Jochen Peiper, 1945-1976

[Fritz]

Murdered on 14th July 1976, Traves, France. The murderers were never found.

A portrait by Heinrich Hoffmann

A photo from the earlier years, the pre-war uniform of the Leibstandarte

As a successfull tank commander

Peiper in Russia. A good drop of Hennessy from France was rare, but was issued in some cases. The Wehrmacht and the SS paid for any remaining supplies of this in France, which the French grudgingly sold. Officers and soldiers visiting France or in the occupation forces could still purchase these as long as available.

[Fritz]

Here is a French account of the story, rather cynical, the French press claimed it was suicide. The locals in the whole area knew exactly what was going on, but kept silent, disclaiming everything. The communists were behind the plot.

 

 

Here is a short account of his trial and how Senator McCarthy saved him.

Senator McCarthy Saves Joachim Peiper’s Life

Of course we know the gallows is not how our man  met his fate, but he did not know at this moment, when the verdict was read, that he would avoid them. A truly honorable soldier whom you can see clinches his jaw and pinches his lips , then turns and seems to be holding back a smile.

The trial took place at Dachau from 16 May to 16 July 1946 before a military tribunal of senior American officers, operating under rules established by the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal.

The 74 defendants included SS-Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich, 6th SS Panzer Army commanding general, his chief of staff SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Krämer, SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Prieß, I SS Panzer Corps commander, and Joachim Peiper, commander of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment (the unit to which the crimes were attributed).

Before the trial, occupation authorities reclassified the defendants from prisoners of war to Civilian Internees. The accusations were mainly based on the sworn and written statements provided by the defendants in Schwäbisch Hall. To counter the evidence given in the men’s sworn statements and by prosecution witnesses, the lead defense attorney, Lieutenant Colonel Willis M. Everett tried to show that the statements had been obtained by inappropriate methods.

Everett called Lieutenant Colonel Hal McCown to testify about Peiper’s troops’ treatment of American prisoners at La Gleize. McCown, who, along with his command, had been captured by Peiper at La Gleize, testified that wounded American soldiers in Peiper’s custody had received equal priority with German wounded in receiving medical treatment. He testified that during his occupation of the town, Peiper had at all times behaved in a professional and honorable manner.

Everett had decided to call only Peiper to testify. However, other defendants, supported by their German lawyers, wanted to testify as well. This would soon prove to be a huge mistake, for when the prosecution cross-examined the defendants, they behaved like “a bunch of drowning rats (…) turning on each other.”According to Everett, these testimonies gave the court enough reason to sentence several of the defendants to death.

The military court was not convinced by Peiper’s testimony about the murder of the POWs under the Kampfgruppe’s control. During the trial, several witnesses testified of at least two instances in which Peiper had ordered the murder of prisoners of war. When questioned by the prosecution, Peiper denied these allegations, stating that the allegations were obtained from witnesses under torture. When questioned about the murder of Belgian civilians, Peiper said they were partisans.  Although the court could not prove that Peiper had ordered the murders, Peiper nonetheless accepted responsibility for his men’s actions.

Together with 42 other defendants, Joachim Peiper was sentenced to death by hanging on 16 July 1946.

The sentences generated significant controversy in some German circles, including the church, leading the commander of the U.S. Army in Germany to commute some of the death sentences to life imprisonment. In addition, the Germans’ defense attorney, U.S. military attorney Lt. Col. Willis M. Everett, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that the defendants had been found guilty by means of “illegal and fraudulently procured confessions” and were subjects of mock trial. The turmoil raised by this case caused the Secretary of the Army, Kenneth Royall, to create a commission chaired by Judge Gordon A. Simpson of Texas to investigate. The commission was interested in the Malmedy massacre trial and in other cases judged at Dachau.

The commission arrived in Europe on 30 July 1948 and issued its report on 14 September. In this report, it notably recommended that the twelve remaining death sentences be commuted to life imprisonment. The commission confirmed the accuracy of Everett’s accusations regarding mock trials and neither disputed nor denied his charges of torture of the defendants. The commission expressed the opinion that the pre-trial investigation had not been properly conducted and that the members felt that no death sentence should be executed where such a doubt existed.

In response, General Lucius Clay commuted six more death sentences to life imprisonment. But he refused to commute the six remaining death sentences, including Peiper’s, though the executions were postponed. The turmoil caused by the commission report caused the U.S. Senate to investigate the trial.

Given the composition of the inquiry and the personal inclinations of it’s members, it could be assumed that everything would have gone off smoothly with a result that would be favorable to the prosecution-save for one thing. When the inquiry met for the first time on Monday 18 April 1949 in room 212 of the Senate Office Building, they where joined by an uninvited and unwished for guest, who demanded not only to cross examine those witnesses called by the inquiry but the right to summon witnesses of his own. The junior senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy, had appeared on the scene.

Of coarse McCarthy realized the dangers of taking the German side. He had to avoid giving the impression that he wanted German war criminals mollycoddled, while at the same time he wanted to discredit the committee and US military justice in Occupied Germany.

When cross examining Sergeant Ken Ahrens, one of the survivors, who had testified that SS men had laughed and joked as they walked the ranks of the fallen, shooting those still alive, McCarthy sprang to his feet and shouted that Ahrens’ testimony was’trying to inflame the public and members of the committee and was nothing more than an attempt to start a ‘Roman Holiday’. Ahrens, who by this time had  his evidence off pat, was seen to turn pale and loose his air of confidence.

When the prosecution claimed that there was no evidence of to prove abbuse to obtain confessions, that did it and again McCarthy jumped to his feet, “I think you are lying!You may be able to fool us, but I am convinced you cannot fool the lie detector!” This was the first mention of the famous lie detector which became such an important part of the Malmedy hearings and subsequent hearings in McCarthy’s career.

The kid gloves where now off and when Colonel Ellis made his appearance to tell the committee about the mock trials held at Schwaebisch-Hall to make the prisoners confess, McCarthy took from is bulging briefcase a letter from James Bailey, who had been the court recorder to the nine man interrogation team. In it Bailey claimed the evidence against the Germans had been obtained by starvation, brutality, and threats of bodily harm.. Eventually he could not stomach the treatment of the prisoners and asked for a transfer to an other unit.

McCarthy let those words sink in and stated , “this is a mockery of justice, so brutal as to be repulsive.” He then went on to describe the smashing of testicles and other inhuman methods used to obtain confessions.

And so it went on with McCarthy relentlessly breaking down the prosecution team’s case, until he stormed out saying he would no longer be part of this farce of whitewashing the Army’s behavior which was on par with techniques the Soviets where employing. Pointing at his briefcase he hinted to more information that would shook the country, and we know that a few years later this information certainly would.

Secretary of the Army Royall now lost his nerve. McCarthy’s ‘disclosures’ could be unfortunate for the for the Army. he ordered that no executions would be carried out. Thus Joachim Peiper undoubtedly owed his life to the rabble-rouser Senator from Wisconsin.

Ultimately the sentences of the Malmedy defendants were commuted to life imprisonment and then to time served. Peiper’s sentence was commuted to 35 years in 1954 and he was released in December 1956, the last of the Malmedy condemned to be freed. He had served 11 and a half years in prison.

HIAG, an organisation of former Waffen-SS members, had already helped Peiper’s wife find a job near the Landsberg Prison. They then worked to achieve the conditional release of Peiper himself. To obtain his release from prison, Peiper had to prove that he could obtain a job. Through the intermediary of Dr. Albert Prinzing, a former SS-Hauptsturmführer in the Sicherheitsdienst, he got a job at the car manufacturer Porsche.

Misstreated German prisoners of war.

[Fritz]

A letter from 1959 from Peiper to "Kurt" (Kurt Meyer?), and a further letter in English addressed to John Toland (US historian) with similar statements. Peiper was under a lot of stress at the time, one reason he left Germany. These and more documents under:

https://joachimpeiper.com/dokumente/

Music - Song of the Leibstandarte:

Leibstandarte-in-colour.mp3

[Fritz]

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Peiper in late 1939 with his father and one of his brothers. He lost both brothers
in 1941 and 1942.

Dachau-Malmedy trials, Peiper is no. 42, Sepp Dietrich no. 11

Peiper defending himself. An interpreter on the left. Peiper however, is said to have spoken
impeccable English and was very well-read.

Frau Sigurd Peiper at the Malmedy trials

Peiper at a post-war reunion

Peiper, after 1955

An early photo of Peiper's family

Peiper with his wife Sigurd and son

Peiper with his wife and daughter

At a reunion with old comrades. He is not wearing any decorations

With old comrades in France. Peiper in dark pullover.

Peiper with his wife and two old comrades at their property in France. To the right is Sturmbannführer Ketelhut

One of the last photos while living in Traves, France

Peiper in 1976 during an interview.

The house in Traves, which he built

The remains of Peiper's house in Traves/F, July 1976