Massacre of Baugnez

The Massacre of Baugnez is a War crime made on December 17th, 1944 by a German unit , the Kampfgruppe Peiper which, during the Bataille of the Ardennes, assassinated American prisoners of war disarmed with a crossroads located at a few kilometers in the south of the town of Malmedy in Belgium.

From a point of view historiographic this event is generally known under the name of “massacre of Malmedy”. This war crime, which falls under a succession of crimes perpetrated consequently unit during the same day and of the following days of a judgment given by the international military Tribunal of Dachau at the time of a lawsuit held in 1946 was the subject.

Context

Within the framework of the plans envisaged by Adolf Hitler for what was going to become the Bataille of the Ardennes, the principal effort of rupture of the allied lines had been entrusted to the 6th S Pz Armee under the command with the general Sepp Dietrich which was to break the face combined between Montjoie and Losheimergraben to cross the Meuse before taking Antwerp. On the left wing of this device the of Kampfgruppe (group of combat) was Peiper composed of armor-plated and motorized units. Once the infantry would have bored the American lines, Peiper had the role of taking the bridges of the Meuse around Huy while passing by Ligneuville, Stavelot, Trois-Ponts and Werbomont.

The most practicable roads however were reserved for large of the 1 {{Re}} Division S Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Peiper having to be satisfied with short cuts in bad condition and not very ready to support the passage of tanks and others heavy armored vehicles. According to certain sources, at the time of the briefings preceding the operation, Peiper would have clearly stated that district did not have to be made, not to make prisoners and not to express any pity towards the Belgian civilians in direction of Honsfeld where elements of its group kill out of coolness several tens of American prisoners.

After having taken Honsfeld, Peiper deviates during a few kilometers of the route which was assigned to him to seize a small gasoline depot to Bullange (Bullingen) where another massacre of American prisoners of war is reported, Peiper decides to return to the route which are assigned to him and to gain Ligneuville while passing by Möderscheid, Schoppen, Ondenval and Thirimont. According to certain sources, it would be primarily about an unhappy incident due to a sequence of circumstances having led the Germans to open fire without them really having the intention deliberated to kill their prisoners.

At all events, as soon as the Germans open fire, it is panic. Certain prisoners try to flee. The majority are cut down. Others try to take refuge in a coffee located at the crossroads. The Germans put fire at the building and kill all those which try to leave there. It should be noted that all the accounts of these survivors, collected in the hours which followed the massacre immediately, are similar and convergent, while at the same time these survivors necessarily did not on the occasion to act in concert.

De Malmedy, the first reports/ratios arrive at the HQ of the 1st US Army of the general Courtney Hodges to Spa as of on December 17th. From there, the news is reflected with the more high level of SHAEF, while the rumor propagates it to the American outposts within a surprisingly short time. The advertisement of this massacre causes the nausea of the GI and multiplies by ten their heat with the combat.

The autopsies of the bodies show that twenty at least killed soldiers presented, in addition to wounds made by shootings of automatic weapons, fatal wounds with the head caused by shootings with bearing end.

Ultimately, 72 bodies are raised in the field January 14th and 15th 1945. Twelve other bodies, further away from the grazing ground, are found between on February 7th and on April 15th, 1945.

New massacres of American prisoners are still reported to Stavelot, Cheneux, Gleize and Stoumont December 18th, 19th and 20th.

While blowing up the bridges which would have enabled him to gain the heights and of more released roads, the American troops of the genius manage to contain the advance of Peiper in the valley of the Amblève before the reinforcements do not encircle it in Stoumont and Gleize.

At the time of their battle around Gleize, the men of Peiper capture on December 21st an American officer of high ranking, Major Harold D. McCown, ordering one of the battalions of the 119e regiment of infantry. This last, informed of the massacre of Baugnez, worries at Peiper about its fate and that about its men. According to McCown, Peiper would have certified to him that neither him nor none of its men risked anything and that it was not accustomed to killing its prisoners of war.

It is noted however that all the crimes whose marked Peiper and its men during the attempt at opening were towards the Meuse were committed before the capture of Major McCown. According to this report/ratio, deaths were raised at the following places:

The lawsuit and its consequences

See also: Lawsuit of the massacre of Malmedy

The extent of the massacre, which only is apparently perpetrated on this scale against the American troops in Europe during the second world war, struck imaginations still that the number of the victims, as well civil as military, is altogether enough tiny room compared to other abomination which one could see on other theaters of operations during the same conflict.

In addition to the effect which the event could have on the American combatants engaged with the face, it seems that information had also a great repercussion in the United States. This explains obviously why supposed guilty were, after the war, submitted in front of the international military Tribunal of Dachau whose audiences were held from May in June 1946.

In what thereafter was known under the name of “Procès of the massacre of Malmedy”, and which aimed in fact all the exactions charged to '' Kampfgruppe '' Peiper during the Bataille of the Ardennes, the highest defendant in rank was the general Sepp Dietrich, chief of the 6th S Pz Armee, which Peiper concerned. Joachim Peiper and its principal subordinates appeared in the row of the defendants. To arrive at its ends, it took the defense of condemned by making the point that the court had not been equitable in their connection. It went until claiming that the accused had been tortured during their interrogations before the lawsuit.

All this stir had drawn the attention to the lawsuit and certain irregularities with which the interrogations had been sullied which had preceded it. Whereas before even as the Senate of the United States is interested in it, certain capital punishments had been commuted already following a revision of the lawsuit carried out by the army of the United States. On the basis of this principle, they call into question the conclusions of the Procès of Nuremberg which, according to their theories, allowed the emergence of the lie that the Holocauste would constitute.

It will be noted finally that a distinct lawsuit relating to the war crimes committed against the civilians with Stavelot opened the 6 July 1948 in front of the Conseil of war of Liege to load of ten men of Kampfgruppe Peiper who had been captured on December 22nd, 1944 by the American troops not far from one of the places where had taken place one of the massacres of civilians with Stavelot. A man was discharged, the others were recognized guilty and for the majority condemned to some ten years sorrows of forced labors, except two graded which were seen inflicting sorrows of twelve and fifteen years.

See too

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