligneuville, and Peiper deviated from the planned route, and rather than turn to the left, the armored spearhead turned to the right, and advanced towards the crossroads of Baugnez, which is equidistant from the city of Malmedy and Ligneuville and Waimes
Waimes (; german: Weismes, ; wa, Waime) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.
On January 1, 2006, Waimes had a total population of 6,728. The total area is 96.93 km2 which gives a population density ...
.
Massacre at Baugnez crossroads
On 17 December 1944, between noon and 1:00 p.m., approached the Baugnez crossroads, two miles southeast of the city of Malmedy, Belgium. Meanwhile, a U.S. Army convoy of thirty vehicles, from B Battery of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion
The 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion was a United States Army unit that saw action in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Their main mission was to identify the location of enemy artillery using the "sound and flash" technique (sou ...
, was negotiating the crossroads, and then turning right, towards Ligneuville and St. Vith
St. Vith (german: Sankt Vith ; french: Saint-Vith ; lb, Sankt Väit ; wa, Sint-Vit) is a city and municipality of East Belgium located in the Walloon province of Liège. It was named after Saint Vitus.
On January 1, 2006, St. Vith had a total ...
, in order to join the US 7th Armored Division. The Germans saw the US convoy first, and the spearhead unit of fired upon and destroyed the first and last vehicles, which immobilized the convoy and halted the American advance; as their immobilized convoy was out-numbered and out-gunned, those soldiers of the 285th Field Artillery surrendered to the .
After that brief battle with the American convoy, the tanks and armored vehicles of the convoy continued westwards to Ligneuville; while at the Baugnez crossroads, the infantry assembled the just-surrendered U.S. POWs in a farmer's field, and added them to another group of U.S. POWs, soldiers who had been captured earlier that day. The prisoners of war who survived the massacre at Malmedy said that a group of approximately 120 U.S. POWs stood in the farmer's field when the fired machine guns at the grouped POWs. Panicked by the machine gun fire, some POWs ran and fled the field, but the soldiers shot and killed most of the grouped POWs where they stood; and some G.I.s had dropped to the ground and pretended to be dead. Nonetheless, after the initial machine-gunning of the group of POWs, the soldiers walked amongst the POW corpses, searching for wounded survivors to kill with a ''coup de grâce'' gun-shot to the head. Moreover, some of the POWs who fled the farmer's field had run to and hidden in a café at the Baugnez crossroads; the then set the café afire, and killed every U.S. POW who escaped the burning building.
Responsibility
There is dispute over which officer ordered the summary killing of U.S. POWs at Malmedy; both Peiper, who had already left the Baugnez crossroads where the massacre occurred, and the commander of the 1st Panzer Battalion, Werner Poetschke, are each considered most likely responsible. After the end of the war, Poetschke was identified by various persons involved and eyewitnesses as the officer directly responsible for the initiative and for giving the order to subaltern officers to execute the American prisoners near the Baugnez crossroads. Whether or not Peiper himself gave the actual order, in addition to his command responsibility
Command responsibility (superior responsibility, the Yamashita standard, and the Medina standard) is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes. , he was responsible for creating the culture that prevailed in the unit and which viewed the care of prisoners of war as a burden to be avoided.
Massacre revealed
In the early afternoon of 17 December 1944, 43 U.S. POWs who survived the Malmedy massacre emerged from hiding from the and then sought help and medical aid in the nearby city of Malmédy, which was held by the U.S. Army. The first of the 43 survivors of the massacre were encountered by a patrol from the 291st Combat Engineer Battalion at about 2:30 p.m. on 17 December, hours after the massacre.
The inspector general
An inspector general is an investigative official in a civil or military organization. The plural of the term is "inspectors general".
Australia
The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (Australia) (IGIS) is an independent statutory of ...
of the First Army learned of the Malmedy massacre approximately four hours after the fact; by evening time, rumors that the were summarily executing U.S. POWs had been communicated to the rank and file soldiers of the U.S. Army in Europe. Unofficial orders spread to not take any SS men prisoner.[ American soldiers of the 11th Armored Division later summarily executed 80 Wehrmacht POWs in the ]Chenogne massacre
The Chenogne massacre was a war crime committed by members of the 11th Armored Division, an American combat unit, near Chenogne, Belgium, on January 1, 1945, during the Battle of the Bulge.
According to eyewitness accounts, an estimated 80 Ge ...
on 1 January 1945.
Recovery and investigation
Until the Allied counter-attack against the Ardennes Counteroffensive, the crossroads at Baugnez, Belgium, lay behind the Nazi lines until 13 January 1945; and on 14 January, the U.S. Army reached the killing field where the German soldiers had summarily executed 84 U.S. POWs on 17 December 1944. The military investigators photographed the war-crime scene and the frozen, snow-covered corpses where they lay, which then were removed for autopsy
An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any d ...
and burial.
The forensic investigation
Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal p ...
documented the gun-shot wounds for the war-crime prosecutions of the enemy officers and soldiers who killed surrendered U.S. POWs. Twenty of the 84 corpses of the soldiers murdered as POWs had gunpowder burn residue on the head, indicating of a ''coup de grâce'' gun-shot to the head, a wound not sustained in self-defense. The corpses of 20 soldiers showed evidence of small-calibre gun-shot wounds to the head, without the residue of a gunpowder burn; other POW corpses had one wound to the head, either in the temple or behind an ear; and 10 corpses showed fatal, blunt-trauma injuries to the head, from having been hit or repeatedly hit with a rifle butt until breaking the bones of the skull. The ''coup de grâce'' gun-shot wounds to the head were additional to the bullet wounds made by the machine guns. Most of the POW corpses were recovered from a small area in the farmer’s field, indicating that the Germans grouped the U.S. POWs to shoot them dead.
Responsibility
In 1949, a US Senate investigation concluded that in the thirty-six-day Battle of the Bulge the soldiers of murdered between 538 and 749 U.S. POWs, other investigations claimed that the killed fewer U.S. POWs, and put the figure of the dead as being between 300 and 375 US soldiers and 111 civilians executed by the .
War crimes trial
The Malmedy massacre trial
The Malmedy massacre trial (''U.S. vs. Valentin Bersin, et al.'') was held in May–July 1946 in the former Dachau concentration camp to try the German Waffen-SS soldiers accused of the Malmedy massacre of 17 December 1944. The highest-ranking ...
, from May to July 1946, established that the commanders in the field bore command responsibility
Command responsibility (superior responsibility, the Yamashita standard, and the Medina standard) is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes. for the killing surrendered U.S. POWs; specifically General Josef Dietrich (6th Panzer Army); Werner Poetschke (1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler); and Joachim Peiper () whose soldiers committed the actual war crime at Malmedy.
Regarding command responsibility for the actions of his officers and soldiers, Dietrich said he received from Hitler superior orders
Superior orders, also known as the Nuremberg defense or just following orders, is a plea in a court of law that a person, whether a member of the military, law enforcement, a firefighting force, or the civilian population, should not be conside ...
that no quarter would be given to enemy soldiers. Likewise, regarding command responsibility for the actions of his officers and soldiers, Peiper said he received superior orders that no quarter was to be granted, no prisoners taken, and no pity shown towards Belgian civilians.
Given that the American public's demand to avenge the Malmedy massacre precluded a fair trial in the U.S., the war-crime cases of the and soldiers and officers were conducted at the Dachau trials held in the deactivated Dachau concentration camp
,
, commandant = List of commandants
, known for =
, location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany
, built by = Germany
, operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS)
, original use = Political prison
, construction ...
, in occupied Germany
Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Franc ...
, from 1945 to 1947. The Dachau Trials prosecuted and punished war criminals by imposing 43 death sentences, 22 sentences to life-long imprisonment, and eight sentences to short imprisonment.
See also
* List of massacres in Belgium
This is a list of massacres which have occurred in the territory now covered by the modern country of Belgium.
References
{{Europe topic , List of massacres in
Belgium
Massacres
*
Massacres
A massacre is the killing of a large ...
* Normandy massacres
The Normandy massacres were a series of killings in which up to 156 Canadian prisoners of war were murdered by soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division (Hitler Youth) during the Battle of Normandy in World War II. The majority of the murders oc ...
, a series of killings in which up to 156 Canadian prisoners of war were murdered by soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division (Hitler Youth) during the Battle of Normandy.
* Wereth Massacre, the torture and killing of 11 African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
prisoners of war in Wereth
Amel (; french: Amblève, ) is a Belgian municipality in the Walloon province of Liège, and is part of the German-speaking Community of Belgium (german: Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft Belgiens). On January 1, 2013, the municipality of Amel had ...
, committed by the 1st SS Panzer Division on the same day.
Notes
:
:
References
Further reading
* Steven P. Remy, ''The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy'' (Harvard University Press, 2017), x, 342 pp.
External links
Mortuary Affairs Operations At Malmedy – Lessons Learned From A Historic Tragedy
by Major Scott T. Glass. ''Quartermaster Professional Bulletin'', Autumn 1997
"Massacre at Malmédy during the Battle of the Bulge"
(reprint of an article in ''World War II'' 003by M. Reynolds)
Gettysburg Daily article on 65th anniversary of the Malmedy Massacre.
Fatal Crossroads: The Untold Story of the Malmédy massacre at the Battle of the Bulge
Book by Danny S. Parker, November 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Malmedy Massacre
Massacres in 1944
Massacres in Belgium
Nazi war crimes
World War II prisoner of war massacres by Nazi Germany
Nazi SS
Mass murder in 1944
Battle of the Bulge
1944 in Belgium
World War II massacres
Malmedy
December 1944 events
1944 murders in Belgium