"Was Justice Served After the Malmedy Massacre?" Topic

"It was a dismal day, Sunday, December 17, 1944, just hours after the Germans had broken through the thinly held American lines in the Ardennes Forest along rugged terrain of the Western Front.

The thunderclap of Operation Wacht am Rhein (Watch on the Rhine) had struck with sudden fury, sending the Americans reeling, units scrambling to defend against an onslaught of infantry, armor, and artillery aimed at driving a wedge between the Allied forces north and south, crossing the Meuse River, and capturing the vital port of Antwerp, Belgium. In his delirium, Hitler believed this bold counterstroke in the West, fraught with risk though it was, might bring victory or at least a negotiated peace with Britain and the United States…"
Main page
link

Armand

Thank you Senator Joe McCarthy, you
How that moron became so influential is puzzling.
Loathsome toad.

+1 OFM Despite their sexy uniforms and tanks, the entire Nazi war machine was guilty of numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity

Peiper at least didn't get to die of natural causes.

Oh! No… someone made him to paid the Bill….

Armand

But also understand the commander of the unit that got Massacre was told not to go by that route. HE said " He had orders" and got his men capture and killed.

"Thank you Senator Joe McCarthy, you Bleeped text
How that moron became so influential is puzzling.
Loathsome toad."
The real question is: Were the Nazis tortured to get confessions? Whether you like McCarthy or not is irrelevant.

But also understand the commander of the unit that got Massacre was told not to go by that route. HE said " He had orders" and got his men capture and killed.

Whew. THAT certainly lets Peiper off the hook!

"But also understand the commander of the unit that got Massacre was told not to go by that route. HE said " He had orders" and got his men capture and killed."

There is a spectacularly enormous difference between a military blunder, whether it is incompetence or fog of war or whatever it may be, and an intentional war crime.

I'm not sure I follow your thinking, whitejamest. Are you saying that because the US command ordered his forces to go the "wrong" way and were captured, therefore the Nazi murder of nearly a hundred of them while disarmed and being held captive absolves the Nazis of a war crime? I'm hoping I only am missing the point of your comment.

A war crime, by legal definition, is a war crime.

I am saying the opposite of that. I was quoting Wackmole9's comment above about the American commander's blunder. My point is that it is entirely unreasonable to draw any equivalency between his mistake and Peiper's war crime.

The real question is: Were the Nazis tortured to get confessions?

That isn't The Real Question. That is a separate question. A subsequent atrocity does not negate a previous atrocity.

"That isn't The Real Question. That is a separate question. A subsequent atrocity does not negate a previous atrocity." Not defending Peiper or defending McCarthy. If the Nazis were tortured to get confessions their confessions are inadmissible in court. My suspicion is they were 'tortured' because they executed 300 American soldiers.

The real question is: Were the Nazis tortured to get confessions? Whether you like McCarthy or not is irrelevant.

One of Peiper's complaints of mistreatment was that the guards used to shout at him

Peiper didn't just restrict his murders to the American soldiers, he murdered plenty of unarmed civilians on the way too. Frankly, how so many of the Nazis escaped execution for their crimes is staggering. To answer the question – no, justice wasn't served.

No one talks about Peiper and his crimes in the Soviet Union.

That's weird….

Armand

Sadly, one of the longest-lasting victories the Germans won was the propaganda victory. In spite of the complete exposure of all of the regime's most murderous aspects, the SS has managed to retain something of the aura of elitesse that the Germans sought to give it. The reality was very different.

I once met a Malmedy Massacre survivor. A soft-spoken man with a heartbreaking story.

In Italy we made the same mistake with Kappler and Reader,as for others responsable of atrocious massacres and tortures, we spared their (useless) lifes, only for seeing them get free after some yrs, when you have such a scum in your hands is more easy kill them on the spot, another absurdity were the so called "political motives", given the fact that Germany had lost the war, if they didn't like the allies…well there was another option, could always ask for russians' "kindness".

There is good documentary on this via US Public Broadcasting Service.

link

If devolution of the authority to commit mindless acts of gratuitous violence down to the lowest level could win a war, Germany and Japan would have won that war. It's a shocking measure of how widespread the atrocities were that the Allies essentially realized, "if we give the death penalty to every German or Japanese officer who committed a death penalty offense, we would kill a couple of divisions' worth of people." The crimes were so widespread and so ubiquitous that we had to settle instead for what we got: exemplary punishments for the very worst offenders (even when, like General Yamashita, they seem to have been convicted on the principle that "you oversaw something atrocious somewhere at some point in your career"), and a societal stigma for the country at large that has still not entirely lifted.

As justice goes, there are actually a lot worse outcomes.

When I think about what really happened I would rather not play the Germans, should I say, the Nazis.

Let's not forget that the Germans massacred far more surrendered British troops in worse scenarios at Wormhoudt and Le Paradis. Oh! The coconut winners though, goes to the Russians who slaughtered fourteen and a half thousand Polish POWs (plus eight thousand non-military) from April 1940 (collectively called The Katyn Massacre)

I thought Peiper took responsibilty for malmedy but hadn't actually ordered it.
Not that i think he was a nice guy.

On the Eastern front, both sides routinely liquidated prisoners.

That as maybe, but more POWs were murdered after escaping Stalag Luft III.