Malmedy Massacre

It is the night of December 15th, 1944. American G.I.s are dug in all across the Belgian border, from Lanzareth to Ligneville. They shiver in the deep winter cold, unaware of Sepp Dietrich's 6th SS Panzer Army charging through the Ardennes Forest. As the Battle of the Bulge begins, we look instead toward a small set of crossroads southeast of Malmedy, the first setting in our new series on war crimes throughout history. Though overlooked when compared to other crimes of the SS, the events at Malmedy highlight the lengths Germany was willing to go for victory. No surrender, no prisoners. Spearheading the left wing of this German offensive was Kampfgruppe Peiper, commanded by SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Joachim Peiper. A staunch Nazi, Peiper had served in the SS since 1934, working his way up the ranks to become a personal adjutant of Heinrich Himmler. Peiper was eagerly involved in the designs of ethnic cleansing carried out by the Nazi regime as they expanded throughout Europe, and by 1943, Peiper had become a full-blown commander in the Waffen-SS. His reputation of brutality increased tenfold on the Eastern Front, with his own unit earning the nickname of Blowtorch Battalion, thanks to the torching of Soviet villages and the slaughter of civilians inhabiting them. By the time Peiper was transferred to the Western Front in 1944, rumors of his brutality on the even a nervous breakdown soured the glamour of his SS propaganda. Meanwhile, news reached the Allies of activity in the South. Soldiers of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion were sent out from Aachen. Their mission was to reach the Ardennes area and identify the location of enemy artillery. Erratic reports were coming in of the German advance, US reconnaissance heavily engaged in Lanzareth, then German units in Hansfeld and Bullingen. The situation was tense, as a convoy from the 285th Battery B drove through Malmedy, passing through into the unknown as they headed southeast. Some men tried to sleep in the trucks, some listened anxiously to the distant echoes of gunfire and artillery. A stray enemy plane circled overhead, dropping the occasional flare or bomb at unknown targets. The Americans weren't sure just how far the Germans had pushed. Likewise, the Germans were unaware of American presence and hoped to use speed to their advantage. Kampfgruppe Peiper was deeply behind schedule as they pushed on toward the River Meuse. They took spare American POWs with them as they passed through Belgian territory. The remaining prisoners were executed before Peiper proceeded west. By noon September 17th, Kampfgruppe Peiper were en route to Ligneville by way of the Bonnier Crossroads, two miles southeast of Malmedy. It was here several of Peiper's armored units encountered a convoy belonging to the American 285th. Spotting the lightly armed US troops first, Peiper's group immediately opened fire on the Americans, with a tank round exploding next to their lead jeep. Its drivers, Lieutenant Vigil Larry and Captain Roger L. Mills, were forced to scramble for shelter in a nearby ditch. Stopped dead in their tracks, GIs desperately sought whatever shelter they could find as mortar shells and machine guns tore through into their column. Under the barrage of gunfire, the American soldiers realized the futility of their situation, and soon surrendered to the Waffen-SS. Looking to continue their advance toward Ligneville, the armored vehicles of Kampfgruppe Peiper pressed on, leaving a cadre of Waffen-SS infantry under SS Sturmbannfuhrer Werner Pochtke at the Bonnier Crossroads to deal with the US POWs. As Peiper's half-track rolled past the newly captured Americans, he stood up and called out It's a long way to Tipperary, boys," laughing with his men. Meanwhile, the volatile Pochtke was in an especially bad mood after wrecking his own Panther tank trying to clear the road, and the prospect of dealing with the Americans seemed more of an irritation for him. Reports from SS underlings varied, but his response to the question of the prisoners was said to be something along the lines of, The newly captured soldiers were assembled with those gathered earlier that day from Hansfeld or Bollingen, and the Germans herded around 120 prisoners toward a farmer's field. As they walked, German grenadiers jumped from their half-tracks to pilfer anything of value—watches, wedding rings, even dog tags—treating the prisoners as if they were already dead. Exhausted and freezing, the prisoners stumbled past barbed wire fencing and into the field, huddled together in a group as they waited for their next instructions. Despite their fatigue, soldiers like Charles Atman sensed that something wasn't right. Noticing the Germans' strange body language and shouting, Atman recalled, So then, two tanks came up and parked right almost in front of us, and they pulled machine guns out and mounted them on the outside of their tanks. I asked the lieutenant, who was with me, What are they going to do? And the lieutenant says, Well, let's hope for the best. The sound of gunfire ripped through the cold and bitter air as German machine gunners struck the prisoners, killing most of them where they stood. Some attempted to flee through the field, but were cut down. Some fell down to play dead, but were later executed as the SS troops walked through the Some Americans that were able to flee made it to the nearby Café Butterwee at the crossroads, attempting to stow inside and avoid the SS who split off to hunt the remaining stragglers. GIs hid in the barn behind the café, some in hay piles around the building, but the Germans eventually coaxed them out at gunpoint. For those who remained, they watched in horror as SS soldiers began setting the café ablaze. Those who attempted to flee the flames were shot down as they crashed through the burning buildings. By 2.30pm, American patrols from the 291st Combat Engineer Battalion encountered survivors fleeing toward Malmedy. Altogether, 43 survivors made it back to Allied lines hours after the massacre. News of the Waffen-SS and their atrocities at Bonnier soon spread to the enlisted Americans serving on the Western Front. Shock and outrage of the SS atrocities galvanized American resolve to push back the German offensive in the Ardennes, which eventually led to the successful defense of Bastogne and the eventual defeat of the German offensive. While the atrocities committed by Kampfgruppe Peiper at Bonnier fueled determination and resolve, it also led to unofficial reprisals by American troops, such as the Chernonia massacre of Wehrmacht prisoners in January 1945, an act which many in the U.S. High Command saw as a stain on their moral struggle with the Nazi regime. Those who embarked on the Great Crusade into Europe did so for justice, not for retribution. It wasn't until January 14th, 1945 that the U.S. Army reached the killing field and recovered 84 bodies for investigation and burial. Later in 1949, a U.S. Senate investigation found that the soldiers of Kampfgruppe Peiper were responsible for roughly 538 to 749 murders of U.S. prisoners during the 36-day Battle of the Bulge. The Malmedy Massacre shows the indiscriminate brutality of Nazi beliefs on the battlefield, their disregard to the laws of war, and its corruptive influence on those Americans compelled to retaliate in kind. The massacre also serves as a reminder of the resilience in those who survived and helped ensure that no crime goes unpunished, even in war.