Metapedia is growing — and we need your help to keep it that way. Please contribute to our ongoing fundraiser.

   1,418 EUR  5 000 EUR

Malmedy massacre

From Metapedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Joachim Peiper, commander at Malmedy.

The "Malmedy Massacre" is the name for a 1944 wartime propaganda hoax. The hoax alleged that a group of German soldiers had deliberately massacred captured American soldiers. Several years later, American authorities admitted the claims were false.

Contents

Historical Background

Germans Offensive in the West

On December 16, 1944, the war-weary German Wehrmacht began its only major offensive in Western-Europe of 1944-1945. Today this is known as the "Battle of the Bulge" (known in German as Operation "Wacht am Rhein", after a patriotic song). The westward progress of the campaign was only fully stopped by January 1st of 1945.

Thus, for two weeks, the Americans experienced their only real strategic-level defeat of WWII.

American Resolve Wobbling

It is in this context, of the initially-successful "Wacht am Rhein", that the stories of the "massacre" were publicized. The resolve of the public and military needed to be stiffened.

There had been reports that the discipline in the U.S. Army ranks in France was "cracking" by December of 1944[1].

"The French now grumble that the Americans are a more drunken and disorderly lot than the Germans and hope to see the day when they are liberated from the Americans." (--U.S. General Leroy Lutes, early December 1944[2]).

Furthermore, once the Americans had captured France,

Lutes discovered that the Allied propaganda which portrayed the Germans as brutes was untrue: "I am informed the Germans did not loot either residences, stores, or museums. In fact the people claimed that they were meticulously treated by the Army of Occupation."

By the end of the war, over 450 GIs were sentenced to death by courts-martial, nearly all for having committed nonmilitary offenses like rape and murder.[3]

Black Propaganda

In light of 1.) The temporary military setback of "Wacht am Rhein", 2.) The signs of the softening of U.S. military discipline, and 3.) The discovery that the German occupation of France had not been particularly "brutal", the American media sprang to action.

The American media had, since the 1930s, been waging a smear campaign against the Germans (sometimes tamed down to "the Nazis"). they portrayed them as bloodthirsty monsters. This was especially true after the rise of the militarily-feared Waffen-SS.

Atrocity stories of dubious origin (known as "black propaganda") were often published by the Allied media. Most of these turned out to be complete hoaxes, or at least terrible distortions. (Several of black-propaganda myths gave rise to the "Holocaust" story.)

Thus, the "Malmedy Massacre" hoax is best seen in the light of history as a propaganda effort in wartime.

What Happened

Ardennes, Belgium, December 17th 1944: The second day of the last German strategic offensive in the West.

Firefight

Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler (1st Panzer Division), led by Joachim Peiper, was driving south of the Belgian town of Malmedy, at Baugnez. Here they encountered a group of the American soldiers who they took by surprise. After a brief firefight, the Americans retreated in haste, leaving both the bodies of dozens of their comrades and a number of prisoners.

The Fate of the Dead Bodies

The Americans dead from the firefight were laid out in rows in the snow. The Germans were forced to withdraw from Malmedy before the dead soldiers could be buried.[4]

In the days following the discovery, the American media seized on the event, originally reporting "hundreds" of American deaths in the "massacre", despite having no first-hand knowledge of it. The most sensationalistic media reports, without any evidence at all, stated that Waffen-SS soldiers had lined up the American captives, robbed them of any valuables they had, and shot them at point-blank range.

Nothing like this happened: Both Germans and Americans involved later confirmed this did not happen. Some Germans did sign torture-induced "confessions", but that is another story. (See "War Crime" Prosecution).

The Fate of the Prisoners

Another group of Americans had been captured after the fight. In order that the Germans would not be slowed down, Commander Peiper ordered the captive Americans to go to the rear. The Germans in the rear did not know this, and -- the Americans still in full uniform -- Some were fired upon. Some were killed before the situation was brought under control. No deliberate killings of unarmed men at point-blank range ever occured, as the myth alleges.

General Handy, in 1951, commuted the death sentences of Germans still awaiting the gallows for the Malmedy affair. He used these words to describe the event: "The offenses are connected with a confused, mobile and desperate combat action", and not by deliberate malice. This is supported by the accounts by American soldiers who witnessed the events[5]. No close range killings ever occurred.

A Lt.-Colonel McCowan was among the American prisoners captured. He testified for the defense that he himself and the hundred or so other American prisoners "had been properly treated"[6] once the chaos of the initial capture subsided.

Among others show, that they lied, that Peiper's troops had several captives later, and an American Mayor, Hal McGown told, that Peiper handled him correctly in the captivity. [7]

"War Crime" Prosecution

Closing statement at Malmedy process

After the war, the Americans began a series of politicized prosecutions of members of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, in military equivalents of the Nuremburg show trial. The purpose of the SS trials was to portray the Waffen-SS as a group of war criminals, to blacken their name.

One of the prime targets were the soldiers of the "SS-Panzer-Division Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler" for their "atrocity" at Malmedy. The were interned and assembled at Schwäbisch Hall. Like at Nuremberg and other war-crime trials, many of the interrogators and prosecutors involved in the process were Jews.

Torture Used for Confessions

At the interrogations, cruel tortures were used[8], and some soldiers committed suicide. The interrogators fabricated confessions, and through torture got several Germans to sign these fake confessions[9].

They started the process on May 16th 1946. 74 members of the Waffen-SS were put on trial, and 43 were eventually given the death penalty. The prosecutors were the interrogators before the process, which is contrary to American law, one of the many miscarriages of justice at the trial, quickly devolving it to a kangaroo court. The most absurd event in the process may have been when

the American investigator Kirschbaum introduced a witness, Einstein, to prove that the defendant, Metzel, had murdered [Einstein's] brother, who was nonetheless sitting in the courtroom! [Prosecutor] Kirschbaum proceeded to scold Einstein: "How can we bring this pig to the gallows, if you are so stupid as to bring your brother into court!"[10]

U.S. Military Admits Innocence of "Malmedy"-Germans

After the immediate-postwar hysteria ended, it became clear from statements of Americans involved that there was no massacre. Moreover, the trial had been a sham, marked by illegality. For this reason, the death sentences were called off several years later, although some of the "convicted" had already been hanged.

In the USA, the case was investigated by several committees. One of the committees called the mostly-Jewish personnel involved in the tortures of the detained Germans "a criminal gang".

v • d • e
List of allied atrocities and fabrications
Massacres
Babi Yar • Vinnytsia • Vinnytsia massacre • Lidice • Oradour • Malmedy massacre • Jedwabne • Katyn massacre • The massacre of Lippach •
Fabrications
Bolshevism
Allied "justice"
Nuremberg trial
defendants
Postwar
atrocities

Video

Parts have to be unpacked using winrar.

Documents

Literature

Gerd Cuppens: "What Happened; Malmedy-Baugnez 1944 December 17, Peiper's group in the Ardenes", Grenz-Echo Verlag, ISBN-13: 978-3867120265 (German) McGill, Vogt: "Above Gallows No Grass Grows, US-torture-law, From the Malmedy process to Abu Ghraib", DVD, Polarfilm, ISBN-10: 3-937163-73-5, EAN-Code: 4028032072105

Foot-Notes

  1. ↑ The War Between The Generals / Overlord: D-Day And The Battle For Normandy by David Irving : (Review)
  2. ↑ The War Between The Generals / Overlord: D-Day And The Battle For Normandy by David Irving : (Review)
  3. ↑ The War Between The Generals / Overlord: D-Day And The Battle For Normandy by David Irving : (Review)
  4. ↑ Recounted in full in The War Between The Generals / Overlord: D-Day And The Battle For Normandy by David Irving
  5. ↑ American Mercury, November 1954, article "Malmedy and McCarthy" by Freda Utley
  6. ↑ American Mercury, November 1954, article "Malmedy and McCarthy" by Freda Utley
  7. ↑ Der Große Wendig, Richtigstellungen zur Zeitgeschichte, Bände I-III, 3. Auflage 2007/08, Grabert-Verlag, Band II: S. 499 ff.
  8. ↑ Testimony of Emil Lachout, Austrian Military Police and member of the Allied War Crimes Commission
  9. ↑ Two False Testimonies from Auschwitz by Carlo Mattogno
  10. ↑ Two False Testimonies from Auschwitz by Carlo Mattogno
Retrieved from "http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Malmedy_massacre"
Personal tools
In other languages