But five countians Frey, Haines, Herchelroth, Steffy and Swartz were killed or wounded. (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), Hitler had from the beginning posited the war effort as presenting only two possible outcomes: total victory or absolute defeat. The Malmedy Massacre, or the shooting of 84 American soldiers who had surrendered, took place on December 17, 1944, the second day of the Battle of the Bulge. So grateful that Mike Collins managed to film his last interview. Peiper made a request through his defense attorney that he and his men be shot by a firing squad, the traditional soldier's execution. On January 6, 1949, they recommended that 29 of these death sentences, including the 12 death sentences in the Malmedy Massacre case, be commuted to life in prison. SS 2nd Lt. Kurt Flamm testified on May 27, 1946. Learn Teach Collections Academic Research Remember Survivors and Victims Genocide Prevention Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial Outreach. Of all the proceedings before the American military tribunal at Dachau, the one that was the most highly publicized was the Malmedy Massacre case.

When the case came to the attention of Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall, he ordered a stay of execution for the 12 men who were scheduled to be hanged in just a few days, and then directed General Lucius D. Clay, the highest authority of the American occupation in Germany to investigate Everett's charges against the prosecution.Royall appointed a three-man commission, headed by Judge Gordon Simpson of the Texas Supreme Court.The other two members of the commission were Judge Edward L. Van Roden and Lt. Col. Charles Lawrence, Jr. Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper on the Eastern front. At the same time, a US convoy of thirty vehicles and nearly 140 men of Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion was heading south from Hrtgen Forest toward Ligneuville. As a result of his loyalty to Adolf Hitler, who had ordered the executions, Dietrich rose rapidly in the ranks, although he was a Bavarian peasant who was barely literate. Heinrich Himmler visits a Waffen-SS tank division on Eastern front. The Malmedy Massacre was one of a series of atrocities committed by Peipers division. Private Samuel Bobyns, a U.S. Army ambulance driver, gets admiring glances from two women as he tries to identify the accused SS man who saved his life. This atrocity is known as the Malmedy Massacre.. The 139 men who were still awaiting execution were staff members of the Dachau concentration camp, SS soldiers accused of shooting POWs at Malmedy and German civilians accused of killing Allied pilots who were shot down on bombing missions over Germany. Main telephone: 202.488.0400 Forty-two of the accused were sentenced to death, but all the sentences were commuted to life after a Congressional investigation determined that there had been misconduct by members of the prosecution team. During the proceedings, the prosecution contended that Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper had instructed his men to fight as they had fought against the Russians, disregarding international law about the treatment of prisoners of war. The last 6 death sentences of the men convicted in the Malmedy Massacre proceeding were finally commuted by General Handy in 1951, after the fledgling Federal Republic government demanded a halt to the execution of German war criminals as a necessary precondition to rearmament and their cooperation with the Allies in the Cold War against the Communist Soviet Union. Each of the accused was assigned a number because it was hard to keep the names of the 73 men straight. When the gory details of the Malmedy Massacre reached the American people, there was a great outcry for justice to be done. Malmedy Survivors In the list of survivors below of the Malmedy Massacre there is one name missing. Between the logistical difficulties of transmitting from the field and the vagaries of censorship, it could take days or even weeks for World War II correspondents to get their stories from the front published back home. After the war, during the summer of 1945, the U.S. occupation authorities rounded up over 1,000 former soldiers in the 1st SS Panzer Division and interrogated them. This case was important because every school child in America knew the name of the Battle of the Bulge. They all wore their field uniforms, which had been stripped of the double lighting bolt SS insignia and all other military emblems and medals. According to the story that was pieced together by the American survivors, Peiper's assault unit had destroyed around a dozen American army spotter planes that day and had captured a group of American soldiers, who had been forced to ride along as Peiper's men continued down the road on their tanks. After only 2 hours and 20 minutes of deliberation by the panel of judges, all 73 of the accused SS soldiers were convicted. The six survivors are Samuel Dobyns, Sandusky, Ohio; Kenneth F. Ahrens, Erie, Pa.; Omar D. Ford, Leeton, Mo. In total, the Malmedy Massacre would find 84 American POWs killed at the hands of Nazis. TTY: 202.488.0406, On December 16, 1944, the German military launched the , The two forces converged just before noon at the crossroads hamlet of Baugnez, two and a half miles south of Malmedy. But it was not that easy for General Dietrich to escape justice, since he was one of Hitler's closest associates. Bersin's name was the first in the alphabetical list of the accused, and he was the first to be sentenced to death for killing Belgian civilians in the village of Wanne. Associated Press 1 of 2 According to one veteran of the battle, an American Infantry Captain who is now deceased, the alleged massacre was a cover-up to explain why the U.S. Army waited four weeks to collect combat fatalities after they had been notified about the bodies by local Belgian citizens. Lt. William Perlwas the chief interrogator of the Malmedy Massacre accused.The chief prosecutor, called the Trial Judge Advocate, was Lt. Col. Burton F. "It's so long ago now. The accused in the proceedings included General Josef "Sepp" Dietrich, commander of the Sixth Panzer Army, who was a long-time personal friend of Adolf Hitler, and Col. Jochen Peiper, the commanding officer of "Kampfgrppe Peiper," the armored battle group which spearheaded the German attack in Hitler's Ardennes Offensive, better known to Americans as the Battle of the Bulge. The massacre was committed on December 17, 1944 by Kampfgruppe Peiper (part of the 1st SS Panzer Division), a German combat unit, during the Battle of the Bulge. ", For many of the American GIs fighting in the savage battle, the modest celebration in the 101st headquarters would have been a feast. Seven members of the panel are shown in the photograph below. "That was a brave deed on his part to go through the mines," Merriken said. WebWhile some fled and got away safely, 84 Americans were killed in what became known as the Malmedy Massacre. The Malmedy Massacre proceedings were conducted like a U.S. Army court martial, except that only a two-thirds majority vote by the panel of 8 judges was needed for conviction. The citation and star were destroyed Boston, MA 02109 Soldiers were held prisoner at the massacre, according to historical accounts. 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