Civilian Massacre Is Just the Price the Rest of Us Have to Pay Over and Over Again Apparently

German troops massacred more than than 300 GIs during the Boxing of the Bulge. Despite beingness expressly prohibited by the Geneva Convention, such atrocities were all too common in World State of war Two. (Paradigm courtesy of the German Federal Archive).

"While the Malmedy Massacre may be i of the meliorate-known atrocities committed against POWs in World War 2, the history of the 6-year conflict is rife with like crimes."

Side by side WEDNESDAY MARKS THE seventy^Th Ceremony OF ane of the worst atrocities committed against American troops in the Second World War – the Malmedy Massacre.

On Dec. 17, 1944, elements of the 1^st SS Panzer Sectionalisation's Kampfgruppe Peiper netted more than 120 American prisoners after punching through the Allied lines in the opening 24 hours of Hitler's famous Ardennes Offensive. Unwilling slow his column's accelerate, a 29-year-old German colonel named Joachim Peiper ordered his men assemble the captives at a crossroads just exterior the Belgian village of Malmedy. Shortly after one p.m., the High german troops opened fire. A full of 84 GIs from the 285^th Field Artillery Ascertainment Battalion were mowed down in a hail of machinegun fire. At least 43 of the prisoners played dead or fled into the nearby wood.

Over the next iii days, Peiper's men murdered 250 additional POWs as well equally 100 civilians. In i incident, 11 African American soldiers captured at Wereth were mutilated before beingness gunned down. News of the atrocities infuriated the Allies. Over the next two weeks, GIs retaliated against High german troops as the Americans fought to retake the lost territory. In one New year's Day incident, U.S. infantrymen slaughtered 60 surrendering Wehrmacht soldiers at Chenogne in southern Kingdom of belgium.

Oberst Peiper survived the war simply fell into Allied hands in August of 1945. He was tried for state of war crimes and sentenced to decease in 1946 along with more than 40 of his soldiers. While evidence against the Nazi officeholder was damning, controversy erupted following the trial when it was alleged that confessions from many of the accused were coerced using torture. War machine officials commuted the sentences; Peiper served simply 11 years in Landsberg Prison.

Upon his release, the decorated panzer commander and one-time adjutant to SS chief Heinrich Himmler alleged himself rehabilitated and took a task with the car maker Porsche. He later became an automotive journalist and moved to France. Allegations of wartime atrocities dogged him for years. In July of 1976, Peiper was mysteriously shot expressionless in his abode most Vesoul. Government suspected that the 61-year-old'due south killers were former members of the French Resistance. No charges were laid.

While the Malmedy Massacre may be one of the amend-known atrocities committed against POWs in Globe War 2, the history of the 6-year disharmonize is rife with similar crimes. Hither are some of the more notorious ones.

German and Soviet forces carved up Poland in 1939. The Nazis handed over thousands of POWs to Stalin'south NKVD for extermination the following year.

Zakroczym, 1939: 500 dead

World State of war Two was simply days old when the get-go massacres of prisoners were being recorded. On Sept. 28, 1939, troops from the SS Kempf Panzer Segmentation butchered as many as 500 captured Polish troops at Zakroczym. Information technology's believed the murders were ordered as retribution confronting the Smooth ground forces for knocking out 72 German language tanks at the Battle of Mława in the war's opening week. Sadly, it was just the start of many similar mass killings to unfold in the coming years.

Katyn, 1940: 22,000 dead

For decades, the Soviet Union had maintained that the slaughter of eight,000 captured Smooth military officers forth with 14,000 civilian administrators in the Katyn forest was a Nazi war criminal offense. Simply in 1991, the Kremlin finally conceded that it was Stalin who had ordered the hole-and-corner March five, 1940 killings as part of a pre-mediated genocide confronting Poland. The extermination unfolded seven months after the 1939 Molotov Ribbentrop Pact in which the Nazis and their allies-of-convenience in Moscow agreed to partition the country.

Most 100 British soldiers from the Royal Norfolk Regiment were shot dead by the SS just an hour's drive from the site of the Dunkirk Evacuation.

Le Paradis, 1940: 97 dead

May 27, 1940 saw soldiers of the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf machine gun 97 unarmed British Tommies during the last hours of the Battle of French republic. The killings took place at Le Paradis, 60 km inland from Dunkirk. A 29-year-sometime Nazi captain by the proper name of Fritz Knöchlein ordered the captives, many of whom were wounded, to line upward in forepart of a large barn. The men were mowed down past two MG-34 crews. Moments later on, the perpetrators waded through the bodies dispatching any survivors with their bayonets. After the state of war, Knöchlein was arrested, tried and condemned past the Allies. Despite his repeated pleas for clemency, he went to the gallows in early 1949.

American and Filipino POWs died by the hundreds at the hands of the Japanese following the fall of Bataan.

Bataan, 1942: >6,500 dead

American and Filipino POWs got an unfortunate lesson in brutality at the hands of the Japanese regular army afterwards the autumn of the Bataan Peninsula. In April, 1942, as many equally lxxx,000 Centrolineal prisoners were force-marched more than than 100 kilometers into captivity at Capas on Luzon. Deprived of food and water for much of their trek through the searing tropical oestrus, wearied prisoners perished by the hundreds. "Some attempted escape… others connected to autumn, unable to keep upward," one survivor told Military History mag in 2006. "They were shot, beheaded or bayoneted and left to dice on the side of the road. In some ways, they were the lucky ones. Their miseries were over. For the rest of us our agonies had just begun." In all, more than 6,000 Filipino troops and 650 Americans died in what became known every bit the Bataan Expiry March. Sadly, hundreds of the survivors died two years later on when a Japanese cargo vessel upon which they were beingness transferred was torpedoed by the submarine USS Paddle. More than 680 drowned or were shot dead by guards equally they attempted to abandon the stricken ship.

Stalag Luft Three, 1944: fifty dead

Within days of the famous "peachy escape" by Allied airmen held at the Stalag Luft Iii Prisoner of war camp, German police and Gestapo units fanned out beyond the Third Reich to recapture the fugitives. Within days, all only 3 of were back in Nazi easily. On March 25, 1944, l of the recaptured aviators were singled out for execution. The victims were driven into the German countryside in pocket-size groups and then shot in the back of the head. Among those murdered were Brits, Canadians, Poles, Czechs, Norwegians, Australians and New Zealanders. The bodies of the slain were cremated and their remains returned to their comrades in stir. Near 70 Nazi officials were implicated in the killings; 21 were sentenced to decease for their office in the law-breaking.

Italian soldiers in High german captivity in Greece. More 5,000 were slaughtered on the isle of Cephalonia in 1943.

Cephalonia, 1943: 5,000 expressionless

Ironically, ane of the war's bloodiest prisoner massacres was committed by Wehrmacht troops against their one-fourth dimension Italian allies on the Greek island of Cephalonia. When Italia surrendered to the Allies in September of 1943, the acting government ordered its troops on the far-flung island to sit down out the ongoing campaign to crush local partisans. German commanders insisted that the Italians remain in the fight. Afterward their ultimatums were ignored, the Nazis attacked on Sept. 15 and ultimately overpowered the officers and men of the intransigent 33^rd Acqui mount division. The victors summarily executed more 200 Italian commanders on Cephalonia for treason. They then turned their guns on the rank and file. Many German soldiers refused to shoot their former comrades, but relented when their ain officers threatened all dissenters with death. Over the next week, v,000 Italian POWs were slaughtered, their bodies burned in huge bonfires or dumped at sea. The builder of the atrocity, General Hubert Lanz, was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to 12 years.

Biscari, 1943: 73 dead

Not all prisoner massacres were carried out by the Centrality. After a particularly fierce battle for control of the Biscari airfield in Sicily, troops from the American 180^th Infantry Regiment executed 71 Italian POWs and a pair of Germans in 2 separate incidents on July 14, 1943. The first involved a sergeant named Horace West who emptied ii Tommy gun clips into a grouping of 35 shoeless prisoners at indicate blank range. Afterwards that day, a Capt. John Compton ordered 11 of his riflemen to execute 36 captured enemy troops by firing squad. Army prosecutors charged both men with murder. West was given life in prison. The sentence was commuted in 1944 and he was reinstated. Compton received an acquittal. When beginning learning of the offense, Gen. George Due south. Patton was unfazed. "It was probably an exaggeration," he said. "Anyhow, they are dead, then nothing tin exist done nearly it."[i]

Salina, Utah, 1945: 9 expressionless

The but reported mass murder of Axis troops on U.S. soil occurred two months subsequently VE 24-hour interval. On July 8, 1945, a 24-yr-erstwhile American soldier by the name of Clarence Five. Bertucci turned a .xxx caliber machine gun on Germans existence held in a Salina, Utah Pow army camp. The U.S. Regular army private fired 250 rounds into the compound from atop of his baby-sit tower in what became known equally the Midnight Massacre. 9 men were killed in the half-infinitesimal fusillade; 20 more than were wounded. The prisoners, who had mostly been captured two years earlier in Northward Africa, were awaiting repatriation when they were mowed down. Bertucci told investigators that he had long hoped for a combat consignment then he could kill enemy soldiers and was furious that the state of war had concluded before he saw action. He was afterward bars to a mental hospital.

German troops surrendering to the Western Allies (like the ones seen hither at Falaise in 1944) received far ameliorate handling than those captured by the Scarlet Regular army.

Post Script
Of course, these are only a handful of the hundreds (possibly thousands) of cases of war crimes committed confronting POWs from both sides in World State of war Two. While these accounts are certainly horrifying, the larger statistics paint an even grimmer pic. Co-ordinate to researchers, as many as 57 percent of all Soviets captured by the Nazis were killed in captivity, while an estimated 4 per centum of soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Western Allies taken prisoner by the Germans were murdered. [2] It's believed that the Japanese slew more than a quarter of their Allied POWs [3], while up to a tertiary of Germans taken past the Ruby-red Army died in captivity. Axis combatants held past the Democracy powers and American forces typically enjoyed ameliorate treatment – less than a third of i percentage were killed later surrendering.[4]

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Source: https://militaryhistorynow.com/2014/12/12/bloody-murder-10-of-the-most-shocking-pow-massacres-of-world-war-two/

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