Allies once an armistice had been signed. On
September 19, 1943, the Italians struck first,
ambushing a column of his men near the town
of Boves. Peiper reacted furiously, calling in
heavy artillery that leveled many houses and
killed innumerable civilians. This was the first
occasion that Peiper was formally accused of
committing war crimes. After another round
of combat in Russia, the Leibstandarte-SS de-
ployed to France in anticipation of Allied
landings there. This they failed to halt, and in
August 1944 Gen. George S. Patton unleashed
Operation Cobra, the breakout from the Nor-
mandy beachhead. Peiper became closely en-
gaged in a major tank battle at Avranches, but
the outnumbered Germans, perpetually har-
ried by tactical airpower, conceded the field.
Moving quickly, he barely managed to remove
his command from the Falaise Pocket before
the jaws closed around the reeling Germans.
The campaign in France had been a disaster,
but within four months Hitler was determined
to strike back.
In December 1944, Peiper was selected to
leave the German Ardennes offensive at part
of Dietrich’s Sixth Panzer Army. This was part
of an overall scheme to reach the Belgian port
of Antwerp and cut off Allied forces from
their supplies. Peiper was entrusted with the
command of Battlegroup (Kampfgruppe)
Peiper, a veteran force consisting of the elite
First SS Panzer Regiment and a special, En-
glish-speaking commando troop under Otto
Skorzeny. His mission was to penetrate
enemy lines and seize several bridges over the
Meuse River so that German armor could
cross. Speed was essential to the success of
the operation, and Peiper received only 72
hours to reach his objective. On December 15,
1944, his 5,000 men stepped into the deeply
wooded region, overrunning several U.S. out-
posts. Two days later Peiper’s men captured
Battery B of the 285th Forward Artillery Ob-
servation Battalion. His men, veterans of the
Russian front and unaccustomed to taking
prisoners, promptly rounded up 70 American
soldiers in a snowy pasture and shot them.
During the subsequent advance, several Bel-
gian civilians were likewise executed. This in-
cident, the so-called Malmedy Massacre, was
the biggest outrage ever committed against
U.S. forces. Charging ahead, Peiper managed
to cross the Salm River before being sur-
rounded. At length, mounting resistance
forced Battlegroup Peiper to retreat, its mis-
sion unfulfilled. By the time he recrossed
back into German lines, Peiper could muster
only 800 survivors from his formidable force.
Immediately after the war, Peiper was one
of 43 SS officers arrested and charged with
war crimes in connection to Malmedy. Peiper
and 23 of his compatriots were tried at
Dachau by an American military tribunal,
found guilty, and condemned to death. How-
ever, the military governor of Germany, Gen.
Lucius D. Clay, commuted their sentences to
life in prison. Peiper remained behind bars for
10 years before being released in 1956. By
1970, he had settled in the French town of
Travis in the Jura Mountains. He lived in
anonymity, known to local residents only as
“the old German,” but in the summer of 1976
articles about his past appeared in the com-
munist newspaper L’Humanite.Demands for
his expulsion resulted along with death
threats if he did not evacuate his house by the
French national holiday. The old soldier re-
fused to move; he died in a mysterious fire on
July 14, 1976—Bastille Day. Peiper was a
brave soldier and a clever fighter, but his dis-
regard for human life and the laws of war ren-
der him a war criminal.Bibliography
Ailsby, Christopher. Waffen SS: The Illustrated History,
1923–1945.Osceola, WI: MBI, 1998; Agte, Patrick.
Jochem Pieper: Commander, Panzer Regiment
Leibstandarte.Winnipeg, Manitoba: J. J. Fedorow-
icz, 1999; Bauserman, John M. The Malmedy Mas-
sacre.Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1995; Kessler,
Leo. SS Peiper: The Life and Death of SS Colonel
Jochen Peiper.London: Grafton, 1986; Lucas, James
S. SS-Kampfgruppe Peiper: An Episode in the War
in Russia, February 1943.Bradford, West York-
shire, UK: Shelf Books, 1997; Lumsden, Robin.PEIPER, JOCHEM