I AM NOT A MURDERER...

[KiloIndiaAlpha]

An old friend of mine, now dead, served in Gds Armd Div in Normandy and he told of a Norman hamlet that his unit passed through. As they occupied the hamlet they swept it for Germans and found none, but quite soon took 2-3 men killed through sniping. They again swept the houses for jerries and again found none. However the sniping continued and another 2 men wwere killed. So they shot half a dozen of the villagers- the sniping stopped.

There is no record of this in the regimental history, no one was put on trial and no one was brought to account for it.

Was this man a murderer? Was he an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances? Bothe sides committed 'war crimes' but it's so easy to sit in judgement 60 years after the event safe and comfortable at home.

As for surrendering and taking prisoners, well, sometimes you just don't take prisoners. Believe me, you don't.

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Only the enemy in front, every other bugger behind.

- unofficial motto of the British Infantry Reconnaissance Corps, W.W.II

[This message has been edited by KiloIndiaAlpha (edited 07-26-2000).]

[Disaster@work]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

By themselves, orders to not take prisoners are not illegal by any means, then or now.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I found this possibility provocative so I looked it up in the Geneva conventions. Quote:

Article 40.-Quarter

It is prohibited to order that there shall be no survivors, to threaten an adversary therewith or to conduct hostilities on this basis.

Here is the reference: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/93.htm

Of course, everyone realizes that actually applying the rules is different in the heat of battle. The taking of prisoners has been optional since the beginning of time. But, at least to signatories of the Geneva Conventions (1949), it is in fact illegal.

[This message has been edited by Disaster@work (edited 07-26-2000).]

[Juju]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by mch:

I'll bet 75$ that this thread is locked up

when I get back from school today........

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oowee, great! You lost.

Send me a cheque, okay? We'll go into the details later.

Goody.

[Fionn]

Jeff,

Oh I'm well aware of those distinctions. Personally, however, I think that the execution at Malmedy was simply the result of a US massacre of German POWs the day before ( the bodies of which had been seen by Peiper).

IMO Malmedy was simply revenge and German soldiers shouldn't have been tried unless US soldiers were tried for the earlier massacre of surrendered German POWs (AFTER they had surrendered). Of course, victors take their own revenge and that's what simply happened here.

Jeff,

Disaster's link shows that ordering surrenders not to be accepted IS illegal. Sure it is acknowledged that units behind the lines can't take POWs etc BUT in this case we're talking about line units in any case where this ruling definitely applies.

KIA,

Question... If this hamlet was in Normandy then why would shooting French people stop a German sniper? Surely you meant to say the hamlet was in Germany somewhere?

And, for the record, I have always been of the opinion that horrible things happen on the battlefield and that that should be understood and most of the people perpetrating them should simply be realised to be under tremendous stress.

If I had my way both German and Allied soldiers should simply have had an amnesty after the war for all except the most heinous crimes. OTOH when Germans were singled out I feel it necessary to point out that others did the same sort of thing and got away unpunished.

generally though I wish the powers that be would just simply accept that what happens in the field should stay there and don't hypocritically single one side out for punishment whilst allowing guys who did the same on the other side off scott free.

[This message has been edited by Fionn (edited 07-26-2000).]

[Hakko Ichiu]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Disaster@work:

I found this possibility provocative so I looked it up in the Geneva conventions. Quote:

Article 40.-Quarter

It is prohibited to order that there shall be no survivors, to threaten an adversary therewith or to conduct hostilities on this basis.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sorry to appear Clintonesque, but there is a definite semantic difference between not accepting surrender and ordering that there be no survivors. One can always allow combatants to run away, either before or after telling them to drop their weapons.

[Fionn]

Ethan, there might be a semantic difference but let's just be reasonable shall we?

Do you really think Patton and Bradley meant their "take no prisoners" orders to be interpreted so that their infantry divisions would disarm their opponents and send them running to the rear?

Sometimes semantics just gets in the way of obvious common sense. When they ordered no prisoners to be taken they didn't want Germans who dropped their weapons to be sent running back to Germany after promising not to kill any more GIs.. They wanted those Germans to be shot by the side of the road.

This was war and not some semantics seminar .

[Disaster@work]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hakko Ichiu:

Sorry to appear Clintonesque, but there is a definite semantic difference between not accepting surrender and ordering that there be no survivors. One can always allow combatants to run away, either before or after telling them to drop their weapons.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hmmm yes, but I think if an officer told his troops: "take no prisoners" you can be sure they will take the sinister meaning.

I wonder what a war crimes court might say if instead of butchering soldiers attempting to surrender if you instead kneecapped the lot, or, as the Romans did, cut off all their right arms.

[Disaster@work]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by KiloIndiaAlpha:

So they shot half a dozen of the villagers- the sniping stopped.There is no record of this in the regimental history, no one was put on trial and no one was brought to account for it. Was this man a murderer? Was he an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances? Bothe sides committed 'war crimes' but it's so easy to sit in judgement 60 years after the event safe and comfortable at home. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have three comments on this:

- Killing civilians is totally beyond the pale. This is what My Lai was all about. One of the 'justifications' for My Lai was that it was a reprisal for killings by a faceless enemy they couldn't catch, with the assumption that the villagers had been supporting it or were in fact hiding members among them. Not only is there doubt that these people were the enemy but, in the case you spoke about, they may even have been the people the Yanks were supposed to liberate.

- a reprisal is different than 'in the heat of the battle'. A reprisal indicates that it took place after the initial fight and is done for revenge / intimidation. This implies that the participants had time to consider their actions.

- Yes, we are considering this after the fact and in the comfort of our own homes. But we do set the moral tenor for what goes on in the future. Hence, war crimes tribunals are supposed to lay down guidelines for behaviour.

[Dick Reece]

[Dick,

Umm, I don't think Jochen wanted to do a "rescue scenario". I think he wanted to be the SS "shooting party".

[JeffRaider]

Get ready, the one, the only, THE NON-CONTROVERSIAL PEIPER QUESTION!!!

Is it spelled Jochen or Joachim? I've read both.

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Jeff Fraser

The Wargamer's Combat Mission Central

http://www.wargamer.com/cm

[Guest Bad Ju Ju]

I've seen the latter in most books on the Bulge.

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"I didn't go to evil medical school for six years to be called MR. Evil." Dr. Evil

[Fionn]

Joachim as far as I know. That's the most common version I've seen anyways.

[JeffRaider]

I found my source for Jochen. A pretty lame book called "Battle Group Peiper", dealing with Peiper in Russia. The author, obviously Britsh, had the Germans saying things like "Hallo" and "Cheerio, mate."

[Dan Weaver]

I loathe the SS. I hate the false elitism and arrogance which they and their glamorous overequipped divisions symbolized. They were bloody-handed thugs designed for propaganda value, and they deserved what they got.

Now onto the killing of prisoners. One of the horrors of war is that the military situation frequently denies the luxury of taking prisoners. Fionn mentioned the case in which Allied paratroopers participating in Overlord were ordered to leave no prisoners. Based on the conditions, that's a sensible request. The paratroopers were in such a precarious spot and in such need of haste that the acceptance of German surrenders would have resulted in unpardonable delays to their progress and the possible derailing of the invasion. He also mentions a case in which US soldiers massacred German POWs the day before the Malmedy massacre. That day was December 16th, the start of the Battle of the Bulge. If I was an American soldier with a hundred Germans sitting around all ready to form another infantry company, I'd start shooting them too. In the peacetime world, the order of no-prisoners sounds atrocious, but in time of war it occasionally becomes sane - even the best choice. Rather than condemn the killing of prisoners, we should condemn war itself. It is a brutal business.

Dan

[Fionn]

Ah Dan,

On the one hand you damn the SS for being "thugs" and then you say that it made sense for Allied soldiers to shoot unarmed Germans AFTER they surrendered.

It is that kind of hypocricy which allows war crimes and war crimes tribunals to continue.

So, if US troops did much of what the SS did how come the SS is so much worse? (And don't fall back on that, they were all nazi thugs thing... Hell, a lot of guys were CONSCRIPTED into the SS. How could a conscript who could as easily have ended up in a Heer division be transformed into a nazi thug just by having his number chosen? )

It's attitudes like yours which allow governments to manipulate soldiers in war, dehumanise the enemy AND which lead to the kind of casual killings we see here.

In effect you'd probably be quite happy to shoot SS prisoners AND in so doing you'd be no better than them ( yet you'd still condemn them as being thugs while you weren't???? )

Sheer hypocricy.

[Dan Weaver]

I'd hoped that nobody would make the conclusion you just drew, Fionn. I'm not saying that US soldiers were more justified in their executions of prisoners than the SS were at Malmedy. I don't hold the Malmedy massacre against the SS. It's paltry fare compared to things like the Russian atrocities at Katyn Forest. I hate the SS for their egregious and unnecessary slaughters of civilians, and their role as the enforcers of the Nazi state.

Dan

[This message has been edited by Dan Weaver (edited 07-26-2000).]

[Priest]

Bravo Fionn. That was well said. I am an ardent patriot of the U.S. Military. That being said, however distasteful and unhonorable it may be, I have no problems believing that certain commanders from all nations involved in WWII at one time or another ordered the "NO PRISONERS" order. I would like to think that at times it was because the plan did not allow for the POW's. More importantly though individuals should not dilute themselves into being a blind altruist when it comes to their nation's activities in anything. Questioning one's own governing body is why the U.S. exists today!

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Sir are you sure you want to go to red alert...it would mean changing the bulb

-Priest

[Fionn]

Dan,

Well, I'm sorry but that's how it comes across when you call the SS thugs in one paragraph and then say that you would shoot German POWs who had surrendered to you in the next.

If you're calling one group thugs for doing A and then you say " I'd do A also and lots of US troops did A during the battle" then it seems kinda hypocritical to say " A is OK when US soldiers do it but not when others do."

My position is that neither SS OR US OR UK etc soldiers should have been brought up on charges for understandable but regrettable actions during the war. I only speak out to try to provide balance to this issue and don't have any axe to grind with US soldiers or anything like that. I just think we've got to be consistent about how we react to these regrettable actions.

Priest, Exactly. I just want people to look and see what REALLY happened. I'm consistent in that I say that I don't believe anyone should be hung or sentenced to decades in prison because of shooting POWs etc since in the chaos of war good men can do terrible things. On the other hand when one side is singled out and the other is ignored I feel I must speak up and provide some redress. I hope everyone can understand that this is what motivates me to speak.

[Lindan]

IIRC I read in "Citizen Soldiers" about an incident were a group of Polish soldiers were expected to show up with 1200 soldiers and arrived with 300 (Somewhere in Normandy). Asked about it the CO stated they shot the rest. They had not enough ammo left for the last 300.

(It's 3 am now and I'm too sleepy to look it up, but I'll post the correct quote tomorrow.) AFAIK there was no trial after the war.

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visit lindan.panzershark.com

member of the Combat Mision webring

[Franko]

I love the fact that the 1st SS Panzer Division got its ass handed to it three times (Mortain, Aachen, Bulge) by the humble 30th Infantry Division. "Great Fighters", my ass.

[Kevin Peltz]

http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres.html

[Dan Weaver]

I couldn't agree more, Fionn.

Dan

[Jeff Heidman]

Fionn, I do not think that it is a semantic distinction in the least. I have never claimed that it was legal to shoot soldiers whom you (or one of your fellow soldiers) had accepted the surrender of, no matter what nationality you were.

I think the perpetrators of the Malmedy massacre were rightfully prosecuted. If US troops did the same thing the day before, then it was NOT right that they not be prosecuted. However, this has no bearing on the guilt of the Malmedy perpetrators.

The distinction between ordering that there be no survivors and that you take no prisoners is, in fact, a very important distiction. In fact, it is that very distinction that the trial of Peiper hinged upon. Was his order one to take no prisoners (legal) or was it one to leave no survivors (illegal)?

I will grant that in the field the execution of said orders becomes rather murky at best. I will also grant that the execution of the reported (but never documented) Bradley orders might have been illegal also, although I have never actually seen any real evidence that the order existed or was followed. Certainly Bradleys 3rd? Army took literally hundreds of thousands of prisoners.

As far as what it means to not take prisoners, disarming them and letting them go is not usually what is done anyway, since if you are in a position to disarm them, you havealready taken them prisoner to begin with. Rather, you simply refuse to accept their surrender. When they offer to surrender, you indicate that you are unwilling to accept. Wether that be by yelling at them, or simply continuing to fire.

In the end though, your basic point is inarguable. War is an ugly business. Even when it is fought by the "rules" it is still revolting. When your opponent puts their hands in the air and gives up, and you shoot them because you are not accepting surrenders, that is revolting regardless of whether or not it might be technically legal. When you drop HE on women and children working in factories, that it revolting. When you sink merchant ships in the mddle of the North Atlantic in the winter, that is revolting.

What happened at Malmedy was an attrocity, and deserved to be treated as such. The fact that Allied troops got away with many of the same actions is only evidence of the hypocritical nature of legal enforcement of the time. It takes nothing away from the illegality of other events.

Jeff Heidman

[Commissar]

Exactly why was Peiper living in France after the war of all places? Considering the feelings of French people at the time, him getting murdered does not sound all that surprising whether he was responsible for massacres or not. Why did he choose to live there and not say S. America??

[Guest grunto]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JOCHEN PEIPER:

Pleas everyone accept my appolgy

I did not mean it to be funny...

I had a grandfather who was in the SS an do not wish to tarnish his name...

Meaning that not all SS were murdering machines...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

yeah they were great fighters... a book i was reading said they got off on the adrenaline... after some time they didn't care much about politics but wanted to get into the next fight.

my favorite is otto kumm, commander of the heavy panzer battalion during the bulge and into the operations in hungary/austria.

if there's a 'vahalla' i'm sure some of them will be going there.

from what i've read the eastern front was no quarter from the get-go, everywhere, almost all of the time.

anyway i hate to think that i could pull the trigger in a massacre situation.

one thing some westerners don't understand was the ss' loathing of communism. patton wanted to use them as part of a western army in a war on communism ...

(x-files music on)

.. and some say he was killed because of it... he was a loose cannon who wanted badly to fight the red army.

when he visited the ss prison camp the conditions there improved, and after he died the conditions got bad again.

(x-files music off)

i think patton loved combat as much as the ss guys did. i don't know if he would have ever ordered such atrocities as those which occured at malmedy in any case.

anyhow a massacre scenario in combat mission would be tasteless and boring to say the least. i figure you've learned that by now =wry g=

andy