What really happened at Malmedy massacre?

Answer 1

On December 17, 1944, near the hamlet of Baugnez on the height half-way between the town of Malmedy and Ligneuville in Belgium, the leading element of Waffen-SS Kampfgruppe Peiper, named after its leader SS-Standartenführer Joachim Peiper, encountered the American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion (FAOB). Kampfgruppe (battlegroup) Peiper was the lead unit of the 1st Waffen-SS Panzer Division 'Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler'. The battlegroup consisted of over 100 tanks and 150 armored halftracks. The 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion was mounted in jeeps and trucks, and had no heavy weapons. They were accompanied by several ambulances. The U.S. unit was moving to a new assignment and was not aware that German troops were in the area. Despite warnings from a U.S. combat engineer officer not to take the route, the unit did.

The jeeps and trucks of the 285th encountered several tanks of Kampfgruppe Peiper. The German tanks fired on the U.S. vehicles, which were quickly abandoned by their occupants. With no anti-tank weapons, the Americans surrendered. About 150 of the prisoners of war were disarmed and sent to stand in a field near the crossroads. Peiper and his leading vehicles then continued their advance, which was behind schedule.

A tank pulled up, and a truck shortly thereafter. Witnesses stated that a single SS soldier pulled out a pistol and shot a medical officer standing in the front row. He then shot the man standing next to the medical officer. Other soldiers joined in with machine guns. It is not known why this happened; there is no record of any order by an SS officer. Throughout the massacre, the vehicles and men of Kampfgruppe Peiper continued to proceed through the crossroads.

However, some survivors testified that they had heard the order given to kill all the prisoners: "Macht alle kaputt.". [1]

Other evidence seems to contradict this account in several places: Kampfgruppe Peiper had definitely moved on from the area leaving some vehicles. Several accounts claim the Germans only started shooting after several US soldiers tried to escape into the neighbouring woods. Furthermore, the shooting of prisoners started by an SS officer has never been confirmed, however accounts claim there might have been warning shots fired. What has been confirmed is that the Germans had been shooting the critically wounded after the main shooting, however this was standard practice in the German army (and thus also happened to German soldiers). This is more or less supported by this recount [2] and what is left open for discussion in the previously mentioned recount [3]

While the criminal shooting of POWs was common on both sides on the Eastern front, such incidents were rare on the Western front.

Answer 2

I can agree with most what is said . Almost certainly the shooting in done by followup troops and not by the first wave of the SS troops. There is also said that a part of the American troops that first had surrender after that the first wave of the Germans had past, that they organized some kind of roadblock. The followup troops ran into it and that started the shooting in witch there no more difference made of the Americans that already had surrender and the ones those that again had put up some resistance