Malmedy Massacre - What Happened? Rare Original Film (WW2 Documentary)
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- Опубликовано: 9 фев 2025
- On 17th December 1944 Hitler’s famous ‘Last Gamble in the West’ was one day old. Leading the northernmost of his westwards thrusts through the Ardennes were the SS troops of Kampfgruppe Peiper. Blocked and slowed at every turn by determined American defenders, they exacted a horrific toll on any who fell into their hands. This is the story of just one such event during the Battle of the Bulge, which took the name of the Malmedy Massacre.
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Written References:
D. Parker, Fatal Crossroads (2013)
S. Remy, The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy (2017)
C. Whiting, Massacre at Malmedy (2007)
J. Weingartner, Crossroads of Death (1979)
D. Cooke, Kampfgruppe Peiper: The Race for the Meuse (2005)
General Sources:
Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)
Imperial War Museum Sound Archive (IWMSA)
US National Archives (NARA)
British Newspaper Archive (BNA)
The National Archives, Kew (TNA)
Google Earth Pro & Web Versions
Maptiler Pro (Desktop Version)
Credits:
Research: Edwin Popken, Shane Greer & Dan Hill
Script & Narration: Dan Hill
Editing: Shane Greer
Thumbnail Design: Linus Klassen
Image Optimization: Linus Klassen
Music & Sound Effects: Shane Greer
My Dad served in a AAA unit and was very close to this chaos. He knew two fellas murdered in the massacre. Your excellent presentation here clarified this battle better than anything I've seen.
Many thanks to your dad. If you want for men like can we would enjoy the freedom that we have today.
My Uncle and his bubby escaped the massacre.
@@DarylSauerwald-g7n many thanks to your dad if it wasn’t for heroes like him we wouldn’t enjoy the freedom we have today.
@@Americanpatriot-zo2tkwe are losing our country. If we didn’t side with Russia we wouldn’t live in a cesspool of corruption and immigrants in every former first world country.
Also, saying soldiers were “murdered” in open war discredits the Americans that died. They were bested in a war of brothers.
Crying over “murder”… your ancestors are flipping in their graves
@@DarylSauerwald-g7n They were lucky! Glad they made it home!
🙏 💜 🌿
What a superbly made video, the detail and research is fantastic, clear narration without overbearing music, just a thoroughly great production.
Wow, thank you!
Outstanding production! Excellent video! Perfect voice and no blasting music. 🎉
Malmedy and Stavelot are names famous to most Formula One motor racing fans (Spa-Francorchamps race track), however I dare to doubt if most of them are familiar with this tragic background to the area. Rest in peace to those who lost their lives. Thank you for the video and for keeping the lost souls alive by remembering them. 💔
4:24 the modern track made it into the video, bottom left of the frame
My Pop fought through both blackest with the 120th Regiment of the 30th Infantry.
He said Stavelot and Profoundry were full of executed civilians.
His unit J believe discovered the bodies at Malmendy .
I also dare to doubt if most of them are familiar with the fact that the USAF bombed Malmedy on December 23, 24 & 25, while it was held by US (not German) troops, wiping out half the town and killing over 200 civilians and 100 GIs.
I met a gentleman, Harold Billows of the 285th FAOB who was a survivor of the massacre. He lived about 15 miles from me. And I also have a buddy who’s uncle was a survivor, he was an ambulance driver.
And I have a space ship and a pet alien named Pedro Gonzales 👽
@@seaeaglechamp hell yeah give me a ride sometime
He probably would have known my cousin, Cpl. Allan Conroy, who was with the same unit but was killed at the beginning of October in Holland. Tragically he had some poor luck, since had he survived the German artillery barrage in Holland, he probably would have fallen later at Malmédy.
@@seaeaglechamp hopefully the alien gets deported soon
Mel Brooks served with the 78th Infantry Division as a forward artillery observe in Belgium during the Bulge. He later transferred to the engineers locating land mines.
Another actor you'd never think was a badass was Jackie Coogan, better known as Uncle Fester on the Adams Family. He graduated from glider pilot school then volunteered for hazardous duty. He was assigned to the 1st Air Commando Group and sent to India where he flew in British Commandoes under Gen. Orde Wingate in their night invasion of Burma. Once a glider is down, the pilot and co-pilot, if they survive or are uninjured, then have to go on and fight with the troops ( D-Day excluded). Hats off to all the brave men.
Don't forget Eddie Albert of Green Acres fame. read what he did..
I agree mikealvear,.your comment says it all..causing us to backtrack every thing we write..
@@tekay44 Took the wounded Marines to USS Schroeder. My grandfather was assistant gunnery officer on that tin can.
They were definitely an amazing generation
Very high quality documentary. Pacing, editing, voiceover all superb. Modern map overlay is fantastic and really brings to life the actual location. Subscribed for future productions👍
Glad you enjoyed it!
A great video that really clarifies how KG Peiper crashed headfirst into the guys of Battery 'B' of the 285th FAOB!
I’m still amazed at how great quality you produce..
Keep it up 👏🏻👏🏻
Thanks very much!
Gotta love self-centered comments!
@@TC-dw6wg … Well don’t post them 🙄
loved the graphics, a really well made video and I thoroughly enjoyed it... well done Boss
Much appreciated!
I love the mapping technology used in these videos. I miss this kind of connection in books with flat black and white maps. Keep up the great work!
A fantastic video. I will be there in the New Year to see where this horrible act was committed
Thanks very much mate, its a great spot to visit!
Amazing production!
Such an underrated channel, well put together and scripted
Who "underrated" it?
Great video. Didn’t know of this event which took place in my own country. Forever grateful.
Glad you enjoyed it!
The actor Charles Durning was one of the few who survived the massacre. He was also the only one from his landing craft to survive the first wave of Omaha.
Jeffbosworth8116: I always liked Charles Durning, a great actor in my opinion. I would always watch anything he appeared in, knowing it would be good.
Bull..... it is well documentedthat the order was given to EXECUTE THE USA troops and that was not Peiper's only war crime....
" In 1949, a US Senate investigation concluded that in the thirty-six-day Battle of the Bulge the soldiers of Kampfgruppe Peiper murdered between 538 and 749 U.S. POWs,[13] other investigations claimed that the Waffen-SS killed fewer U.S. POWs, and put the figure of the dead as being between 300 and 375 US soldiers and 111 civilians executed by the Kampfgruppe Peiper.[14][15]
And the sentences were not commuted due to ameican war crimes on the prisoners here is an excerpt from an article which summarizes the commuted sentences very well
From The Washington Examiner. "The Truth, and Untruth, of a German Atrocity
by Gabriel Schoenfeld
June 13, 2017 10:50 AM.....excerpt below investigates the commuting of sentences
"
"As Everett and like-minded personages floated their accounts of German prisoners subjected to physical abuse, stories began to appear in various quarters of the American press. On the left, the Christian Century reported that American interrogators had employed "torture, both physical and mental," so cruel "as even the Nazi sadists never surpassed." The Progressive regaled its liberal readers with tales of "American Atrocities in Germany," as one of its articles was titled. On the right, Regnery published Freda Utley's The High Cost of Vengeance: How Our German Policy Is Leading Us to Bankruptcy and War (1949). One of the book's thrusts was to liken the depredations of American interrogators-those, in particular, with Jewish surnames like Kirschbaum and Metzger-to the crimes of Heinrich Himmler, Martin Bormann, "and other Nazi bullies."
It did not take long for the story to seep into the mainstream media and central institutions. Time hailed Everett for revealing abuses that "read like a record of Nazi atrocities." In the House, Rep. John Rankin (D-Miss.) declared that "a racial minority" was hanging not only German soldiers but also "trying to hang German businessmen, in the name of the United States." In the Senate, Joseph McCarthy, then a freshman, explained that the American interrogators from Fort Ritchie "did intensely hate the German people as a race." They were, he said, "men whose wives were in concentration camps," operating as a "vengeance team."
The problem with all of this is that the allegations of abuse were false. Remy meticulously pursues the origins of the torture reports to a coordinated campaign devised by the SS defendants themselves while awaiting trial. He also reviews the numerous official inquiries prompted by Everett's insistent accusations, all of which turned up nothing resembling torture or any other form of illicit coercion. Colonel Everett's claim that the defendants "were given severe and frequent beatings and other corporal punishments" was based upon no evidence other than the statements of the SS men themselves. There had been no physical abuse. It was all a tissue of lies, tinged with anti-Semitism. Those accusing the Jews of operating on the basis of racial hatred were themselves driven by that base force.
Truth always prevails, goes the saying. It did not prevail in this case; instead, the fake news won. One of Remy's contributions is to demonstrate that more than a few reputable historians of World War II have failed to do their spadework and accepted a pernicious myth as fact. He does not shrink from naming names and citing chapter and verse.
Far more important, justice was not done. By 1957, all the SS murderers behind the Malmedy massacre were set free. None of the death sentences was carried out. The only retribution for the murder of American servicemen came decades later in less-than-perfect form: Joachim Peiper, the ranking SS officer responsible for the atrocity, was assassinated in 1976 by unknown assailants believed to be former members of the French Resistance.
BTW. that bit of research took all of five minutes..take your flimsy bull somewhere else and read the article BTW the trial was held in Dachau prison 1945 to 1947....by then the inmates had been liberated and there is some discussion the American troops were so enraged by what they saw they did execute some of the camp guards and allowed inmates to beat others to death.Considering the circumstances no war crimes were charged...justifiable homicide after seeing dachau...very one of those germans at Malmedyshould have been executed and all of Germany, man, woman and child were complicit in the war crimes of the second world war...germans wore clothes and shoes from the jews for years after the war while the Marshal Plan rebuilt Germany financed and implemented by the USA and USA businesses. Germany got off light. It should have been broken into hundreds of small countries none bigger than Switzerland. It's not done yet. George Soros an old nazi is still financing chaos just like he did in world War two selling the possessions of jews sent to be gassed for a commission from the third reich .....
l@@williamzk9083
I never knew that about Durning, thanks. I liked him as an actor and now I like him as an American GI
I've read that but I've never seen any corroborating evidence. The fact is the Germans were busy killing American prisoners in a number of places. The lowest estimate is over 300 were murdered. US Army units involved in the Battle of the Bulge exacted their vengeance. The most notorious act of revenge was on New Years day when an estimated 80 German prisoners were reportedly murdered by members of the 11th Armored Division at Chenogne, Belgium. Patton heard about it and wrote in his diaries that he hoped news of it would not get out. It did and Eisenhower was furious. He demanded an investigation, but nothing much ever came of it. To the victors go the spoils. All else gets buried in the fog of war.
His life was protected by a higher poiwer...
this is the greatest effort ever put by historians...World class documenting 👍
My father served there then (Us 3rd Army 687th FAB).... He missed the Massacre by hours... They had passed thru there shortly before this happened...... He always just referred to "The crossroads Massacre"......Ot just "the crossroads"....
I'm really enjoying your videos on specific battles..l am 64 and have always been interested in WW2..I'm extremely proud to say that my dad landed on Omaha beach on Dday..he said it was horrendous..they were being picked off before they even reached the beach due to the tides the landing craft couldn't get any further so they had to wade in in neck high water holding their guns and ammo over their heads..but you obviously knew that already..proud of mom too..she worked in a munitions factory. 🇬🇧💞✝️🙏👍🇺🇸
Wow! My dad served in the Pacific and I was so blessed to go to many of his Navy reunions and meet the great people he served with. I taught history and always wanted to meet someone who had been on the beaches on DDay. One day in a Goodwill in San Antonio I saw an old man with a cap that said D-Day. I couldn't believe it and I asked him if he had actually been there. He said yes and I got so excited, telling him how much I had always wanted to meet a survivor. As I animatedly talked to him people started stealing glances, thinking he was some celebrity. To me he was better than any celebrity! With tears in his eyes he said, "Young lady. I'm 84 years old and I lost my wife six years ago. I never dreamed of remarrying but if you weren't so young, I'd ask you to marry me right now. Thank you for making me feel like life matters." I wanted to cry and I regret not getting his information so that I could have called to check on him. This was about fifteen years ago. I lost my dad ten years ago. Not a day goes by that I am not proud of his service as you are of your dad's. The Greatest Generation
@rebecajohnston1135 .Thank you for your lovely reply..its great that we are proud of our parents generation..what they went through for 6 yrs from '39 to '45 was awful..l lost my dad to cancer in 79 when l was just 19 yrs old..l was a 'daddy's girl' and grew up following him wherever he went whatever he did..so l grew up being able to put up shelves..decorate..created cement paths..a patio with 2 x 2 slabs..l tiled my kitchen and bathrooms myself 😂 my parent raised 3 very self sufficient girls..they were l suppose ahead of the game there.. my dad was stationed over here 🇬🇧 doing specialist training and met mom on a blind date..6 months later they got married on 17th Feb 1944.. dad had 2 days leave then went back to training..little did he know it was for DDAY.. my mom moved to USA as a 'G I Bride'.. but came back 5 yrs later to look after her mom.. who actually didn't go to her wedding because she was marrying "a yank'.. however over the next 4 years my wonderful dad was fantastic in helping to look after my nan..l obviously wasn't born then..but after 6 months she turned to my mom and said Sylvia l was so wrong you have a good man there..!! In all my years l never heard my dad call her by her name..he ALWAYS called her Honey.. we moved back to the states in the early 70's as it was rather grim here in the UK..but after 7 yrs came back
..it was meant to be as 2 yrs later we lost my wonderful daddy.. l lost my mom in 2002 after looking after her with Alzheimers for 7 yrs..l miss them so very much but know when it's my turn they'll be there waiting for me ready to give me a big hug...🇬🇧💕💕🙏✝️👍👏🇺🇸
Isn’t it horrific what took place in this video? SMH!
Fantastic work. Might I suggest you put a North arrow in the map perspective to help the viewer. I have been to Malmady several times but that would help me to orient. Thanks again for the excellent work!
Tha ks very much, re the arrow, we are working on it but its tricky with a dynamic screen, hopefully coming soon!
@@BattleGuideVT In some programs like Google Earth you can draw a few colored lines on the ground surface, a simple arrow, maybe an N for north.
Thank you for another excellent video. You are to be congratulated on the quality of these presentations and the clarity and detail they contain which enables the viewer to properly follow the story you tell. The maps and graphics are particularly helpful. Thanks again.
Thank you very much!
@@BattleGuideVT you are a liar because the allies and the reds killed much more innocent people!!!!
I always enjoy your content and appreciate the work you put into it. As an American, thanks for this video.
No problem, thanks for taking the time to watch!
Fantastic production , narrating , editing.
Overall an amazing video from a brilliant channel !
Wow, really appreciate that Josh, thanks very much!
I was at the massacre site in June. It was a humbling experience
And why?
And why what Kal? Self-centered child!
@@TC-dw6wg Too stupid to understand? Not my problem.
My dad was 101st and he told me that as word of the malmedy massacre got out, battlefield revenge was a factor in the victory of the Battle of the Bulge and beyond. Please don’t misunderstand, it wasn’t an “eye for an eye” type revenge, but the intense anger and the will to defeat the enemy. Why Peiper kampfgruppen had their sentences commuted he never talked about but I surmise the vigilante justice that eventually caught up to Peiper himself may have come from French civilians. The ruthless and barbaric method of attacking villages and people with flame throwers was Peiper kampfgruppen signature method of killing and his death was an “eye for an eye” justice.
Peiper fought in Russia with great skill, he was highly decorated, and there his units often killed Russian POWs, it was a common practice on the Eastern front --civilians were often killed as well, many civilians were killed by Germans during the battle of the Bulge
My uncle was in Patton's 3rd Army relieving Bastogne. He told me in the 1970's that, when word got out about Malmedy, more than a few US troops stopped accepting surrender of SS soldiers. If they had SS troops among the German POW's, they often took them 'out back' and shot them. The SS had a long reputation even before Malmedy of not accepting POW's, they had participated in uncounted murders on the Eastern Front and in Normandy. He said his platoon never conducted summary judgement, but the problem was bad enough that Eisenhower had to issue a general order that any US soldier participating in summary executions would be arrested and prosecuted. Standard German Wehrmacht troops captured were treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and not harassed.
Excellent documentary. Thank you for revealing the truth of this horrible WW2 event.
The 291st Engineer Battalion is mentioned in this documentary. There is a great book “First Across The Rhine” about them. They did so much damage to the road and bridge network that the German Tigers needed to reach Antwerp that the German general staff referred to them as “those damned engineers.”
There is also a book called 'The Damned Engineers" by Janice Holt that recounts the history of the 291st.
My father PFC Headquarters Company First Battalion JO5 Parachute Regiment 82 Airborne Division WWII. When I brought up a question about this massacre he was visible disturbed. I never brought it up again and wished I hadn't brought it up at all. What he said was, "A lot of innocent Germans died because of that." My study of the history revealed that we gave no quarter in response. I pass no judgement.
Amazing video!! Wow what a great job you did here! Keep up the great work!🤘🏻🤘🏻
This is incredibly well made and narrated. Really enjoyed watching!
Thanks for the great vids and helping preserve history.
Thanks for watching!
Letting you hear it, thanks for an outstanding job on making this. The script and editing is well done, and you got the point across. I know about making docs and the detail and work efforts.
I think one of the reasons the executions weren't carried out was because it had come to light that the Americans had committed at least a couple of massacres on German troops in retaliation for Malmedy. It had been kept secret and they didn't it to come out.
The Americans committed a lot more than “a couple” of massacres of German soldiers. There were about a hundred cases where the Americans killed German POWs after they had surrendered.
One time in 1976, I met a guy about 50 years old, who was in the US army during the Battle of the Bulge. He said that one time they trapped 33 German soldiers inside a French church. The Americans ordered them all to come out with their hands up. The German soldiers came out and were searched for guns before the Americans killed them all.
And in 1991, a different old man who was in the Battle of the Bulge told me that every time the Americans took any prisoners, the sergeants and lieutenants would tell their men to march the prisoners to the trucks and drive them to a POW camp. The problem was that there were never any trucks. Whenever they said that-it was just code for killing the prisoners!
@@georgewolfiii1170 Oh, I agree but I meant they had a couple of massacres of over a hundred prisoners at a time in direct response to Malmedy and they had been ordered not to take any Nazi SS prisoners, but they executed regular Wehrmacht prisoners as well, many of them being young boys. General Patton had an entry in his diary where he said that he had heard of the killings and hoped that it would not get out.
lol
@@keithday3658 Imbecile
@georgewolfiii1170 mu uncle said they killed all and Hitler youth same way March then back be back in 5 minutes, code for excute them. He said they nothing you could do with them they were brainwashed. My step grandfather said same thing.
My Dad was in the Ardennes. I think of him in the mud and snow. God bless the Fallen.
Absolutely superb video mate,just to let EVERYONE know,this was about Malmedy,not anything else ffs. 🙄🙄😡😡
This is an excellent portrayal of the events. Would you be willing to do a couple of videos on the defense put up by the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion that so frustrated Pieper, and the remarkable stand made at the Battle of Lanzerath Ridge the day prior by an 18-man reconnaissance platoon and four forward observers. From what I've read it was their actions that forced Pieper to seek an alternate route that unfortunately led them past Malmedy.
Hi Paladin, we covered the I&R action at Lanzerath some time ago, there is a video here on YT :)
@@BattleGuideVT Thanks, I'll look it up.
@@michaelpielorz9283 No, because I've never heard of an American general who ever said that. It would be a good way to get fired.
Thank you for creating this.
My great uncle (my grandfather’s brother) was one of the six survivors. I unfortunately never met him and didn’t become aware until after his death. This is in the words of his son, from an article after his passing.
[They all jumped into a pile and pretended to be dead. The Germans left a couple soldiers to strip valuables from the dead and shoot any of the living who tried to run away.
Carl was one of the six who made it, running and dropping among corpses whenever they was shot at, then running three miles, wounded, to safety.
But he was sent back to the lines,where he lived on booze.
Carl testified at the Nuremberg trials about the atrocities committed by Peiper and the Germans.]
I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to live through something like that. I know he suffered from mental health problems and lived with a lot of survivor guilt. I regret not having the opportunity to meet him.
Great video. I love your productions. It’s also important for us to remember that awful atrocities like this were a daily occurrence on the Eastern Front - by all sides. War is awful.
it was the Western front and no, americans did not murder prisoners en masse. with the approval of their commanders. bastards.
I worked with a guy who's father was an a intelligence officer during the war. One day he brought some of his fathers war booty that was handed down to him. He must have over a hundred rings. Some were regular army units but most were SS units. I always wondered if they were from executed prisnors or not.
lol
This is the best documentary of a WW2 event I've watched no loud background music or sound affects just straight forward and to the point totally changed my opinion of Peiper hadn't heard his quote about fear being his best weapon understanding war is hell and some of the participants including Joachim are probably calling it home for eternity
Excellent put mate....Good young man ....
Very well done, one of the best I've seen on this atrocity.
Brilliant docu! Love the use of maps, and explaining movements of troups ect
Glad you enjoyed it!
This is very well done. Kudos to you for also pronouncing German and French names/words properly. (It's a pet peeve of mine to hear "Reich" with a /k/ sound in the end.)
Cheers and Happy New Year from Vietnam.
Hmm. The French is passable; the German is dreadful. I take it you don’t speak the latter?
@@robertcottam8824where did I go wrong with the German (we have German team members who didn't raise anything)? Did I mispronounce something? I do speak French btw.
Thanks very much!
Learning German I found the ch sound came quite easily but fellow Brit school kids seemed to have real trouble with it settling on an itch, k or sh sound.
It's a hiss made on the upper rear of the mouth with a humped tongue pressing up and outwards on the rearmost top teeth.
That's the best way I can describe it.
(Getting odd looks from the whole train carriage as I try to work out how I'm doing it 😆)
My uncle Del, who was in Patton’s 7th Army, told my parents, news of the Malmedy massacre, quickly went viral through the American Army. They knew it was SS that had committed the murders. He said they did not take SS prisoner after that, but killed them on the spot if they attempted to surrender.
Patton commanded the 3rd Army
7th pre D Day, 3rd post D Day.
So what had been their excuse for killing prisoners in Lorraine, Normandy and Sicily beforehand?
Face it: Americans and German SS had a similar track record when it came to treatment of prisoners of war:-
1) Bit nasty in Western Europe.
2) Unspeakable in the East: SS with Russians; ‘Murcans with Japanese (and later, Koreans, Vietnamese, Eye-raqis and so forth)
That’s always amazed me. The Germans produced Goethe, Schiller and Brahms; the USA produced… err… Walt Disney. But give them a gun and power over the helpless and both behave like sociopaths. I suspect it’s down to the racism.
The Germans appear to have changed, thankfully.
@@Richard-g4u1r7th army was under Patch next to 3rd army territory.
lol
I am blown away by the attention to detail and thought you put into this video! Wow amazing!! Love it
Thanks for an interesting and informative video.
Glad you thought so, thanks for taking the time to watch Simon.
Yet another amazing video. The truth must always be told however old that truth is. Justice must always be seen to be carried out. Thank you for keeping their memory alive 🙏
The wheels of Justice grind exceedingly slow.
I enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
Awesome thank you!
i would be interested into an investigation into allied war crimes in the interest of justice and even-handedness
Surrender to an army already known for its brutality is a death sentence
Love your videos man, such high quality. You need more subscribers
Thanks very much, glad you enjoyed it! Do feel free to share, it's really helpful! :)
Big with my history! This channel hits differently compared to others! Brilliant stuff!
Thanks for watching Darty!
History Channel should hire you.
Good video, so around 6:30 in the video, the Lt Col was quoted and the voice read what was quoted, not to be picky, but I wonder if the guy had a southern accent? Just asking🤷🏻♂️
Love the video, got some feedback if you don’t mind.
I couldn’t help but notice the edited photo of Pfc. Mario Butera at 12:00. It seems like it’s been upscaled but kinda looks a bit too cartoonish and “plastic”.
Thanks very much, glad you liked the video and we will certainly take that on board 👍
@@BattleGuideVT Great stuff man, thanks so much for the content.
My grandfather was in the 23rd Regiment, 2nd Division, and was wounded the first day of the Bulge. He got back to the front in late January, 1945, and said that his unit never took another SS prisoner alive.
spoiler: they were killing regular german surrendered soldiers long before Malmedy ever happened.
americans committed atrocious crimes too, all way to the Vietnam wars
@@agagqbq You don't know what you are talking about. My Uncle was in Patton's 3rd Army relieving Bastogne and he told me that regular Wehrmacht troops they captured were all taken to stockade and usually assigned some light work detail. SS troops who surrendered-well, after Malmedy got out they were treated with far less consideration and were sometimes taken out back and shot.
@@Antonio-j1g All nations commit war crimes in war, it's an ugly fact of war. But in the SS committing war crimes was institutionalized and accepted by their leadership. That's the difference.
@@heyfitzpablum
"I've interviewed well over 1000 combat veterans. Only one of them said he shot a prisoner ... Perhaps as many as one-third of the veterans...however, related incidents in which they saw other GIs shooting unarmed German prisoners who had their hands up." - Stephen Ambrose
"Prisoners were killed in reprisal for real or imagined atrocities, for the utilitarian reason that keeping them was impractical or inconvenient, or out of frustration with a war that was going badly or was being unnecessarily prolonged by the enemy. Civilians often fell victim to the fury of ground combatants, particularly in situations where occupying forces were real or imagined objects of guerilla warfare" - James J. Weingartner
"After the war, when he reflected on the war crimes he authorized, he admitted, 'if the Germans had won, I would have been on trial at Nuremberg instead of them.'" - Major-General Raymond Hufft
and since you claim they only killed prisoners because of the Malmedy Massacre:
"Later, outside the village on both sides of the road, two groups of German prisoners were lined up, about 25 to 30 on each side. They were shot with a machine gun. Fague writes that at first he was disgusted by the shooting of the prisoners, but after these massacres the thought of further murders of captured Germans did not excite him. His greatest concern at that time, he says, was that Wehrmacht soldiers might see this crime and then treat U.S. prisoners in the same way. He states that he did not learn of the Malmedy Massacre until after the fighting around Chenogne." - John Fague of B Company
My uncle was in that battle. It was the coldest winter on record to that point for that area. He described the forest as resembling matchsticks when it was finally over with.
All of the brutalities on both sides were terrible. The majority of men didn't have these things in their hearts.
This analysis was very well done. It earned you a well-earned sub.
Most men on both sides were decent, but the troops of the Waffen SS were usually fanatics, often hopped up on amphetamines. They committed uncounted war crimes on enemy troops and civilians.
clearly no one who wasn't in these scary war theaters can ever truly understand the horrific experiences of the soldiers fighting there. Post war nightmares surely persisted for years.
Great story, really well told, thanks! The 'actor' narratives can be a bit much, tho, they're narratives, written by the original person to describe original events, and not a play.
Thank you
This undoubtedly cost a lot of Germans their lives too - due to the outrage from our guys finding dead bodies unarmed prisoners
Yet those are never spoken of. They will say "the horrors of war scared their minds so they commited these atrocities"
@@samwickrama7633the Chenogne massacre is well documented. And although not correct and definitely a war crime.the German army had a childish mindset that they could fuck around with everyone else and not face any revenge. If you go around shooting prisoners in fields, you set the tone for how your enemy might treat you.
@@samwickrama7633 Committing and defending systematic genocide tends to make people feel no sympathy towards you.
@@CoyoteBrandChili you know your justifying war crimes yourself now. Your doing the classic "they started it"
@@samwickrama7633lol no I didn't. I just said I don't feel much sympathy for people who enact and defend genociding other people.
So hard to watch. Such brutality we inflict on one another. War is truly an evil means to have peace.
A friend of mine was one of the soldiers in the 291st Engineers who had to clean up the bodies from the Malmedy Massacre. He was upset at the way a 2nd Lieutenant was handling the the dead soldiers. He was also involved in blowing up the bridges to stop the German Panzer column at Stavelot.
Prove it
lol
This is really an excellent documentary. I appreciate the superb maps, the timeline, and the colored dots. It is a travesty that the cold-blooded, brutal war criminals got off virtually Scot free. Their brutality had the unintended consequence of stiffening US resolve and this probably contributed indirectly to the failure of the Ardennes Offensive. It’s said that US troops showed less mercy for captured SS after the massacre. I wonder if Peiper really died in the fire or if that was staged so he could disappear.
This, an other incidents, convince me that the US military and government don't care at all for their soldiers. Even US POWs held in horrible conditions and forced slavery in Japan were not able to sue the Japanese companies that abused them. That right had been given away to the Japanese immediately after the war.
Yours is an asinine conclusion.
What are you smoking????? If the USA hated their troops then Hitler must have absolutely gone bat shit about his 😂
As my Army drill sergeant kept saying, "Sooner or later it all comes around." It does.
German field marshall von ruhstead was furious and went into a rage when he caught wind of what happened.He told his officers that by doing that,the americans would fight to the death,and would fight with a stick if they had to.He said that action was the biggest mistake the germans made on the western front.He knew many german soldiers would also meet the same fate.
bah, every german officer was guilty.
Pieper got his reward
Such disturbing times ,respectfully presented
My father was in Patton’s third army and the US did the same to captured SS. My father almost lost his combat infantry badge because of other indisciplined units (unlike his unit) and he was ashamed of their actions which were covered up.
Did your father also commit genocide on jews and make it policy? Nice try with the correlation here 😂 they are not the same. Keep trying though. Someone will buy your bs
My dear father served with 1 ST Army, 30TH Division, European Civil Affairs and was in the thick of combat from D + 3 , Hurtgen Forrest and the Bulge. He was surrounded for 6 weeks during the terrible winter and barely survived until Patton arrived...The terrible Nazi soldiers were NOT taking prisoners and his "H" (for Hebrew) dog tags would have made him a candidate for an unpleasant death if captured.
GOD BLESS all of the American and Allied soldiers who served us then and now...
You should do a video on the Canadians executing prisoners of war from the 12 SS Hitler Jugend...
Hi Marc, is that something you'd like to see?
@BattleGuideVT Yes, I'm really interested in the psychology of men in combat. There is a reason for what they do, combatants on all sides do this.
@@BattleGuideVT Yes, I think it would make a great video just like this one. The massacre occurred on June 7, 1944 near the town of Authie in Normandy near an abbey. The perpetrators were the 12th SS Panzer Hitlerjugend Division under the command of Colonel Kurt Meyer.
The victims were over 150 Canadians of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, 27th Armored Regiment (Sherbrooke Fusiliers), Royal Winnipeg Rifles & possibly a couple of British prisoners.
They were supposed to be transported as POW's but somehow a decision was made by Meyer to execute them instead and conceal it. His future was similar to Peipers in the sense that he was tried after the war, but did little time for the crime and even worked for Coca-Cola in France and or Germany after the war, much to the chargrin and protests of many citizens.
I believe it would make an outstanding video such as this one.
Canadians executing 12th SS POWs? Where?
Malmedy miatt nagy hírverést tudtatok csinálni, bezzeg arról nincs szó, hogy az Atlanti-falban védekező, magukat megadó katonákat egyszerűen legyilkolták, nem ejtettek foglyokat! De ugye, "A történelmet mindig a győztesek írják."
This is not true. Lots of POWs were taken on D-Day on the beaches.
What are you talking about???? Have you not seen pictures of German pows after d day?? During the Normandy breakout it was nothing but surrendering soldiers. Did you forget about the German camps??? Oh you choose to ignore those?
wow! superbly done video,
Thank you very much!
It's unconscionable infuriating and disgusting that none of these murders faced justice.
Did the bomber crews that fire bombed millions of German civilians face justice? I don’t think so….neither side can really point fingers. 50,000 dead in the bombing of Hamburg in 3 days. That side of the story seems to slip the mind
@@rhysnichols8608 Or the nearly 18,000 civilian deaths in less than an hour in the bombing of (undefended) Pforzheim in the final weeks of the war. As you suggest, none of that seems to count for much.
My father was over there at that time. They were "unofficially" told not to take SS solders as prisoner, because of the massacre
The first casualty of any war is always the TRUTH.
RIP
To the 84 American POWs (and hundreds of other American POWs from other units) who were murdered by the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler under Joachim Peiper, Werner Poetschke, and Sepp Dietrich in the Malmedy massacre
My stepfather served in the Fifth Division, Third Army. He said Americans routinely executed German prisoners if circumstances demanded it, although they were usually sent to the rear. They didn't have any particular hatred of the Germans, who they regarded as good soldiers. He said they didn't rob German prisoners, but would trade with them. For example, he traded two drinks of whiskey with a prisoner for his Nazi Wound Badge.
A wound badge can't possibly have any political affiliation.
My unlcle was a american pow,captured by the germans.He and i would set around and he would tell me all about what he went through in the war the second war i might add.One day the subject came up about the malmedy incident and i said that the germans were savages.My uncle patted me on the leg,i was about 15 years old at the time and he told me son,We did the same thing to a lot of german pows.That we are guilty too
Fitting PEIPER leading "blow torch" battalion was himself fire bombed in his own home years after surviving the war....
The history of the world. Why do you think I was told in the US Army as an enlisted man in the 1960s to never surrender? The answer, to my knowledge and belief, not one captured US enlisted man in the US Army in Vietnam was released by the NVA or the Viet Cong from captivity. Conversely, NVA and Viet Cong prisoners were turned over to the South Vietnamese and imprisoned.
I read 3 US POWs were released at some point in the Vietnam war for propaganda reasons, they were captured in battle and held prisoner for a time then released, can't give you more details yet
1 can spend so much time over the years addicted to WWII with so much info you forget certain things.. I was certain he fought to the death & was killed in battle, I know that all his tank groups were mauled & very few survived. This video says "100's of vehicles abandoned?" in any case many did run out of fuel & were sitting ducks for 3rd army & tank busters.
What "he" are you talking about?
Such Malmedys were an everyday reality in Eastern Front starting from 1939 but just some singles came to popular knowledge and western interest.
Agree. There is much about the eastern front that needs to be taught in the west. Not just that, but how Russia contributed to the defeat of the third Reich.
Interesting video. Well done. Suggestion: make another video about the second massacre of Malmedy. During 3 days starting on Christmass 210 Belgian citizens and 60 American soldiers were killed by American forces. That was the real Malmedy massacre. Forgotten for history an uncomfortable true...
And this was only one incident which happened on Belgian soil...no one hears the voices. There names forgotten for history.
16:17 Terrorism Incarnate
The Failures of Bureaucracy are Incredible
18:27 The Comfort Of Man Know’s No Bounds
In a war like this, it has always been, don't play it with us here, as superior morals and supposedly righteous humanitarians, the Americans, French and mainly the English did the same many years before the world war.
In which war have the English behaved worse than the Americans, Germans or French, poppet?
Saying something doesn’t make it true.
💋
@@robertcottam8824 or the americans. the japanese were astounded by the compassion of the us troops. AFTER the fight.
Very well done, thank you. As you may know, Lt. Col. Pergrin was from Pennsylvania and would not have an exaggerated Southern accent. He would sound more like the actor Charles Durning, who did survive the massacre and then went on to a life of acting. Interestingly, Durning came from Highland Falls, right next to West Point. Otto Skorseny never comes up but eyewitness testimony has him at the crossroads in a staff car talking to the officer in the commanders’ hatch of the tank that fired. It was also stated that the fire started from that tank just as he drove away. I read a couple of these reports, maybe 50 years ago now, so I have no firm reference. Oncoming troops in the German column fired into the bodies in the field as they passed, just for sport. I had an uncle who was captured by the SS at the Bulge and had the snot beat out of him, but luckily he survived.
Sad event and prayers to the lost young Americans, but the sad part is that all countries did this type of stuff, there is not a country in the war that don't have a few bad actions in their history. A good reason we don't need any more war.
Oh please. The "everyone did it" excuse for the Nazis. The Germans didn't have a few bad apples - it was institutionalised.
Which side made it policy to commit genocide on the Jews? America? Canada? Great Britain? Japan? Ukraine? Korea? I think I'm missing one. The Nazi flavored one. Well I can't recall but a country during the war up until it's last month was still sending Jews to camps on trains. I forgot did america do that to poor Germans? I get those so easily mixed up
How is this possible? Murderers, all of them...
Certainly the SS committed war crimes against U.S prisoners and certainly not enough of them were brought to justice or received sentences which most feel were inappropriately lenient.
Yet, what is not admitted by many Americans, even today, is that the USA committed not just isolated cases, of which there are many massacres recorded plus innumerable unrecorded isolated cases ( anyone interested should look up the Chernogne Massacre, where U.S troops machine-gunned 84 unarmed German POWs in a field or the Biscari Massacres where US troops murdered 75 mostly Italian unarmed POWs) but SYSTEMATIC war crimes against thousands German POWs.
My Great Grandfather was a victim and died as a consequence of being a POW of the Americans.
As far as I am aware, no US soldier was ever convicted of any of these war crimes.
Yes, at the time the lust for revenge and retribution is understandable and what will have driven these crimes. However, they remain crimes, by any definition and in law, one crime does not absolve the perpetrators of another crime.
Melmedy Massacre - 17th Dec 1944.
Chernogne Massacre - 1st Jan 1945.
The Americans took their revenge. Both actions happened during the Battle of the Bulge. After the Melmedy Massacre the Americans didn't trust the Germans anymore to treat prisoners within the rules of war anymore. So why should they?
,well said same as the Russians raping and murdering German woman and children under stalin
Derin111: If as you say, there are numerous unrecorded instances, how did you learn of them?
@@StevenKeery He didn't, he is a nazi apologist.
@@harryfaber Where?
Can't believe all these murders walk free
no time to take prisoners. charles durning got away
You left out the part about Stephen Ambrose in "Band of Brothers" documenting the 101st ABN's unprovoked execution of German POWS at Normandy. I served with a former corporal who jumped into Normandy as a member of the 101st and he told me about his personal experience witnessing the shooting of German POWs. Payback is always a Motha.
Hello, which part of this video about the Malmedy Massacre do you feel that relates to?
@@BattleGuideVTThe trigger of the shooting is still debated today, some accounts claim the Americans disarmed some of the SS and attempted a breakout. The scene was depicted in Saints and Soldiers
The video is not about contrasting war atrocities, so it's unclear how an entirely separate story about the war was "left out" of this one. it's not as though any of this is unknown to even the average amateur historian of the war, much less to professional historians, or is hidden in some way. There ARE videos about "Allied executions of German POWs," if you're really interested. Just try that as a search term...you'll see.
yes it is. and you are talkng about guys that had just been hammered and were furious. not the wholesale slaughter of the axis.
@@tekay44 You didn't hear the Colonel (corporal then) who told me the story as part of an Army class on war crimes. These "Screaming Eagles" had been captured as soon as their boots hit the ground. The German soldiers who captured the Americans kept them with them overnight in a barn. The next morning the German Seargeant saw US Army vehicles going down the road past the farm. He realized they were behind enemy lines and ordered his men to give their weapons to the Americans and surrendered to them. The U.S. Seargeant then took the Germans behind the barn and shot them dead. He also told us that the reputation of the 101st was so bad that other Army units would reroute their German POWs around the 101st when processing them to the rear areas.
my grandfather's first cousin died in Bullingen. His name is on a monument there. How do I find more information on what happened there ? All I know is that Pieper was in Bullingen for fuel and of US POWs executed in Bullingen. (wiki)
My father moved into that area soon after that event and from then on on he didn't take any prisoners!
RIP to the brave US soldiers that were victims to this war crime
Consent. Regards from Poland.
"Superior German tactics and training!"? Upon analysis, it's revealed that is a complete *lie*.
They were rather better trained than the Americans who were essentially an armed mob compared to the Germans - and Canadians, Poles, Brits and Free-French forces, for that matter.
I’m their favour, there were a lot of ‘em by late ‘44.
Best wishes
@@robertcottam8824 the americans were conscripts and had no military background, they got hammered early but got better. we left our homes 1k miles away to help. we did not have to. they germans werent as good as you say. they had experience, that's all.
I've actually read the book gi journal it's the published letters and the journal of a sergeant in the 291st I highly recommend it