SS Massacres 84 American POWs at Malmedy

German SS troops lined up captured American soldiers in a snowy Belgian field and opened fire with machine guns. On December 17, 1944, the first day of the Battle of the Bulge, Waffen-SS soldiers of Kampfgruppe Peiper murdered approximately eighty-four American prisoners of war near Malmedy, committing one of the most notorious war crimes on the Western Front. Kampfgruppe Peiper, a battle group of the 1st SS Panzer Division, was the spearhead of the German Ardennes offensive. Led by SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Joachim Peiper, the unit was tasked with racing to the Meuse River bridges. Speed was everything, and prisoners slowed the advance. Near the Baugnez crossroads south of Malmedy, Peiper's column encountered Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. Outgunned, the Americans surrendered. The prisoners were herded into a field beside the road. SS soldiers opened fire with machine guns and pistols. Those who survived the initial volleys and tried to flee were shot individually. Others who feigned death were executed with a pistol to the head. Several dozen Americans survived by lying motionless among the dead or escaping into nearby woods. Their testimony reached American lines within hours. Word of the massacre spread rapidly through Allied forces and had an immediate impact: surrender to SS units became unthinkable for many troops. After the war, seventy-three members of Kampfgruppe Peiper were tried at the Dachau tribunal. Forty-three received death sentences, though all were eventually commuted amid controversy over coerced confessions. Peiper served eleven years before release and was murdered in France in 1976 when his home was firebombed.