Malmédy massacre

Malmédy massacre, mass execution of US prisoners-of-war and local civilians which took place at Baugnez near Malmédy in pre-war Belgium on 17 December 1944. It was carried out by SS Standartenführer (colonel) Joachim Peiper's special Kampfgruppe (battle group) which penetrated US lines during the Ardennes campaign. There were 43 American survivors, but 86 were killed.

After the war, the commander of Sixth SS Panzer Army, General Dietrich, Peiper, and two others were charged with issuing illegal orders—the massacre had been only the largest of a number of similar incidents—and they and 69 other suspects were incarcerated in Dachau where their trial began in May 1946.

The prosecution admitted that confessions had been abstracted by threatened execution, false witnesses, and mock trials, but all the defendants were found guilty. Peiper and 42 others were condemned to death; 22, including Dietrich, were sentenced to life imprisonment. Subsequent legal reviews and appeals reduced these sentences and they were further reduced when evidence emerged that the accused had been ill-treated. In March 1949 the Armed Services Committee of the US Senate started an investigation in which Senator Joseph McCarthy, the anti-communist crusader, accused the US Army of Gestapo tactics and the investigating sub-committee of whitewashing the army's conduct. None of the death sentences was carried out. Dietrich was paroled in 1955. Peiper, released in 1956, was killed in 1976 when his house was fire-bombed. See also atrocities.