The HORRORS Of Captured Ardennes German Soldier Executions JJ

It was one of the most ruthless and brutal battlefields of World War II. The Battle of the Bulge, or the Ardennes Offensive, resulted in scores of fallen soldiers on each side. The Allies dug in to try and repel the German surprise attack, and eventually in the freezing cold of winter, they would successfully hold out.

But in the Ardennes region, there were many horrific war crimes and executions which were carried out on either side. Many soldiers refused to capture enemy troops, and German soldiers were at times executed out of revenge and reprisal by American soldiers. These incidents did happen, but were not official Allied policy, and they were the result of extreme battlefield conditions, intense anger of the German atrocities which were discovered, exhaustion, and the difficulty in handling prisoners during one of the

fiercest battles of the Second World War. The Ardennes Offensive was the last roll of Hitler’s dice, but many of his troops found themselves at the sharp end of an Allied rifle. So, what happened with the executions of the Ardennes captured German soldiers? Now, firstly, let’s look at the Battle of the Bulge and the Ardennes Offensive, and look at why it was unusually brutal.

On the 16th of December, 1944, the Germans launched a massive attack on the Allied forces in the Ardennes forest in Belgium and Luxembourg. Allied soldiers in the region were mostly American. Some were inexperienced, and others were exhausted after many months of battle. The Germans, to begin with, had some success, and the surprise attack pushed through the middle of the American defensive lines, creating that bulge.

However, the Allies quickly reinforced the line, and the Americans ruthlessly and tenaciously dug in around Bastogne. And this slowed the advance of the Germans. The whole offensive lasted 41 days, but in the intense winter, artillery smashed down in the forests and battered defensive positions.

It was truly terrifying. Unlike many earlier campaigns in Western Europe, the Ardennes became a desperate struggle for survival. Temperatures frequently dropped well below freezing and soldiers slept in foxholes. Soldiers suffered from frostbite, exhaustion, hunger, sleep deprivation, and had to deal with the constant artillery bombardment.

Units were often cut off from headquarters and fighting isolated actions within forests. Under these circumstances, taking prisoners for the Allies actually became a massive burden. Every prisoner required a guard, food, transport, and possibly medical attention. Resources that frontline infantry often didn’t have.

Some units therefore chose to get rid of prisoners of war rather quickly rather than escort them to the rear. A quick gunshot to a captured German soldier in the eyes of some Allied soldiers was more favorable than leaving the position to accompany them to the rear area. But specifically, there was one event that changed everything for the Americans in the Ardennes.

That was the Malmedy massacre. On the 17th of December, 1944, soldiers from Waffen SS Kampfgruppe Peiper captured around 120 American prisoners of war near to the village of Baugnez, close to Malmedy. Instead of sending them to the rear, giving them decent treatment, and processing them as prisoners of war, the Germans inside of a field rounded up the men and opened machine guns up on them.

Survivors who tried to escape were hunted down and in total 84 American prisoners of war were killed. News of the massacre spread quickly throughout the American lines within days. It was clear to the Americans in particular that the SS were murdering prisoners. Many Americans specifically concluded that surrendering to the Germans was dangerous and that taking SS prisoners was equally risky.

Veterans claimed that after Malmedy, they were less willing to accept German surrender, so many enemy troops were shot there and then. The Ardennes Offensive did produce enormous American casualties, too, and entire companies were wiped out. Medical personnel, artillery observers, and other troops were killed sometimes after capture.

Many American soldiers had close friends killed during the opening days of the offensive, and when they later captured enemy soldiers, sometimes emotions overwhelmed military discipline. Revenge was very much the order of the day. Many Americans believed also that surrendering Germans might pick up their weapons again or escape to their lines again to fight.

This fear was not unfounded. German troops during the offensive often infiltrated Allied lines wearing American uniforms as part of Operation Greif, so there was a lot of confusion and also distrust of German soldiers. Other German soldiers hid in the woods after pretending to surrender, and there was a lot of suspicion. In their eyes, accepting surrender was dangerous.

Many executions specifically involved members of the Waffen SS rather than ordinary Wehrmacht officers and men. By late 1944, the Waffen SS had developed a reputation across Europe for massacres of civilians, executions of prisoners of war, atrocities on the Eastern Front, and fighting fanatically rather than surrendering. American soldiers often believed that SS men deserved no mercy because they rarely showed any themselves.

Troops often heard murmurings such as no SS prisoners, and despite this not being an official order, these attitudes became widespread in front-line units. But one of the best known Allied reprisals and executions of captured German soldiers occurred near to the Belgian village of Chenogne on the 1st of January 1945.

Evidence from witness testimony and research strongly suggests that dozens of surrendered German prisoners were deliberately shot by American soldiers. General Patton’s diary even includes a notable entry referring to reports that German prisoners had been shot, expressing hope that this would then be covered up.

Officially, this was a war crime and it was carried out by the 11th Armored Division and between 60 to 80 German prisoners of war were massacred by their American captors. This took place in exactly the same manner as the Malmedy massacre with prisoners being assembled in the field and then being shot by machine guns.

One eyewitness claimed about this that, I quote, “Some of the boys had some prisoners lined up. I knew they were going to shoot them and I hated this business. They marched the prisoners back up the hill to murder them with the rest of the prisoners we secured that morning. As we were going up the hill out of town, I noticed some of our boys were lining up German prisoners in the fields on both sides of the road.

There must have been 25 to 30 German boys in each group. Machine guns were being set up. These boys were to be machine gunned and murdered. We were committing the same crimes we were now accusing the Japanese and Germans of doing. Going back down the road into town, I looked into the fields where the German boys had been shot.

Dark, lifeless forms lay in the snow. This was then as mentioned covered up. But the Ardennes was a confusing place, especially during combat. In the very dense forests, soldiers had no idea where bullets were coming from and many shootings of captured soldiers took place when surrender was not clear. German soldiers would raise their hands, possibly then reach for a weapon and continue to fire after appearing initially to surrender.

American troops often reacted instantly and some genuine surrender attempts ended in shootings because soldiers feared deception. Other cases involved Germans attempting to escape after capture. It is important though to consider that not all German prisoners of war were killed. The Western Allies captured enormous numbers of German soldiers during the Ardennes campaign.

Hundreds of thousands of Germans surrendered on the Western Front during the final months of the war and the overwhelming majority survived captivity. The illegal shootings involved only a small proportion of prisoners. Many American officers continued insisting that prisoners be treated according to the Geneva Convention despite the anger generated by the German atrocities.

Also some senior commanders generally opposed summary executions. When reports of prisoner shootings reach headquarters, officers frequently reminded their men that prisoners were protected under international law, executions were illegal, and discipline distinguished Allied armies from the fighting forces of Nazi Germany.

However, enforcing these rules during the chaos of frontline fighting was often very difficult. So some ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers were executed. SS soldiers were more likely to be targeted as they were considered the most feared and virulent Nazi soldiers. In the confusion of the Ardennes campaign, Allied troops could often not distinguish between Waffen-SS men and Wehrmacht troops and some German soldiers were killed alongside the SS.

Some were mistaken as being SS because of the camouflage clothing they were wearing or a clear lack of insignia on their uniforms. But also countless numbers of German Army troops and Waffen-SS men were taken prisoner without harm and spent the remainder of the war in Allied prisoner war camps.

So to conclude, captured German soldiers were sometimes shot during the Battle of the Bulge because the campaign combined several exceptional circumstances. The shock of Malmedy really hurt. There was widespread hatred of the Waffen SS, the severe conditions of winter combat, fears of deception and rearmament, the logistical challenge of handling prisoners, and the desire for revenge after heavy casualties all played on the minds of Americans.

These factors led to some Allied soldiers committing unlawful reprisals against prisoners. Such killings were technically a war crime and were not sanctioned by official Allied policy. But still the vast majority of captured Germans in the Ardennes were taken into prisoner of war camps. However, a number were shot and unlawfully executed.

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