• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

FREE KAMPFGRUPPE PEIPER AT THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE: THE GERMAN RACE FOR THE MEUSE PDF David Cooke,Wayne Evans | 192 pages | 30 Jun 2008 | Stackpole Books | 9780811734813 | English | Mechanicsburg, PA, United States Joachim Peiper - Wikipedia During his career with Himmler, Peiper witnessed implementation of SS policies of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Eastern Europe; he persistently denied or obfuscated this fact following the war. Transferred to a combat role, Peiper served in the SS Division Leibstandarte on both the Eastern and Western Frontscommanding first a battalion and then a regiment. Peiper's command became known for atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war. Peiper was convicted in the Malmedy massacre trial and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted, with Peiper serving 12 years in prison. He was accused of committing the Boves massacre in Italy; the investigation was closed due to insufficient evidence that Peiper issued the order to kill civilians directly. After his release from prison, he worked for both Porsche and Volkswagenbefore moving to Francewhere he worked as a freelance translator. Peiper was murdered in France in Julyafter his identity as an SS-man and war criminal had been publicized there. A relatively insignificant combat leader, Peiper achieved cult status among those who romanticize the Waffen-SS. Peiper was born on 30 January into a middle-class family from the Silesian region of Germany. After the war, Waldemar Peiper joined the paramilitary Freikorps and took part in the Silesian Uprisings. InPeiper followed his older brother Horst born and joined the Scouting movementdeveloping an interest in a military career. He died in June in Poland in an accident that was never officially explained. According to historian Jens Westemeierit was rumoured that Horst was gay and was forced to commit suicide by others in his unit. When Peiper turned 18, he joined the Hitler Youth with his brother Horst. His first superior was Gustav Lombarda Nazi zealot, antisemite, and later a regimental commander in the notorious SS Cavalry Brigade that murdered tens of thousands of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union. This made him a member of the SS even before it emerged from the shadow of the Sturmabteilung SA as an independent organization within the Nazi Party in the aftermath of the SA purge known as the Night of the Long Knives. They noted Peiper's egocentricity, negative attitude, and attempts to impress the evaluators with his connection to Himmler. The doctors concluded that Peiper might turn into a "difficult subordinate" or an "arrogant superior". After the Kampfgruppe Peiper at the Battle of the Bulge: The German Race for the Meuse he tried to deny, or at least obfuscate, his membership in the party, as it was inconsistent with the image that he had constructed for himself as being "merely a soldier". Peiper remained with the LSSAH until June [7] when he was appointed Kampfgruppe Peiper at the Battle of the Bulge: The German Race for the Meuse adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, a step that Himmler considered necessary in the career path of an SS leader with promising potential. At that time, Himmler's personal staff was under the command of Karl Wolff. He became one of Himmler's favourite adjutants; Peiper admired him in return. Although after the war people from Himmler's inner circle, including Karl Wolff, tried to minimize the role of Himmler's adjutants, the role was far from inconsequential: the longer they stayed in Himmler's service, the more they gained influence and political connections. InPeiper met and began courting Sigurd Hinrichsen, a secretary on Himmler's personal staff who was friends with both Lina Heydrich Reinhard Heydrich 's wife and Himmler's secretary Hedwig Potthastlater to be Himmler's mistress. Himmler was the guest of honour at the wedding and delivered a short toast. On 1 SeptemberGermany invaded Poland. Peiper joined Himmler on board his special train and, on occasion, acted as his liaison to Adolf Hitlertravelling with Erwin Rommel to accompany Hitler as he met with Wehrmacht generals near the front. After Poland was defeated, Peiper witnessed the developing SS policies of deportations and ethnic cleansing of the Polish population. In post-war interrogations, Peiper described the experience in a detached, factual manner:. The action [gassing] was done before a circle of invited guests. The insane were lead into a prepared casemate the door of which had a Plexiglas window. After the door was closed, one could see how, in the beginning, the insane still laughed and talked to each other. But, soon they sat down on the straw, obviously under the influence of the gas. Very soon, they no longer moved. The latter was tasked with deporting Jews from Polish territories annexed to Germany to Warsaw and Lublin. Peiper also learned about Globocnik's work on the Lublin Reservation. Peiper returned to his duties as Himmler's adjutant on 21 June He referred to expulsions and massacres perpetrated in Poland, stating: "We had to have the toughness—this should be said and soon forgotten—to shoot thousands of leading Poles". He stressed the so-called difficulty of "carrying out executions", "hauling away people", or "evicting crying and hysterical women". The following months were devoted to the preparation of the SS for this war. This episode shows that Peiper was perfectly able to remember the details of the criminal process without forgetting anecdotes intended to prove that Jews were hitting other Jews which, by comparison, was supposed to reduce his own complicity. From 11 to 15 June, Peiper was present for the SS conference where Himmler spoke of the plans to eliminate 30 million Slavic people. Peiper accompanied Himmler on field inspections of various murder units. In the former function, the units' activities were indistinguishable from the Einsatzgruppen and the Order Police battalions. The reports of the Kommandostab units were received daily, and it was Peiper's role to present them to Himmler every morning. On 11 August, Lombard reported the total number of shot "looters" a code word for the Jews was 6, As the first adjutant, Peiper's job included providing Himmler with the murder statistics from the Einsatzgruppen units each morning. Peiper and Werner GrothmannSecond Adjutant, were aware of all incoming communications; all of Himmler's orders passed through their hands. Peiper's role beside Himmler gradually came to an end beginning in the late summer of Although no longer Himmler's official First Adjutant, Peiper continued to update his appointment diary until mid-September An injury to a unit commander soon gave him an opportunity to take command of the 11th Company. Peiper was noted for his fighting spirit, although his unit suffered high casualties as a consequence of his aggressive tactics. Sepp DietrichLSSAH's commander, volunteered his troops to assist with the murder operations by sealing Taganrog and delivering Jews, Roma, and others to the death squads; the massacre of roughly 1, people took place on 29 October in the Gully of Petrushino. In JulyPeiper again met with Himmler and did not rejoin his unit until August He even met with Himmler one-on-one. Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, the German situation had seriously worsened, especially in the Battle of Stalingrad. Peiper's battalion left France in January for the Eastern Front. Upon entering the village, Peiper's troops made a terrible discovery. All the men in his small rearguard medical detachment who had been left there had been killed and then mutilated. An SS sergeant in Peiper's ration supply company later stated that Peiper responded in kind: "In the village, the two petrol trucks were burnt and 25 Germans killed by partisans and Soviet soldiers. As a revenge, Peiper ordered the burning down of the whole village and the shooting of its Kampfgruppe Peiper at the Battle of the Bulge: The German Race for the Meuse. On 6 MayPeiper was awarded the German Cross in Gold for his achievements in February around Kharkov, where his unit gained the nickname the "Blowtorch Battalion". Reportedly, the nickname derived from the torching and slaughter of two Soviet villages where their inhabitants were either shot or burned. Some of these were burned alive in the church of Yefremovka. Even old Genghis Khan would gladly have hired us as assistants. Himmler sent personal congratulations over Kampfgruppe Peiper at the Battle of the Bulge: The German Race for the Meuse radio: "Heartfelt congratulations for the Knight's Cross my dear Jochen! I am proud of you! The official SS newspaper Das Schwarze Korps "The Black Corps" described Peiper's actions in Kharkov in glowing terms such as "the master of the situation in all its phases" and extolled Peiper's "quick decision making", "caring" attitude and "bold and unorthodox orders". The paper emphasized that he was "a born leader, one filled with the highest sense of responsibility for the life of every single one of his men, but who [was] also able to be hard if necessary". The descriptions of his tactical skills propelled Peiper to become an icon of the Waffen-SS after the war, with former battalion members describing him in glowing terms. Beginning in August, Peiper's battalion was stationed near Cuneo. After this, Peiper and his unit were called in to free the German soldiers and took up positions in Boves, controlling access to the town. They threatened to destroy the town and its inhabitants should their demands not be met. Peiper committed to sparing the town if the German soldiers were freed. The parish priest of Boves, don Giuseppe Bernardi, and local industrialist Alessandro Vassallo, who had acted as negotiators between Peiper and the Italian soldiers and partisans, successfully secured the release of the prisoners and the return of the body of the killed SS trooper.

Load more

  7

Copy Link