The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy
2018; Oxford University Press; Volume: 32; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/hgs/dcy032
ISSN8756-6583
Autores Tópico(s)Communism, Protests, Social Movements
ResumoOn December 17, 1944, during the opening days of the Battle of the Bulge, a Kampfgruppe (battle group) from the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) murdered a group of captured American soldiers at the Baugnez crossroads near the town of Malmedy, Belgium. An investigation of the massacre and the battle group’s other atrocities led to a trial known as the Malmedy Case. The U.S. Army prosecuted the Sixth SS Panzer Army commander, SS-Oberstgruppenführer Josef “Sepp” Dietrich; the battle group commander, SS-Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper; and other officers and enlisted men of the unit. The proceedings took place at Dachau. The prosecution argued that Dietrich had ordered the German spearhead to employ the most extreme measures, and that Peiper and his subordinates faithfully carried out their commander’s order, making theirs one of the rare (though not unique) SS units that applied brutal Eastern Front practices in Western Europe. The defense maintained that there had been no order to depart from international law, and that any killings were the result of “heat of battle” confusion and the desperate situation facing the hard-pressed German forces. In July 1946, seventy-three of the defendants were found guilty; forty-three, including Peiper, received death sentences.
Referência(s)