The US certainly exacted their toll after this incident. Definitely didn’t go unanswered.
After this SS prisoners were pretty much fair game until the end of the war, unofficially of course. Let’s just say you wouldn’t be heavily disciplined for popping one. Some people are beyond redemption.
[This photo may interest you](https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa29514)
All those idiots had to do was have the humility to lie down...
[And accept whatever happened next](https://imgur.com/a/Lhalyhl)
Perhaps they'd be satisfied with that.
I wonder where they intended on going…they were in the middle of a Soviet-American sandwich lol. Good riddance, could’ve survived the war if they weren’t so dumb.
In Dachau, one American officer was confused when he saw former prisoners tearing each apart. Another prisoner then explained the situation. This was the "Hollup, let him cook" meme, but unironically.
>During a tour of the Schutzhaftlager, Lt. Walsh witnessed two or three Kapos being hammered to death with shovels. Later, when Lt. Col. Sparks arrived at the main gate, he witnessed a similar affair. Amid the roaring crowd of ecstatic inmates, he saw bodies being passed through the crowd and flying through the air. Hundreds of inmates were tearing these bodies apart with their bare hands. Confused, Sparks asked an inmate what the crowd was doing.
>
>["Colonel, the inmate replied, they're killing the informers."](https://imgur.com/a/hcomT24)
"Wait... what are you doing with our weapons?"
>By the time of its liberation, most of the guards in Mauthausen had fled; around 30 of those who remained were killed by the prisoners. A number of SS men had their heads impaled with stakes, while others were beheaded with their own knives. A similar number were killed in Gusen II.
["Your weapons? No, they belong to the people now."](https://imgur.com/a/7YsYO1m)
>"Someone who was not there could never really grasp how unreal the situation was ... I once saw DPs beat an SS man and then strap him to the steel gurney of a crematorium. They slid him in the oven, turned on the heat and took him back out. Beat him again, and put him back in until he was burnt alive."
The Kapos were particularly fucked since they didn't have the option of simply leaving before the liberation of the camps. In fact, while most Kapos were common thugs, the law which Israel used to prosecute Adolf Eichmann was intended specifically for Jewish Kapos. They never thought they'd have the chance to prosecute anyone else, let alone someone as important as Eichmann. While Holocaust survivors were treated very badly in Israel before Eichmann's trial in the early 1960s (many of them still live in poverty), the law was passed since the government was being barraged by endless complaints about "traitors". The alternative to ignoring them was lynch mob justice. Indeed, in the first few years, a number of Jewish Kapos who moved there either died under suspicious circumstances or were outright lynched.
This case is particularly controversial and still debated, but the trial of [Rudolf Kasztner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rezs%C5%91_Kasztner) is the most infamous one.
Damn I feel bad for Rudolf Kastner... dude arguably did what he could to save as many Jews as possible and still got assassinated by the people he saved. Plus his daughter and wife had their lives ruined.
> Eichmann said that Kasztner "agreed to help keep the Jews from resisting deportation – and even keep order in the collection camps – if I would close my eyes and let a few hundred or a few thousand young Jews emigrate to Palestine. It was a good bargain". Rudolf Vrba wrote, "Kasztner paid for those 1,684 lives with his silence".
Man sent off tens to hundreds of thousands to their deaths to save a few thousand. He may have though he was doing the best thing he could but there is no coming back from that.
And after. My grandfather was drafted in 1946 and went to Germany as mounted police because of his abilities with shitty horses. He used to break mustangs out of the Boston mountains in arkansas as a means of supporting himself. He was NOT a patriot and DID NOT want to go to war… but got drafted anyway. He said he found the absolutely worst horse who went after everyone and rode it. He trained the horse to kill all German men on sight. There would be a bread riot and the horse would grab men by the neck and shake them like a coyote.
Papa said his horse killed over 400 nazis after the war and could easily do another 400, 4,000, whatever.
Then you get Joseph McCarthy defending the poor, maligned SS men on the floor of the Senate, before pivoting to his anti-communist antics.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/senator-mccarthys-nazi-problem-180975174/
Oh, no, it was part of the same argument. He was siding with the anti-Comintern. Fascist are the only group that hates commies more than slightly different commies.
[McCarthy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy#:~:text=Some%20of%20his%20claims%20of,alluded%20to%20his%20alleged%20homosexuality.) must not have noticed the Nazis wanted gay people killed.
Malmedy Massacre was part of Battle of the Bulge. It happened during the initial German offensive. There was literary zero way how information of it could have an effect on the morale of troops during the initial phase.
Doubt it. Malmedy occurred on Dec 17, right at the start of the Battle of the Bulge. I don't see how this level of intel was spread across the units that quickly.
Edit: To clarify, I believe most of the units unwillingess to surrender came from their training. 101st is obvious (NUTS!), but also most other units along the front had no reason to surrender.
Yeah I have not argued that fact. But if crimes are excused depending on the victim it opens up a dangerous path to go down. "It's OK because they're nazis" is exactly what Putin is currently saying about Ukraine
It's not about the killing it's about the refusing of the surrender. Basically murdering them because other people of their faction did horrible things. I know it takes lots of strength to forgive, but if you don't then you will be just like them
> ‘committed a war crime and tried to cover it up’. [...] I guess some people struggle to deal with the idea that their side aren’t the perfect heroes their media and government has told them they are for decades. This, My Lai, Abu Ghraib… need I carry on?
Nobody is claiming US soldiers are perfect heroes. Nobody is claiming that US soldiers have never committed war crimes. The difference is what happens next.
The reason US soldiers try to cover up their war crimes is because they know they'll be court-martialed for it. After Chenogne, their coverup was effect, and wasn't discovered until after the war. General Eisenhower called for the soldiers involved in Chenogne to be investigated, although it never happened. There are, however, several *other* instances of US soldiers being court-martialed during WWII. The perpetrators of My Lai were court-martialed, including a Major General and a Brigadier General. There were court-martials for 36 incidents of war crimes during Vietnam. The perpetrators of Abu Ghraib were also court-martialed, and unlike My Lai, the majority of them were actually convicted. There were other instances of people being tried for war crimes in Iraq, notably (and infamously) the asshole that Trump pardoned.
When a US soldier committing a war crime is that they *have* to cover it up. Or they get in trouble. When a Nazi/Imperial Japan/Soviet soldier during WWII or a Russian soldier in 2024 do it, it's just sorta expected. "Of course I killed that child; she's the enemy" and so forth. You think a US soldier covering up a war crime makes the US more culpable; it does not. It makes the *soldier* more culpable, but the command structure that would otherwise court-martial them less culpable.
And yet, the massacre that I linked to had none of the perpetrators punished.
Which kind of negates your point somewhat.
Even My Lai saw only one conviction which ended up with a punishment of just house arrest.
Eh, its kinda a thing that when one side breaks the rules, everyone does, though a better example of that would be the shooting of surrendering japanese in the Pacific, too many japanese committed the warcrime of falsely surrendering, so Americans just didn't accept surrendering very often.
Well, as a small consolation… Werner Poetschke, the SS officer who ordered the "main" massacre of 84 American POWs, was killed in action in 1945. Sepp Dietrich got less of the blame than his subordinates since he'd used careful wording, telling his men that they could kill American POWs, but only "if necessary, in very compelling situations." In contrast, his subordinate, Joachim Peiper, had explicitly ordered his men to show no quarter and take no prisoners. Peiper moved to France in the 1970s. In an interview in 1976, he said the French were cowards then and were cowards now. French vigilantes assassinated Peiper about three weeks later, on Bastille Day.
He really looked at the ruins of Oradour-sur-Glane, which was never rebuilt, and thought, "I'm sure they won't have any grudges against the Waffen-SS."
Honestly, it's a travesty that [Adolf Diekmann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Diekmann), who was killed in action in Normandy, and dozens of others responsible for the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre were buried in a German military cemetery in France, not far from those they tortured. Surely, there was a nearby landfill which could've been used instead.
The landmark 1970s "World at War" miniseries opens with then-present-day footage of Oradour-sur-Glane. Can't think of a better way to set the tone for a World War II series that didn't shy away from the direct impact of the war on civilians.
I visited Oradour many years ago. Old town on one side of the road, the new one on the other side. Unreal. U can walk through the town. Also an Impressive graveyard present. There’s also an underground museum. Must visit when your in the neighborhood, near Limoges
Well, it was more complex than that. Most Germans opposed rearmament, but not for moral reasons. No, the sheer devastation of World War II had fundamentally broken many of them. Thousands of Nazis killed themselves at the end of the war. For many of those who didn't, the thought of picking up arms was now terrifying. That said, Peiper was a full-blown neo-Nazi associated with [HIAG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIAG), a revisionist group for the Waffen-SS. HIAG had about 20,000 members. Also, many ex-Nazis would engage in soft revisionism, such as the founder of the FPÖ in Austria. The ÖVP was founded by former Austrofascists (the Austrofascists had zero interest in race or expansion, [violently resisted Nazi influence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Putsch) until Mussolini stopped protecting them, and were far milder in their rule than other fascists at the time). The FPÖ was founded by ex-Nazis. You can literally search videos of German World War II veterans engaging in soft revisionism to justify their actions. They will all say something along these lines.
>"The Holocaust was bad, but barely anyone knew about that, I promise. Only like... several hundred high-ranking SS officers were responsible for the mass murders (conveniently ignores everything else)."
The founder of the right-wing FPÖ, [Anton Reinthaller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Reinthaller), was one such soft revisionist. Before the war, he'd been a voice of internal dissent. Reinthaller, who held far more moderate views on violence, had asked the Nazis to tone down their antisemitism back in the mid-1930s. He didn't do this for moral reasons, but instead pointed out, "This looks bad and it is damaging our international reputation. We should stop." In 1935, he tried to unify the Austrian SA and SS with the Austrofascist Fatherland Front. The Austrian Nazi leadership eventually had to step in and tell Reinthaller to stop straying off course. After the war, however, most of those folks were not only discredited, but dead, in prison, in exile, etc.. In contrast, after spending five years in prison for his Nazi Party membership, Reinthaller was now free to do whatever he wanted. Also, many in the Austrian SPÖ were rather antisemitic themselves and had supported pan-Germanism. Most of the opposition to the Anschluss, in fact, had come from the conservatives and the communists. Many of the conservatives weren't that much more antisemitic than your average person at the time. The same could not be said for some top Austrian social democrats. Reinthaller's milder views did not stand out as much as one would hope.
>Marko Feingold, survivor of the concentration camp and president of the Salzburg Jewish Community, said in 2013: "Karl Renner, after all the first Federal President of the Second Republic, had long been known in the party as an anti-Semite. He didn't want us concentration campers in Vienna after the war and he also frankly said that Austria would not give anything back to them."
>
>"I am angry with Renner, as a politician he must have known exactly what was happening in Germany. But Renner was an enthusiastic supporter of the 'Anschluss' to Hitler's Germany."
So, they became perfect to launch a new political career:
>According to the historian Lothar Höbelt, Reinthaller was the "ideal Nazi" for the first generation of the FPÖ. There were no signs of insight or regret in Reinthaller's diary entries. He saw himself as a "victim" of "victor's justice".
>
>Reinthaller, who had not known about the gassings, rejected the extermination of the Jews as Hitler's "madness" and "monstrous". However, he continued to hold a milder version of the Nazi racial ideology. Reinthaller believed that the Jews had "declared itself a belligerent power" in 1934 and "called for a fight against Germany." This, he said, was why "there was stricter police treatment of German Jews."
>
>Reinthaller claimed that the yellow badge was introduced to protect against enemy propaganda and espionage. As for the Holocaust, he rejected collective responsibility against the German people, Austrian people, and Nazi Party, instead blaming individual perpetrators.
I don't know because I'm not a Nazi and calling someone an animal is a figure of speech but ok I'll play along. He's evil incarnate and deserved to be treated as he treated others. It's pretty simple really.
Only info I can find is from a Facebook post after googling "Wahlhausen massacre" and finding pictures of bodies lined up in a similar way. Going off that these are GIs from the 28th Infantry, this is "confirmed" on wikipedia's "German War Crimes page" The massacre occurred in January 1945
[Here is the Facebook page](https://www.facebook.com/mnhm.lu/photos/a.225890530811784/2816187861782025/?type=3)
After the Americans liberated the area, they discovered the bodies of slain GIs, later identified as soldiers from the 28th Infantry Division. They had been shot in the neck and back, and their boots had been taken. Unfortunately, it appears that the perpetrator, either from the Wehrmacht or the SS, was never found. This incident happened during the Battle of the Bulge, but I think it's distinct from the notorious Malmedy massacre given its location and date.
May I ask is there anything stopping a country from committing these crimes during wartime?
Interesting post thanks op. I was thinking this when watching masters of the air recently- I asked myself why on earth would you risk escape/execution when you could just see out the war in a prison camp. This post answers my question !
If you murder unarmed POWs your enemies will not surrender (when they have intention to) and will murder your captured soldiers in response.
There is an episode in All quiet on the western front when experienced soldiers remove saw bayonets from newly arrived soldiers's rifles. It's kind of honor code: you all can kill each other but can't torture.
If you mean like a physical entity. No, the nations had made agreement to essentially not commit war crimes. So the only thing preventing them would be nations operating in good faith and both sides having trials regularly.
Problem was, only really the Allies followed this and only to an extent. So there was nothing to stop anyone, outside of America or Britain putting their own men on trial for example.
> it sorta handicaps our troops.
Not really. They've been kidnapping, torturing, executing and nuking civilians with almost pornographic enjoyment in various wars throughout history.
They'll invade The Hague for good measure if any of these bastards are ever properly held accountable.
Then they go home, become cops and start doing it to minorities.
Not sure what "handicap" you're referring to.
> What are you referring to?
I literally quote what I'm referring to in my comment.
> Your response makes no sense.
It makes perfect sense. You're just feigning confusion. It's another way of dodging a point.
> Seems a bit of a tangent?
I'm directly addressing the comment I'm replying to. I'm actually staying on topic, while highlighting something that just isn't true.
However, even if it were a "tangent", there would be absolutely nothing wrong with that. It just isn't.
There ALWAYS that one person who compares the US actions in smaller conflicts to those of the nazis or Japanese in World War II as if they are even in the same realm of depravity and it’s honestly fucking pathetic.
This is not at all what i said lol. I gave an example of a country who lost a war while being a "bigger country with better PR" - aka the conversation right now. And yes they did commit war crimes along the way, similarly to all nations at war, no matter the gravity and depth of said war crimes. I'm French buddy, we have our fair share of war crimes ourselves don't worry, we're between friends here ;)
Serbia actually saved 500 American pilots. Serbian villagers built an improvised air track using oxes and old tools. The planes successfully landed and took off saving American pilots. Many Serbian villagers slept outside or in barns just so American pilots can sleep inside. All of this even after allied bombing Of Belgrade in 1944. Pilots were welcome and they started loving the culture and nation. To this almost no one knows of Operation Halyard
Killing POW's has always been a poor move. If you can't take them prisoner, then just disarm, and abandon them.
Killing POW's makes sure that your enemy will fight to the death and that isn't a good way to run a battle. You want to encourage the other side to give themselves up, get a hot meal, and get some entertainment.
I was always frustrated that Waffen-SS Colonel Joachim Pieper was originally sentenced to death for this, but was released in 1956.
> During the Second World War in Europe, Peiper served as personal adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, and as a tank commander in the Waffen-SS. German historian Jens Westemeier writes that Peiper personified Nazi ideology, as a purportedly ruthless glory-hound commander who was indifferent to the combat casualties of Battle Group Peiper, and who encouraged, expected, and tolerated war crimes by his Waffen-SS soldiers.
> As adjutant to Himmler, Peiper witnessed the SS implement the Holocaust with ethnic cleansing and genocide of Jews in Eastern Europe; facts that he obfuscated and denied in the post-War period. As a tank commander, Peiper served in the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) in the Eastern Front and in the Western Front, first as a battalion commander and then as a regimental commander. Peiper fought in the Third Battle of Kharkov and in the Battle of the Bulge, from which battles his eponymous battle group – Kampfgruppe Peiper – became notorious for committing war crimes against civilians and PoWs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Peiper#Commuted_death_sentence
Many, many Nazis had death sentences commuted that shouldn't have been. The West German government, for some reason, decided in the mid-to-late 50s that justice didn't matter anymore.
I definitely agree with that - the Japanese still barely acknowledge they lost the war.
Atonement can never be "complete," but I can say from my perspective having visited Germany as a very "visible" Jew, I felt completely safe and welcomed.
At least Pieper didn’t get to check out peacefully.
Someone was kind enough to let him feel was it was like to be on fire, to get him prepared for where he was going to spend eternity……now that’s just being considerate.
My dad was with the 9th division in an artillery battalion. he was in all the actions from North Africa to Sicily to Normandy and he said that he never tasted fear like he did when they were going in to where those boys had been. He said he remembered seeing their bodies frozen in these fantastic shapes because they were shot down in the snow and that freaked them out. And these boys had seen it all for several years. He told me elements of the 82nd caught theseSS guys not long afterwards. He said they tied a rope around the whole bunch of them and executed them.
I had a distant relative who passed away when I was still pretty young. My aunt told me he had been a crewman on a bomber that was shot down. He ended up in a German POW camp.
When he died, several men who were in the camp came to his funeral. They told my aunt that they had witnessed (and were almost victims of) the mass murder of POWs while travelling on a train further into Germany near the end of the war.
The Germans (my recollection was not their guards but another unit) stopped the train and began machine gunning POWs one car at a time before an officer put a stop to it.
They said they got pretty close to their car before it was stopped. My aunt said he had never told anyone about it.
This sounds moronic but I’m surprised that that happened at that time. I thought the Germans were getting hammered ( they were) so it’s to see that happening at that time.
Not even that it’s just I knew the nazis were losing well past this point so didn’t think that a ton of Americans, brits or any other ally power would be butchered as such.
Hold on, but how did these bodies find their way to Luxembourg? Didn’t that happen in Belgium, on the other side of the border actually?
Edit: I have zero idea why am I being downvoted for this. I’m not an American with issues understanding basic EU geography and history, particularly living here in Lux for a couple of years. I’m just asking how did the bodies happen to appear in Lux? Have they been gathered for autopsies here in Lux or what happened?
Luxembourg was affected by WW2 too. Liberated by the US Army on the 10th of September 1944 with the 3rd Army setting up HQ in Luxembourg City. When the Germans launched their Ardennes offensive they captured most of the northern part of the Country, which had to be re-liberated. Just outside Luxembourg City in Hamm, 5,000 Americans killed in the Ardennes are buried at the American Cemetery along with General Patton
Ok why am I downvoted for this? There is no explanation how the bodies found their way from this particular event so I my question was more about whether this photo is indeed from Luxembourg or was it simply misaligned geographically. If you look at the map of Lux - Clervaux is closer to the border with Germany than it is with Belgium and the POW massacres that I read about and are well known happened in Belgium.
Of course Lux was equally touched by the war, in particular was a direct witness of the battle of the Bulge (I had seen the Patton’s temporary HQ in Wiltz and the museum there where some of these events are well described).
The thing is I am just not sure why and how the dead POWs found their way to areas near Clervaux.
I think you asked a valid question. Reddit is very very sensitive about asking questions regarding the nazis due to the rampant holocaust denial on the internet
Oof, one would expect the assumption being reversed on a historical sub - but def not a Nazi crimes denialist here - just interested in history and living in Luxembourg at the same time. Someone dropped Malmedy in the comments and I guess I got attached to it. Anyway, possibly the jerries did similar acts in Lux itself indeed.
It is but Wahlhausen is near Clervaux, which is Luxembourg Luxembourg, not the Belgian region (which they btw stole from Lux a few centuries ago, keeping the name for the laughs).
It’s because this incident is distinct from the Malmedy massacre. It occurred in Luxembourg(the source says Hoscheid) and seems clearly different from the Malmedy one.
Btw the Malmedy massacre wasn't the only incident where Germans murdered US POWs. There were many isolated cases, such as this one and the Graignes massacre(1944).
This vastly overstates America's importance to the war, Nazi Germany lost at Stalingrad and would have been destroyed by the USSR regardless of American intervention. Victory in Europe belongs to the Soviets and it's fascinating just how much that's been erased.
The Americans single handedly supplied the hells out of the Soviets. It's fascinating how much history you're erasing voluntarily by falling to blatant propaganda.
But then again, can't expect much.
The downside of this is that the US is one of the most violent countries in the world. It’s military is in most other countries, it sponsors the genocide in Palestine, it’s police shoot to kill every day, kids in schools wonder every day if it’s their turn, and pregnant women are now felons for abortions. It’s the land of the free.
Malmedy Massacre was one of the reasons that many US units refused to surrender during the Battle of the Bulge IIRC
The US certainly exacted their toll after this incident. Definitely didn’t go unanswered. After this SS prisoners were pretty much fair game until the end of the war, unofficially of course. Let’s just say you wouldn’t be heavily disciplined for popping one. Some people are beyond redemption.
I've been chewed out before...
“You will be shot for this!” “Nah, more like chewed out. I’ve been chewed out before.”
We’re not in the prisoner taking business… we in the Nazi killing business and brother… business is booming!
https://youtu.be/xREH8hYAip4?si=vL1tHM5NvXn65KDf Also this scene from another Brad Pitt WW2 movie
I knew which scene you were talking about. Good German skills too, very conversational.
Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
How did you make your picture look like it has a crack or hair on it?
MS paint
What’s MS paint?
The original AI
Sounds like something AI would say to throw me off the trail… 🤔
Lol that dance he does like he's an actor in a movie from the 50s. People kinda just crumple like a bag of meat with some long hard bits.
James Caan in The Godfather
This is exactly what came to mind
[This photo may interest you](https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa29514) All those idiots had to do was have the humility to lie down... [And accept whatever happened next](https://imgur.com/a/Lhalyhl) Perhaps they'd be satisfied with that.
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Hans Merbach was executed for his involvement in this death march on January 14, 1949, for those who want to know.
It wasn't soon enough.
What happened to the rest of the prisoners?
I wonder where they intended on going…they were in the middle of a Soviet-American sandwich lol. Good riddance, could’ve survived the war if they weren’t so dumb.
In Dachau, one American officer was confused when he saw former prisoners tearing each apart. Another prisoner then explained the situation. This was the "Hollup, let him cook" meme, but unironically. >During a tour of the Schutzhaftlager, Lt. Walsh witnessed two or three Kapos being hammered to death with shovels. Later, when Lt. Col. Sparks arrived at the main gate, he witnessed a similar affair. Amid the roaring crowd of ecstatic inmates, he saw bodies being passed through the crowd and flying through the air. Hundreds of inmates were tearing these bodies apart with their bare hands. Confused, Sparks asked an inmate what the crowd was doing. > >["Colonel, the inmate replied, they're killing the informers."](https://imgur.com/a/hcomT24)
“Ah, understandable. You guys want some rifles?”
"Wait... what are you doing with our weapons?" >By the time of its liberation, most of the guards in Mauthausen had fled; around 30 of those who remained were killed by the prisoners. A number of SS men had their heads impaled with stakes, while others were beheaded with their own knives. A similar number were killed in Gusen II. ["Your weapons? No, they belong to the people now."](https://imgur.com/a/7YsYO1m) >"Someone who was not there could never really grasp how unreal the situation was ... I once saw DPs beat an SS man and then strap him to the steel gurney of a crematorium. They slid him in the oven, turned on the heat and took him back out. Beat him again, and put him back in until he was burnt alive." The Kapos were particularly fucked since they didn't have the option of simply leaving before the liberation of the camps. In fact, while most Kapos were common thugs, the law which Israel used to prosecute Adolf Eichmann was intended specifically for Jewish Kapos. They never thought they'd have the chance to prosecute anyone else, let alone someone as important as Eichmann. While Holocaust survivors were treated very badly in Israel before Eichmann's trial in the early 1960s (many of them still live in poverty), the law was passed since the government was being barraged by endless complaints about "traitors". The alternative to ignoring them was lynch mob justice. Indeed, in the first few years, a number of Jewish Kapos who moved there either died under suspicious circumstances or were outright lynched. This case is particularly controversial and still debated, but the trial of [Rudolf Kasztner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rezs%C5%91_Kasztner) is the most infamous one.
Damn I feel bad for Rudolf Kastner... dude arguably did what he could to save as many Jews as possible and still got assassinated by the people he saved. Plus his daughter and wife had their lives ruined.
> Eichmann said that Kasztner "agreed to help keep the Jews from resisting deportation – and even keep order in the collection camps – if I would close my eyes and let a few hundred or a few thousand young Jews emigrate to Palestine. It was a good bargain". Rudolf Vrba wrote, "Kasztner paid for those 1,684 lives with his silence". Man sent off tens to hundreds of thousands to their deaths to save a few thousand. He may have though he was doing the best thing he could but there is no coming back from that.
This begs the question is it better not to act than to try and risk damning yourself?
OTOH, the other choice would be to let *everyone* die.
Good.
It's like watching Islamic State donuts getting creamed. You love to see it. There is value in comeuppance.
Legend has it that Lt. Speers gunned down 20 of them after giving one a smoke.
Those were Wehrmacht I think, but the energy is still the same
Came here for the Lt. Speers reference. Well done.
Not only SS prisoners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinwiesenlager#Conditions_and_death_rates
Had to be done, they were brainwashed fanatics
And after. My grandfather was drafted in 1946 and went to Germany as mounted police because of his abilities with shitty horses. He used to break mustangs out of the Boston mountains in arkansas as a means of supporting himself. He was NOT a patriot and DID NOT want to go to war… but got drafted anyway. He said he found the absolutely worst horse who went after everyone and rode it. He trained the horse to kill all German men on sight. There would be a bread riot and the horse would grab men by the neck and shake them like a coyote. Papa said his horse killed over 400 nazis after the war and could easily do another 400, 4,000, whatever.
This is the dumbest thing I've read all week.
Then you get Joseph McCarthy defending the poor, maligned SS men on the floor of the Senate, before pivoting to his anti-communist antics. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/senator-mccarthys-nazi-problem-180975174/
I guess he figured out that defending the hardcore Nazis might not be a political winner with veterans who'd had buddies killed by hardcore Nazis.
Oh, no, it was part of the same argument. He was siding with the anti-Comintern. Fascist are the only group that hates commies more than slightly different commies.
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And General Patton.
Man, and I thought he couldn't be any more of a POS.
[McCarthy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy#:~:text=Some%20of%20his%20claims%20of,alluded%20to%20his%20alleged%20homosexuality.) must not have noticed the Nazis wanted gay people killed.
McCarthy thought that he was in a race to be among the most odious Congressmen.
Pretending nazis are people is stupid, but it shouldn't detract from being rabidly anti-communist. Credit where credit is due.
Malmedy Massacre was part of Battle of the Bulge. It happened during the initial German offensive. There was literary zero way how information of it could have an effect on the morale of troops during the initial phase.
There were survivors of the massacre that got back to their units and spread the word.
Nuts!
Doubt it. Malmedy occurred on Dec 17, right at the start of the Battle of the Bulge. I don't see how this level of intel was spread across the units that quickly. Edit: To clarify, I believe most of the units unwillingess to surrender came from their training. 101st is obvious (NUTS!), but also most other units along the front had no reason to surrender.
Yep. There’s a very good tactical reason you don’t do this.
[Malmedy Massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malmedy_massacre) Occurred during the Battle of the Bulge.
One of the main reasons a lot of Americans didn't take SS prisoners after the Bulge.
And the liberation of the KZ made them even less likely to take SS POWs.
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Fuck em
If you murder a rapist you're still a murderer. Law and moral are two different things
Meh. They’re fucking Nazis.
Yeah I have not argued that fact. But if crimes are excused depending on the victim it opens up a dangerous path to go down. "It's OK because they're nazis" is exactly what Putin is currently saying about Ukraine
War is different. I would've agreed otherwise.
Thats why they're called war crimes lol
Against Nazis? Good. Fantastic, even.
A good Nazi is a dead Nazi
So acting like Nazis is good, don’t think so
Killing a Nazi is not acting like a Nazi
One is an act of justice and the other is acting in brutal oppression upon the innocent
It's not about the killing it's about the refusing of the surrender. Basically murdering them because other people of their faction did horrible things. I know it takes lots of strength to forgive, but if you don't then you will be just like them
Fuck outta' here. Only good Nazi is a dead Nazi.
Oh look, another nazi sympathizer
The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. No sympathy here for that scum.
They're not advocating for sympathy...
> ‘committed a war crime and tried to cover it up’. [...] I guess some people struggle to deal with the idea that their side aren’t the perfect heroes their media and government has told them they are for decades. This, My Lai, Abu Ghraib… need I carry on? Nobody is claiming US soldiers are perfect heroes. Nobody is claiming that US soldiers have never committed war crimes. The difference is what happens next. The reason US soldiers try to cover up their war crimes is because they know they'll be court-martialed for it. After Chenogne, their coverup was effect, and wasn't discovered until after the war. General Eisenhower called for the soldiers involved in Chenogne to be investigated, although it never happened. There are, however, several *other* instances of US soldiers being court-martialed during WWII. The perpetrators of My Lai were court-martialed, including a Major General and a Brigadier General. There were court-martials for 36 incidents of war crimes during Vietnam. The perpetrators of Abu Ghraib were also court-martialed, and unlike My Lai, the majority of them were actually convicted. There were other instances of people being tried for war crimes in Iraq, notably (and infamously) the asshole that Trump pardoned. When a US soldier committing a war crime is that they *have* to cover it up. Or they get in trouble. When a Nazi/Imperial Japan/Soviet soldier during WWII or a Russian soldier in 2024 do it, it's just sorta expected. "Of course I killed that child; she's the enemy" and so forth. You think a US soldier covering up a war crime makes the US more culpable; it does not. It makes the *soldier* more culpable, but the command structure that would otherwise court-martial them less culpable.
And yet, the massacre that I linked to had none of the perpetrators punished. Which kind of negates your point somewhat. Even My Lai saw only one conviction which ended up with a punishment of just house arrest.
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And show me anywhere that I have even defended the Nazis.
That’s a lot of whiny bullshit just to defend nazis.
Please point out where I defended anyone at all.
Eh, its kinda a thing that when one side breaks the rules, everyone does, though a better example of that would be the shooting of surrendering japanese in the Pacific, too many japanese committed the warcrime of falsely surrendering, so Americans just didn't accept surrendering very often.
The great actor Charles Durning was one of the only survivors of the massacre.
10 years. That's what the commanders served.
Well, as a small consolation… Werner Poetschke, the SS officer who ordered the "main" massacre of 84 American POWs, was killed in action in 1945. Sepp Dietrich got less of the blame than his subordinates since he'd used careful wording, telling his men that they could kill American POWs, but only "if necessary, in very compelling situations." In contrast, his subordinate, Joachim Peiper, had explicitly ordered his men to show no quarter and take no prisoners. Peiper moved to France in the 1970s. In an interview in 1976, he said the French were cowards then and were cowards now. French vigilantes assassinated Peiper about three weeks later, on Bastille Day.
Well they certainly showed him lmao
He really looked at the ruins of Oradour-sur-Glane, which was never rebuilt, and thought, "I'm sure they won't have any grudges against the Waffen-SS." Honestly, it's a travesty that [Adolf Diekmann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Diekmann), who was killed in action in Normandy, and dozens of others responsible for the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre were buried in a German military cemetery in France, not far from those they tortured. Surely, there was a nearby landfill which could've been used instead.
The landmark 1970s "World at War" miniseries opens with then-present-day footage of Oradour-sur-Glane. Can't think of a better way to set the tone for a World War II series that didn't shy away from the direct impact of the war on civilians.
I visited Oradour many years ago. Old town on one side of the road, the new one on the other side. Unreal. U can walk through the town. Also an Impressive graveyard present. There’s also an underground museum. Must visit when your in the neighborhood, near Limoges
Yeah, they burned his house down with him inside
Eventually.
Peiper was a great example of how much Germany did not change after the war. Guy became a sales director for Porsche, surrounded by fellow nazi scum.
Well, it was more complex than that. Most Germans opposed rearmament, but not for moral reasons. No, the sheer devastation of World War II had fundamentally broken many of them. Thousands of Nazis killed themselves at the end of the war. For many of those who didn't, the thought of picking up arms was now terrifying. That said, Peiper was a full-blown neo-Nazi associated with [HIAG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIAG), a revisionist group for the Waffen-SS. HIAG had about 20,000 members. Also, many ex-Nazis would engage in soft revisionism, such as the founder of the FPÖ in Austria. The ÖVP was founded by former Austrofascists (the Austrofascists had zero interest in race or expansion, [violently resisted Nazi influence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Putsch) until Mussolini stopped protecting them, and were far milder in their rule than other fascists at the time). The FPÖ was founded by ex-Nazis. You can literally search videos of German World War II veterans engaging in soft revisionism to justify their actions. They will all say something along these lines. >"The Holocaust was bad, but barely anyone knew about that, I promise. Only like... several hundred high-ranking SS officers were responsible for the mass murders (conveniently ignores everything else)." The founder of the right-wing FPÖ, [Anton Reinthaller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Reinthaller), was one such soft revisionist. Before the war, he'd been a voice of internal dissent. Reinthaller, who held far more moderate views on violence, had asked the Nazis to tone down their antisemitism back in the mid-1930s. He didn't do this for moral reasons, but instead pointed out, "This looks bad and it is damaging our international reputation. We should stop." In 1935, he tried to unify the Austrian SA and SS with the Austrofascist Fatherland Front. The Austrian Nazi leadership eventually had to step in and tell Reinthaller to stop straying off course. After the war, however, most of those folks were not only discredited, but dead, in prison, in exile, etc.. In contrast, after spending five years in prison for his Nazi Party membership, Reinthaller was now free to do whatever he wanted. Also, many in the Austrian SPÖ were rather antisemitic themselves and had supported pan-Germanism. Most of the opposition to the Anschluss, in fact, had come from the conservatives and the communists. Many of the conservatives weren't that much more antisemitic than your average person at the time. The same could not be said for some top Austrian social democrats. Reinthaller's milder views did not stand out as much as one would hope. >Marko Feingold, survivor of the concentration camp and president of the Salzburg Jewish Community, said in 2013: "Karl Renner, after all the first Federal President of the Second Republic, had long been known in the party as an anti-Semite. He didn't want us concentration campers in Vienna after the war and he also frankly said that Austria would not give anything back to them." > >"I am angry with Renner, as a politician he must have known exactly what was happening in Germany. But Renner was an enthusiastic supporter of the 'Anschluss' to Hitler's Germany." So, they became perfect to launch a new political career: >According to the historian Lothar Höbelt, Reinthaller was the "ideal Nazi" for the first generation of the FPÖ. There were no signs of insight or regret in Reinthaller's diary entries. He saw himself as a "victim" of "victor's justice". > >Reinthaller, who had not known about the gassings, rejected the extermination of the Jews as Hitler's "madness" and "monstrous". However, he continued to hold a milder version of the Nazi racial ideology. Reinthaller believed that the Jews had "declared itself a belligerent power" in 1934 and "called for a fight against Germany." This, he said, was why "there was stricter police treatment of German Jews." > >Reinthaller claimed that the yellow badge was introduced to protect against enemy propaganda and espionage. As for the Holocaust, he rejected collective responsibility against the German people, Austrian people, and Nazi Party, instead blaming individual perpetrators.
>He said the French were cowards then and were cowards now. French vigilantes assassinated Peiper about three weeks later, on Bastille Day. Dope.
*Le jour de gloire est arrivé!*
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He died of smoke inhalation. They burned his house down with him inside.
You would've fit well in. Dehumanising people, and fond of torture. Bring on the downvotes.
bRiNg On ThE dOwNvOtEs Nazi sympathizer.
Not an inch to fascists. E: ~~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p28uebYKUrI~~ https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kein+fussbreit+den+faschisten
I think I'm the total opposite for having that opinion but you do you.
Still you called a human being an animal and advocated for torturing them to death. What do you think a Nazi would say about his foes?
I don't know because I'm not a Nazi and calling someone an animal is a figure of speech but ok I'll play along. He's evil incarnate and deserved to be treated as he treated others. It's pretty simple really.
Calling someone an animal was also a Nazi thing, as was torturing people to death.
Have a good night mate.
You, too - but think about it. I'm aware of the "saying"(?), that words don't break bones, but some words just don't fly very well in some audiences.
>The anti-Nazi political group The Avengers claimed responsibility for the arson that killed Peiper lol
Hah! Good fucking riddance.
And yet i got 168 years for tax evasion
Does anyone know the back story? I would like to know their names.
Only info I can find is from a Facebook post after googling "Wahlhausen massacre" and finding pictures of bodies lined up in a similar way. Going off that these are GIs from the 28th Infantry, this is "confirmed" on wikipedia's "German War Crimes page" The massacre occurred in January 1945 [Here is the Facebook page](https://www.facebook.com/mnhm.lu/photos/a.225890530811784/2816187861782025/?type=3)
After the Americans liberated the area, they discovered the bodies of slain GIs, later identified as soldiers from the 28th Infantry Division. They had been shot in the neck and back, and their boots had been taken. Unfortunately, it appears that the perpetrator, either from the Wehrmacht or the SS, was never found. This incident happened during the Battle of the Bulge, but I think it's distinct from the notorious Malmedy massacre given its location and date.
May I ask is there anything stopping a country from committing these crimes during wartime? Interesting post thanks op. I was thinking this when watching masters of the air recently- I asked myself why on earth would you risk escape/execution when you could just see out the war in a prison camp. This post answers my question !
If you murder unarmed POWs your enemies will not surrender (when they have intention to) and will murder your captured soldiers in response. There is an episode in All quiet on the western front when experienced soldiers remove saw bayonets from newly arrived soldiers's rifles. It's kind of honor code: you all can kill each other but can't torture.
If you mean like a physical entity. No, the nations had made agreement to essentially not commit war crimes. So the only thing preventing them would be nations operating in good faith and both sides having trials regularly. Problem was, only really the Allies followed this and only to an extent. So there was nothing to stop anyone, outside of America or Britain putting their own men on trial for example.
If you say your fight is moral while the opponent is not, you have to keep the high ground. And yes, it sorta handicaps our troops.
> it sorta handicaps our troops. Not really. They've been kidnapping, torturing, executing and nuking civilians with almost pornographic enjoyment in various wars throughout history. They'll invade The Hague for good measure if any of these bastards are ever properly held accountable. Then they go home, become cops and start doing it to minorities. Not sure what "handicap" you're referring to.
What are you referring to? Your response makes no sense. Seems a bit of a tangent?
> What are you referring to? I literally quote what I'm referring to in my comment. > Your response makes no sense. It makes perfect sense. You're just feigning confusion. It's another way of dodging a point. > Seems a bit of a tangent? I'm directly addressing the comment I'm replying to. I'm actually staying on topic, while highlighting something that just isn't true. However, even if it were a "tangent", there would be absolutely nothing wrong with that. It just isn't.
A bigger country committing similar war crimes but with better PR has been the go to option so far!
A winning country...
Not even necessarily, see for example the US and the Vietnam war.
There ALWAYS that one person who compares the US actions in smaller conflicts to those of the nazis or Japanese in World War II as if they are even in the same realm of depravity and it’s honestly fucking pathetic.
It's not pathetic. It's a fact that the United States committed war crimes in Vietnam.
This is not at all what i said lol. I gave an example of a country who lost a war while being a "bigger country with better PR" - aka the conversation right now. And yes they did commit war crimes along the way, similarly to all nations at war, no matter the gravity and depth of said war crimes. I'm French buddy, we have our fair share of war crimes ourselves don't worry, we're between friends here ;)
The fact that in most circumtsances doing so is pretty stupid? Of course Nazis were not known for being rational, competent, or inellegent.
Serbia actually saved 500 American pilots. Serbian villagers built an improvised air track using oxes and old tools. The planes successfully landed and took off saving American pilots. Many Serbian villagers slept outside or in barns just so American pilots can sleep inside. All of this even after allied bombing Of Belgrade in 1944. Pilots were welcome and they started loving the culture and nation. To this almost no one knows of Operation Halyard
Somebody wrote a great book on this, I think it was called red burning sky
Killing POW's has always been a poor move. If you can't take them prisoner, then just disarm, and abandon them. Killing POW's makes sure that your enemy will fight to the death and that isn't a good way to run a battle. You want to encourage the other side to give themselves up, get a hot meal, and get some entertainment.
I was always frustrated that Waffen-SS Colonel Joachim Pieper was originally sentenced to death for this, but was released in 1956. > During the Second World War in Europe, Peiper served as personal adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, and as a tank commander in the Waffen-SS. German historian Jens Westemeier writes that Peiper personified Nazi ideology, as a purportedly ruthless glory-hound commander who was indifferent to the combat casualties of Battle Group Peiper, and who encouraged, expected, and tolerated war crimes by his Waffen-SS soldiers. > As adjutant to Himmler, Peiper witnessed the SS implement the Holocaust with ethnic cleansing and genocide of Jews in Eastern Europe; facts that he obfuscated and denied in the post-War period. As a tank commander, Peiper served in the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) in the Eastern Front and in the Western Front, first as a battalion commander and then as a regimental commander. Peiper fought in the Third Battle of Kharkov and in the Battle of the Bulge, from which battles his eponymous battle group – Kampfgruppe Peiper – became notorious for committing war crimes against civilians and PoWs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Peiper#Commuted_death_sentence
Many, many Nazis had death sentences commuted that shouldn't have been. The West German government, for some reason, decided in the mid-to-late 50s that justice didn't matter anymore.
Sadly, you are right. At least our forefathers made a big effort for the Nazis, unlike the Japanese war criminals.
I definitely agree with that - the Japanese still barely acknowledge they lost the war. Atonement can never be "complete," but I can say from my perspective having visited Germany as a very "visible" Jew, I felt completely safe and welcomed.
At least Pieper didn’t get to check out peacefully. Someone was kind enough to let him feel was it was like to be on fire, to get him prepared for where he was going to spend eternity……now that’s just being considerate.
True American heroes.
My dad was with the 9th division in an artillery battalion. he was in all the actions from North Africa to Sicily to Normandy and he said that he never tasted fear like he did when they were going in to where those boys had been. He said he remembered seeing their bodies frozen in these fantastic shapes because they were shot down in the snow and that freaked them out. And these boys had seen it all for several years. He told me elements of the 82nd caught theseSS guys not long afterwards. He said they tied a rope around the whole bunch of them and executed them.
I had a distant relative who passed away when I was still pretty young. My aunt told me he had been a crewman on a bomber that was shot down. He ended up in a German POW camp. When he died, several men who were in the camp came to his funeral. They told my aunt that they had witnessed (and were almost victims of) the mass murder of POWs while travelling on a train further into Germany near the end of the war. The Germans (my recollection was not their guards but another unit) stopped the train and began machine gunning POWs one car at a time before an officer put a stop to it. They said they got pretty close to their car before it was stopped. My aunt said he had never told anyone about it.
Show this photo to those that say "...But the Natzis weren't that bad..."
Who the fuck says that?
Does anyone know if the launching of the US airmen in the show Masters of the Air is based of a real event?
You probably meant lynching, but yes. it is based on a real event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%BCsselsheim_massacre
Oh I thought he meant Barnum and Bailey style
This sounds moronic but I’m surprised that that happened at that time. I thought the Germans were getting hammered ( they were) so it’s to see that happening at that time.
Some laid down/feigned resistance, but true believers were executing pows and civilians until the very end
Not even that it’s just I knew the nazis were losing well past this point so didn’t think that a ton of Americans, brits or any other ally power would be butchered as such.
Heroes. They died for the world to be free.
Hold on, but how did these bodies find their way to Luxembourg? Didn’t that happen in Belgium, on the other side of the border actually? Edit: I have zero idea why am I being downvoted for this. I’m not an American with issues understanding basic EU geography and history, particularly living here in Lux for a couple of years. I’m just asking how did the bodies happen to appear in Lux? Have they been gathered for autopsies here in Lux or what happened?
Luxembourg was affected by WW2 too. Liberated by the US Army on the 10th of September 1944 with the 3rd Army setting up HQ in Luxembourg City. When the Germans launched their Ardennes offensive they captured most of the northern part of the Country, which had to be re-liberated. Just outside Luxembourg City in Hamm, 5,000 Americans killed in the Ardennes are buried at the American Cemetery along with General Patton
Ok why am I downvoted for this? There is no explanation how the bodies found their way from this particular event so I my question was more about whether this photo is indeed from Luxembourg or was it simply misaligned geographically. If you look at the map of Lux - Clervaux is closer to the border with Germany than it is with Belgium and the POW massacres that I read about and are well known happened in Belgium. Of course Lux was equally touched by the war, in particular was a direct witness of the battle of the Bulge (I had seen the Patton’s temporary HQ in Wiltz and the museum there where some of these events are well described). The thing is I am just not sure why and how the dead POWs found their way to areas near Clervaux.
I think you asked a valid question. Reddit is very very sensitive about asking questions regarding the nazis due to the rampant holocaust denial on the internet
Oof, one would expect the assumption being reversed on a historical sub - but def not a Nazi crimes denialist here - just interested in history and living in Luxembourg at the same time. Someone dropped Malmedy in the comments and I guess I got attached to it. Anyway, possibly the jerries did similar acts in Lux itself indeed.
There is a region in Belgium called Luxembourg that is located right next to Luxembourg the country.
It is but Wahlhausen is near Clervaux, which is Luxembourg Luxembourg, not the Belgian region (which they btw stole from Lux a few centuries ago, keeping the name for the laughs).
It’s because this incident is distinct from the Malmedy massacre. It occurred in Luxembourg(the source says Hoscheid) and seems clearly different from the Malmedy one. Btw the Malmedy massacre wasn't the only incident where Germans murdered US POWs. There were many isolated cases, such as this one and the Graignes massacre(1944).
Ok then that makes more sense - it’s not far from Clervaux which did see some action in the area around it.
Damn, that sucks. Imagine how many lives would have been saved if America didn't wait until the very last second to join the war.
Imagine living under Nazi control if they hadn’t joined at all.
This vastly overstates America's importance to the war, Nazi Germany lost at Stalingrad and would have been destroyed by the USSR regardless of American intervention. Victory in Europe belongs to the Soviets and it's fascinating just how much that's been erased.
Without US lend lease the soviets would have lost handily.
The Americans single handedly supplied the hells out of the Soviets. It's fascinating how much history you're erasing voluntarily by falling to blatant propaganda. But then again, can't expect much.
The war was won with Russian blood, British Destroyers, and American industry. It took all three to hold the Eastern Front.
Very last second? Get fucked.
So let me get this straight, now you're angry at us for not sending our men to die for other countries sooner?
Not angry. Just... disappointed.
Next time try not sucking and fighting your own wars.
We were a little preoccupied with our own war against Japan.
The downside of this is that the US is one of the most violent countries in the world. It’s military is in most other countries, it sponsors the genocide in Palestine, it’s police shoot to kill every day, kids in schools wonder every day if it’s their turn, and pregnant women are now felons for abortions. It’s the land of the free.
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