Malmedy massacre

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Malmedy massacre

The Malmedy massacre was a war crime that happened during World War II, in Belgium, on December 17, 1944, as part of the Battle of the Bulge. German Waffen-SS troops from Kampfgruppe Peiper stopped a U.S. Army convoy at the Baugnez crossroads near Malmedy, then surrounded and killed 84 American prisoners who had already surrendered after a brief fight. The prisoners were crowded into a field and shot with machine guns; some who tried to flee were killed with a gunshot to the head. A nearby café was set on fire, killing anyone who escaped the burning building.

The killings were carried out by units of the 1st SS Panzer Division and Kampfgruppe Peiper, under the overall command of SS General Sepp Dietrich. The officer most often named for ordering the executions was Werner Poetschke, though Joachim Peiper was the unit’s commander and is also blamed for the incident.

Forty-three U.S. POWs survived and later found help in Malmedy. News of the massacre spread quickly among Allied troops and increased fear and anger toward the German forces.

After the war, war crimes trials at Dachau found the involved leaders responsible for the killings. Poetschke is frequently cited as the officer who gave the order; Peiper and Dietrich were sentenced, but were released in the 1950s, and none of the death sentences from those trials were carried out.

Estimates of how many U.S. POWs died in the Battle of the Bulge vary; the Malmedy killings are confirmed as 84 dead, though other figures exist for the broader fighting.