The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 8: In Summary of the Committee's Report

 The Senate Subcommittee Report

In its report, the subcommittee rejected the most serious charges, including beatings, torture, mock executions and starvation  of the defendants.  In addition, the subcommittee determined that the commutations of the sentences pronounced by General Clay had occurred because of the U.S. Army's recognition that procedral irregularities could have occurred during the trial.

The commission did not exonerate the defendants or absolve them of guilt and it endorsed the conclusions General Clay  issued in the particular case of Lieutenant Christ.  

Clay had written thatn "he was personally  convinced of the culpability of Lieutenant  Christ, and, that for reason his death sentence was fully  justified.  But, to apply  this sentence would be equivalet accepting  a bad adminsitration of justice, which led  [him], not without reserve, to commute the death penalty to life imprisonment."

Approximately sixteen months after the end of the trial, almosy all of the defendants presented affidavits  repudiating their  former confessions  and alleging aggravated duress of all types.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 7: More Accusations

Senators  Raymond Baldwin (R-Ct) and Lester C. Hunt (D-Wy)  were later accused by historian David Oshinsky of  being "determined to exonerate the Army at all costs."  Oshinsky alleged the third member of the three man committee, Senator Estes Kefauver (D-Tn) displayed a lack of interest in the case, attending only two of the first fifteen hearings.

McCarthy sought to denounce Baldwin in front of the whole Senate.  But his efforts were repudiated by the Commission on Armed Forces, which clearly showed its support for Baldwin and eventually adopted the subcommittee's official report.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 6: The Senate Subcommittee and Sen. Joseph McCarthy

It was not yet over, however.  Eventually, the U.S. Senate decided to investigate.  Ultimately the case was entrusted to the Committee on Armed Services.  The investigation was done by a subcommittee of three senators, chaired by  Raymond E. Baldwin (R-Ct)  The subcommittee was set up 29 March 1949 and its members went to Germany and heard from no fewer than 108 witnesses.

Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wi) obtained permission to attend the hearings.  McCarthy's state, Wisconsin, had a large number of people of German heritage, and there were allegations that McCarthy was politically motivated to work on behalf of the Malmedy German defendants.  As usual, he used an extremely aggressive questioning style.

McCarthy's actions further inflamed a split  between the American Legion, which took a hardline position and wanted to uphold the death sentences, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars who supported more lenient penalties.

The last clash took place on May 1949, when McCarthy asked  that Lt.  William R. Perl be given a polygraph test.  This had already been objected to by Baldwin, whereupon McCarthy left the session claiming that Baldwin was trying to whitewash the American military.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 5: Peiper and Dietrich Released

Furthermore,an article denouncing the conditions under which the assumed guilt of the Malmedy  defendants and of other questionable cases was going to be published in February 1949 with the assistance of the National Council for Prevention of War.  Van Roden refused to to commute the six remaining death sentences, including Joachim Peiper's, but the executions were postponed.  

By 1951 most of the men were released and the only remaining death sentences, those of Peiper and four others, were commuted.  Peiper's sentence was further reduced in 1954.  Both Sepp Dietrich and Joachim Peiper were released from Landsbberg Prison in 1956.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 4: The Simpson Commission to Review the Hearings

The turmoil raised by this case  caused the Secretary of the Army , Kenneth Royall, to create a commission, chaired by Justice  Gordon Simpson of  the Texas Supreme Court, to investigate.

The commission supported Everett's accusations regarding mock trials and neither disputed  nor denied charges of torture of the defendants.   The commission expressed the opinion that the pre-trial investigation had not been properly  conducted and that the members felt no death sentence should be executed in any instance where such doubts existed.

One member of the commission, Judge Edward L. Van Roden of Pennsylvania, made several  public statements alleging that physical violence had been inflicted on the accused and questioned the validity of the  hearings.  

Anti-Communist author Freda Utley wrote, "All but two of the Germans in the 139 cases we investigated had been kicked in the testicles beyond repair.  This was standard operating procedure with our American investigators."

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 3: Allegations of Torture

But, the verdict was not the end of the trial.  It was more of a new beginning.  

Pursuant to procedure,  an in-house review was  undertaken by the American Occupation Army in Germany; the trial was carefully examined by a deputy judge.  

Colonel Everett, head of the Germans' defense team,  was convinced that a fair trial had not been granted to the defendants: in addition  to alleged mock trials, he claimed that "to extort confessions. U.S. prosecution teams 'had kept  the German defendants in dark, solitary confinement at near  starvation  rations up to six months; had applied various forms of torture, including driving burning matches under the prisoners' fingernails; had administered beatings which resulted in broken jaws and arms and permanently injured testicles.' "

These allegations of torture were later proved to be false.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 2:

In the course of the trial,  six Waffen-SS defendants, including Joachim Peiper, complained to the tribunal that they had been victims of physical violence and threats of violence meant to compel them to confessions of war crimes.  The military tribunal asked the defendants to confirm their sworn  statements; of the nine officers  who testified, three claimed to have been mistreated by U.S. Army jailers.

For the majority of the Nazis on trial, the defense argued that they either had not participated in the massacres, or that superior orders had compelled them to particiopate in the massacres.

On 16 July 1946,  the verdict was delivered on 73 members of the kampfgruppe Peiper.  Forty-three were sentenced to death by hanging, including Peiper.  Peiper's sentence was commuted to 35 years in 1954, and he was released in  December 1956.

--GreGen

Malmedy Massacre Trial-- Part 1

From Wikipedia.

The Malmedy Massacre Trial  (U.S. vs. Valentin  Bersin, et al.) was held May-July 1946 in the former Dachau Concentration Camp to try the German Waffen-SS accused of the Malmedy Massacre of 17 December 1944.  The highest ranking defendant was  the former Waffen-SS General Sepp Dietrich.

A tribunal of  U.S. Army officers tried 73 Waffen-SS officers and soldiers, most of whom had beem ,e,bers of  the 1st SS Division Adolf Hitler Bodyguard

The defendants included German officers  Sepp Dietrich,  Fritz Kramer,  Hermann Priess and Jachim Peoper.  SS-Standartenfuhrer Joachim Peiper, commander of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment was the main group who had committed the massacre.

Colonel Willis M. Everett Jr. led the defense team and Colonel Burton Ellis led the prosecution team in the trial of the Waffen-SS war criminals indicted for the massacres of more than 300 U.S. Army POWs in the vicinity of Malmedy and other places, as well as the massacre of 100 Belgian civilians at Stavelot, during the 16 December 1944 to 13 January 1945 period of the Battle of the Bulge.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 8: War Crime Trial

RESPONSIBILITY

In 1948, a U.S. Senate investigation concluded that German soldiers of Kampfgruppe Peiper murdered between 538 and 749 U.S. POWs.  Other investigations, however claimed the Waffen-SS killed far fewer, putting the number of murdered POWs by them at between 300 and 375 and 111 civilians.

WAR CRIME TRIAL

The Malmedy Massacre Trial, from May to July 1946, established that the commanders in the field bore responsibility for the Waffen-SS killing POWs, specifically  Waffen-SS General Josef Dietrich and Werner Poetschke and Joachim Peiper.

Regarding command responsibility for  the actions of his soldiers and officers, Dietrich said he had received orders from Hitler that no quarter was to be given to enemy soldiers.  Peiper said the same thing and also that no pity was to be shown to Belgium civilians.

Given the American public's demand to avenge the Malmedy Massacre it was decided not to try the German officers and soldiers in the United States.  The Dachau Trials were held in the deactivated Dachau Concentration Camp in occupied Germany from 1945 to 1947.

These trials resulted in imposing 43 death sentences, 22 life imprisonment and 8 for short imprisonment.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 7: Evidence for War Crimes

Until the Allied counterattack, the Baugnez, Belgium, crossroads was behind German lines until 13 January  1945; and on January 14, the U.S. Army reached the killing field where the Waffen-SS had summarily executed  84 U.S. POWs on 17 December 1944.  The military investigators photographed the war-crime scene and the frozen, show-covered corpses where they lay, which were then removed for autopsy and burial.

The foresnsic  investigation documented the gun-shot wounds for the war-crimes prosecutions of the Nazi officers and soldiers who had done the killings. Twenty of the 84 corpses  murdered that day had gunpowder residue on the head, indicating a coup de grace  gun-shot to the head, a wound not sustained in self-defense.

The corpses of another twenty showed evidence of  small-calibre gunshot wounds to the head, without gunpowder residue.  Other corpses had one wound to the head, either in the temple or behind the ear..  Ten others showed evidence of fatal blunt force 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 grace gun shot wounds to the head were in addition to bullet holes made by machine guns.  Most of the POW bodies were recovered from a small area of the farmer's field, indicating that the Germans had grouped them before the massacre took place.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 6: What Happened Next

MASSACRE REVEALED

In the early afternoon of 17 December 1944, 43 US POWs wo survived the massacre emerged from hiding from the Waffen-SS and then sought help and medical aid from the nearby city of Malmedy,which was held by the U.S. Army.  The first of the 43 survivors was  encountered by a patrol from the 291st Combat Engineer Battalion at about 2:30 pm on  17 December, just hours after the masacre.

The inspector general of the First Army learned of the Malmedy Massacre aprroxomately four hours after it happened; by evening time, rumors that the Waffen-SS  were summarily executing POWs had been communicated to the rank and file of U.S. soldiers.  Consequently the  commander of the 328th Infanttry Regiment issued Fragmentary Order 27, that said:  "No SS troops or paratroopers will be taken prisoner, but will be shot on sight."

After that, the soldiers of the 11th Armored Division summarily executed 80 Waffen-SS  POWs in the Chenogne Massacre on 1 January 1945.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 5: The Massacre and Responsibility

The prisoners who survived the Malmedy Massacre said said that a group of about 120 U.S. POWs stood in the farmer's field when the Waffen-SS began firing machine guns at them.    Panicked by this, sone of the POWs fled the field, but the Germans  shot and killed most of the Americans in the field.

Some of the GIs dropped to the ground and pretended to be dead.

After the initial fire on the POWs, the Waffen-SS soldiers walked amongst the corpses searching for survivors to kill with a shot to the head.

Some of the Americans who had escaped from the field had hidden in a cafe at the Baugnez crossroads.  The Germans set it afire and killed them as they came running out.

RESPONSIBILITY

There is some dispute over which Waffen-SS officer ordered the summary killing of the American POWs at Malmedy.    Both Peiper, who had already left the crossroads when the massacre occurred and the commander of the 1st Panzer Battalion,  Werner Poetschke, are each considered most likely responsible.

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 4: Events Leading Up to the Massacre

On 17 December 1944, between noon and 1 pm, the German strike force Kampfgruppe Peiper  (under Joachim Peiper) approached the  Baugnez crossroads, two miles south of the city of Malmedy, Belgium.  Meanwhile, a U.S. Army convoy of 20 vehicles from B Battery of the 285th Field Artillery Onserbvation Battalion, was negotiating those crossroads, and then turning right , towards Ligneuville and St. Vith, in order to join the  US 7th Armored Division.

Unfortunately, the Germans saw the US force first and the spearhead unit fired upon and destroyed the first and last vehicles, which immobilized the convoy and halted the American advance.  

The American convoy was outnumbered and outgunned and the soldiers of the 285th surrendered.

After the brief battle, the tanks and armored vehicles of the Kampfgruppe Peiper convoy continued west to Ligneuville; while at the Baugnez  crossroads, the Waffen-SS  assembled the just surrendered  U.S. P.O.W.s  in a farmer's field and added in another group of prisoners captured earlier that day.

And, Then.  --GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 3: Background

Late in World War II,  the Third Reich's  war-crimes violations of the Geneva Conventions were a type of psychological warfare meant to induce fear of the Wehrmacht and of the Waffen-SS in the soldiers of the Allied armies and in the U.S. Army on the Western front.

Hitler ordered that battles be executed and fought with the same no-quarter  brutality with which the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS fought the Red Army along the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union.

All this took place during what is called the Battle of the Bulge, where the Germans caught the Allied forces by surprise and pushed large parts of the Allies back, isolating units, including the famed Bastogne.

GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 2

Besides the summary executions of 84 American soldiers at the farmer's field,  the term "Malmedy Massacre" also includes other Waffen-SS massacres of civilians and POWs in Belgium villages and towns  in the time after the first massacre of the U.S. troops.

 These Waffen-SS war crimes were the subject of the Malmedy Massacre trial (May-July 1946), which were a part of the  Dachau Trials (1945-1947).

--GreGen

The Malmedy Massacre-- Part 1

In my last post, I wrote about the death of Harold Billows who is believed to be the last living survivor of what is known today as the Malmedy Massacre.  I had never heard of this before, so further research was necessary.

From Wikipedia.

THE MALMEDY MASSACRE

This was  a German war crime committed by soldiers of the Waffen-SS on  17 December 1944 at the Baugnez Crossroad near the Belgium city of Malmedy, during the Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945).  

Soldiers of the  Kampfgrippe  Peiper summarily killed eighty-four American  prisoners of war who had surrendered after a brief battle.  The Waffen-SS troops had grouped the U.S. POWs in a farmer's field, where they used machine guns to shoot and kill them.  Those surviving the shootings were then shot in the head to finish the job.

Fortunately, there were 43 Americans who survived.

--GreGen

Last Known Survivor of WW II American POW Massacre Dead at 99: Harold Billow

From Military.com, AP

Harold Billow, the last-known survivor of a massacre of Americans during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944,  died May 17 at age 99.  He will be laid to rest Thursday in  Pennsylvania.  He was a  member of Army's 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion  when his unit surrendered to German Waffen SS troops in December 1944.

According to various accounts,  the Germans opened fire on the unarmed prisoners  in a field, killing  more to eighty in what became known as the Malmedy Massacre.

"As soon as  the machine gun started firing,  I went face down in the snow," billow told Lancaster  Online in 2019.  He played dead ad Germans searched for survivors.  "Anybody that showed signs of life, they would point-blank shoot them in the head to finish them off," Billow said.

He said he stayed there for several hours before he and other survivors bolted.  He made his way through hedgerows before reaching the safety of American lines.  After the war, he was called upon to testify at a war crimes trial in which 43 German soldiers were sentenced to death for the Malmedy Massacre.

However, they were eventually released  after investigators determined that U.S. guards had coerced confessions.

--GreGen