Massacre At Malmédy During the Battle of the Bulge

 | World War II  | 8 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

As Sternebeck moved north on the road from Thirimont to Bagatelle on the N-32, he saw the Battery B convoy moving south on the N-23 to his left. It was an inviting target, and he immediately opened fire with his own 75mm gun and ordered his accompanying tank to do the same. Each tank fired about five or six rounds and then, on Peiper’s order, moved as fast as possible to Bagatelle, where they turned left and proceeded to Five Points, then turned left again onto the N-23. There they were confronted by the abandoned vehicles of the American convoy–some burning, some shot up, others in the ditch or crashed into each other. The exact number of vehicles along the road is unknown, but many were fit enough for use by the Germans after the incident.

After turning onto the N-23 Sternebeck’s PzKw. Mk. IV moved south, pushing abandoned vehicles out of the way and firing its machine guns at the ditches in which most of the Americans had taken cover. Sternebeck told the author that he did this to encourage the GIs to surrender and, since the Americans had no heavy weapons at their disposal, the tactic soon worked. He then waved his arm in the usual manner to indicate to the surrendering Americans that they were to march back down the road toward Five Points, and halted his tank near the head of the convoy to await further orders. These were not long in coming. Peiper was furious at the delay the incident had caused, and, after transferring to his infantry commander’s halftrack, he drove up to Sternebeck and ordered him in no uncertain terms to move on toward Ligneuville. Then, together with a PzKw. Mk. V Panther tank and the halftracks of the 11th SS Panzergrenadier Company, Peiper followed Sternebeck. The time was about 1330 hours.

While the survivors of Battery B were being assembled in a field immediately adjacent to, and south of, the Café Bodarwé, three trucks from Company B of the 86th Engineer Battalion came up the hill from Malmédy and, after halting behind the ambulances at the rear of Battery B, were fired on by the Germans. Five of the men in these trucks managed to get away, although one of them was wounded and a sixth was captured.

The last four Battery B vehicles under the command of Ksidzek, having dropped off the sick corporal, also approached Baugnez at about this time, but they heard the shooting and realized they were running into trouble. Ksidzek wisely turned around and got back to Malmédy without loss.

By about 1400, 113 Americans had been assembled in the field by the Café. They included 90 members of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion (all except three from Battery B), 10 men from the five ambulances, the military policeman who had been on traffic duty at Five Points, the 86th Battalion engineer and 11 men who had been captured by KGr. Peiper before reaching Baugnez–eight from the 32nd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, two from the 200th Field Artillery Battalion and a sergeant from the 23rd Infantry Regiment.

In addition to these 113 prisoners, a further 26 men were involved in this tragic meeting with KGr. Peiper. The most fortunate were five members of Battery B who managed to escape from the front of the convoy, and another from the last truck who succeeded in hiding until he was able to make a safe getaway. Four more, plus three men from the 32nd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, were forced to drive some of the serviceable American vehicles for the Germans and became POWs. However, 11 Battery B men were killed either during the initial clash or in unknown circumstances–their bodies were not found until February and April 1945–and in addition, two men from the 197th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion were killed when their jeep, which was presumably in front of the Battery B convoy, ran into Sternebeck’s vehicles just to the east of Five Points. According to a young Belgian boy who witnessed the incident, they were shot in cold blood after being ordered out of the ditch in which they were hiding.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to

Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, World War II

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.