Chapter 9.3: The Malmedy Massacre

Battery B's convoy was travelling south on the N-23 from Malmedy toward Ligneuville when Sternebeck's Spitze, arriving at Bagatelle from the Thirimont road, opened fire at approximately 800 metres. Additional fire came from tanks of the 7. Panzer-Kompanie on the Thirimont–Bagatelle road. The prisoners were assembled in a field south of the Café Bodarwé, adjacent to the crossroads known locally as Five Points. Survivors who escaped the massacre made their way north to Malmedy, approximately 5 km distant.

The Assembly

The Prisoners in the Field (c. 13:10–14:00)

The Spitze had passed through. Sternebeck was already on the road to Ligneuville, and Peiper, after his furious cease-fire order, had departed in Diefenthal's SPW. Behind them, Poetschke's Panther remained near the Café Bodarwé, its damaged hull blocking the intersection. The American prisoners were being herded into a muddy pasture on the west side of the N-23, south of the café. (Parker, Fatal Crossroads, 2012, pp. 45–48; Reynolds, Devil's Adjutant, 1995, pp. 112–113)

By approximately 14:00, some 113 Americans stood in the field. The composition of this group was not uniform: ninety were men of Battery B, 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion; ten came from the five ambulances travelling with the convoy; one was the military policeman Homer Ford, who had been directing traffic at Five Points; one was Pfc John Clymire of Company B, 86th Engineer Combat Battalion, captured when three trucks from Malmedy drove into the ambush; and eleven had been swept up earlier along the Kampfgruppe's route, including eight men of the 32nd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, two from the 200th Field Artillery Battalion, and a sergeant from the 23rd Infantry Regiment. (HistoryNet, "The Malmedy Massacre today", n.d.; Reynolds, Devil's Adjutant, 1995, p. 113; Cooke and Evans, Kampfgruppe Peiper, 2005)

A further twenty-six men were involved but never entered the field: the five early escapees; one man from the last truck who hid successfully; four Battery B men and three from the 32nd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion who were forced to drive serviceable American vehicles for the Germans; and eleven Battery B men killed during the initial engagement or in unknown circumstances, whose bodies were not recovered until February and April 1945. (HistoryNet, "The Malmedy Massacre today", n.d.)

Three trucks at the rear of Battery B's convoy had been delayed when Sergeant James Barrington of Truck B-26 fell ill with food poisoning, holding up trucks B-27 and B-28 by approximately ten minutes. These three vehicles, along with Ksidzek's car, the maintenance truck, the wire truck, and the route markers' pickup, diverted to the 44th Evacuation Hospital in Malmedy. These four rear vehicles carried twenty-seven men. They approached Baugnez at about this time but heard the shooting and wisely turned back to Malmedy without loss. (HistoryNet, "The Malmedy Massacre today", n.d.; Reynolds, Devil's Adjutant, 1995, p. 109)

"What About the Prisoners?" (c. 13:15–14:00)

Poetschke dismounted from his damaged Panther and walked among the prisoners. "Chauffeur? Chauffeur?" he called, in the best English he could muster, attempting to recruit American drivers. For the most part, the American artillerymen ignored him. (Parker, Peiper's Last Gamble, 2025)

Gerhard Walla, the Schwimmwagen messenger whose vehicle was stuck in a ditch, asked Poetschke the question that every German soldier at the crossroads must have been thinking: "What about the prisoners?"

Walla received one answer. Reinhard Maier, the I. Panzer-Abteilung radio operator, heard another.

"We don't bother with them," Poetschke told Walla. "The infantry will come." (Parker, Peiper's Last Gamble, 2025)

But Maier heard a very different response to the same question: "Kill them!" (Parker, Peiper's Last Gamble, 2025)

The weather was good. Visibility was clear, the temperature above zero, and there was no snow on the ground except for a light covering in sheltered areas that never saw the sun. The prisoners stood in the open, their hands raised. (Reynolds, Devil's Adjutant, 1995, p. 111)

The Massacre

The First Shots (c. 14:15)

What happened next remains, after eighty years, the subject of irreconcilable testimony.

MacDonald attributes the firing order to Poetschke, relayed through Siptrott's tank crew: Gefreiter Georg Fleps, the assistant gunner, fired the first shot. Someone shouted "Machen alle kaputt!" ("Kill them all!"). Machine-gun fire from the tanks followed. (MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets, 1984, p. 214)

Twenty-one American survivors gave statements in Malmedy on 17 and 18 December, before any possibility of collusion. Their accounts were broadly consistent: after surrender and disarming, the prisoners were assembled in the field; two pistol shots were heard; machine-gun fire followed; Germans then entered the field to shoot anyone showing signs of life. (HistoryNet, "The Malmedy Massacre today", n.d.)

The entire episode lasted no more than approximately fifteen minutes. While the shooting was taking place, vehicles of the Kampfgruppe continued to drive past on the N-23. (Cooke and Evans, Kampfgruppe Peiper, 2005; HistoryNet, "The Malmedy Massacre today", n.d.)

The Killing Field (c. 14:15–15:00)

Machine-gun fire raked the field from tank-mounted MG-42s. The prisoners fell or dropped to the ground. Some were killed instantly; others feigned death. Those who moved were shot at close range. (Cooke and Evans, Kampfgruppe Peiper, 2005; MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets, 1984)

Pioneer Siegfried Jaekel testified that, after the main firing, he and other pioneers entered the field and executed wounded prisoners at point-blank range. Sergeant William Merriken recalled a German shooting a moaning prisoner, the same bullet passing through Merriken's knee. Private Jim Mattera recalled men moving through the field, calling to wounded prisoners, and then firing at those who responded. (Cooke and Evans, Kampfgruppe Peiper, 2005)

By approximately 15:00, German engineers from the 3rd SS Pioneer Company arrived and carried out further close-range executions of wounded survivors. (MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets, 1984)

The Escape (c. 15:00–16:00)

By 15:00, the crossroads fell quiet. Shortly after, and certainly before 16:00, sixty-one Americans who were still alive in the field attempted their escape to the west and north-west. A few Germans still in the vicinity opened fire. At least fifteen were killed during the flight; three more (Cobbler, Stabulis, and Vairo) died later of wounds; and one (Thomas) was never seen again. (HistoryNet, "The Malmedy Massacre today", n.d.; Reynolds, Devil's Adjutant, 1995, pp. 114–115)

Pfc Flack's body was found in the field with a bullet hole in the head. Sergeant Stabulis's body was not recovered until 15 April 1945, more than a kilometre south of the field, suggesting his initial escape bid had also succeeded before he was overtaken by his wounds. (Reynolds, Devil's Adjutant, 1995, pp. 117–118)

Four survivors, including Sergeant Henry R. Zach, hid in the smouldering ruins of the Café Bodarwé and were rescued the following morning by an artillery officer. Sergeant William H. Merriken and Pfc Charles E. Reding made their escape after Reding survived inside the burning café. (MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets, 1984)

The Aftermath

Survivors Reach Malmedy (c. 14:30–17:00)

The first survivors stumbled into Malmedy at approximately 14:30. Colonel David Pergrin of the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion and Sergeant William Crickenberger investigated the burning Café Bodarwé and encountered wounded survivors, including Sergeant Kenneth Ahrens, Corporal Mike Shiranko, and Corporal Albert Valenzi. It took roughly ninety minutes before the men could coherently describe what had happened, after which Pergrin sent an urgent report to General Courtney Hodges at Spa. (MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets, 1984; Pergrin and Hammel, First Across the Rhine, 1990, p. 94)

Sergeant Joe Connors brought in Private John Cobbler, who had nine major wounds. Cobbler died while medics worked on him. (Pergrin and Hammel, First Across the Rhine, 1990, p. 94)

Within roughly four hours, the First Army Inspector General learned of the massacre. Major William C. Sylvan noted in his diary that the massacre's authenticity was beyond doubt; Brigadier General Pete Quesada relayed the information to his pilots during mission briefings. By nightfall, rumours that SS troops were executing prisoners had spread through the US Army. (MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets, 1984)

A subsequent fragmentary order from the 328th Infantry Regiment directed that SS troops and paratroopers were to be shot on sight, a policy that later contributed to the Chenogne massacre on 1 January 1945. (HistoryNet, "The Malmedy Massacre today", n.d.; Beevor, Ardennes 1944, 2015)

The Civilian Rescue of Merriken and Reding (18 December)

Mrs Anna Blaise-Cerexhe, a widow living near Baugnez, took in the two wounded survivors, William Merriken and Charles E. Reding, on the afternoon of 17 December. Their condition deteriorated. Anna spoke no English; the soldiers spoke no French. Reding wrote a message and gave it to Anna, who carried it to the neighbouring Jamar family. (Wynn, Joachim Peiper and the Nazi Atrocities of 1944, 2022, p. 69, citing Emile Jamar interview, April 1999; no corroborating source)

One of the Jamars' seven children was fifteen-year-old Emile, the local paperboy, who knew the shortcuts between the villages. His regular presence on the roads would not draw undue attention. Emile volunteered to deliver Reding's message by hiding it in his shoe. The risk was extreme: discovery would have meant the execution of both soldiers, the entire Jamar family, and Madame Blaise-Cerexhe. (Wynn, Joachim Peiper, 2022, pp. 69–70)

Emile set off for Malmedy at approximately 10:00 on the morning of 18 December. Near his destination, he encountered metallic plates scattered across the road, anti-personnel mines, through which he picked his way carefully without fully understanding the danger. At a roadblock, two American soldiers appeared with rifles levelled. Unable to communicate, they escorted him through a chain of posts until a French-speaking American captain was located. Emile explained the situation, removed his shoe, and handed over Reding's note. (Wynn, Joachim Peiper, 2022, pp. 70–71)

The Americans organised a rescue immediately. An ambulance, guided by Emile, navigated the mined road (an American early-warning minefield that took more than an hour to clear) and reached Anna Blaise-Cerexhe's farm, where medics treated the two soldiers on the spot. Anna leant over and kissed one of the men before they were loaded onto stretchers. (Wynn, Joachim Peiper, 2022, pp. 71–72)

Emile Jamar died on 6 October 2006. Anna Blaise-Cerexhe died in 1971. (Wynn, Joachim Peiper, 2022, p. 72)

Recovery and Autopsies (January 1945)

The bodies lay in what became a virtual no-man's-land for four weeks. Despite clear evidence from the many survivors, no attempt was made to recover them before the 30th Infantry Division retook the area. On 14 January 1945, one of Pergrin's engineer companies, using mine detectors, uncovered the snow-covered bodies of seventy-one victims. (HistoryNet, "The Malmedy Massacre today", n.d.)

Between 14 and 16 January, Major Giacento Morrone, Captain Joseph Kurcz, and Captain John Snyder of the 44th Evacuation Hospital autopsied the frozen, fully clothed bodies. Forty-three had gunshot wounds to the head; at least three had suffered severe blows to the head; three had been crushed; two had received some form of first aid before death; and nine still had their arms raised above their heads. In at least five cases, eyes had been removed from their sockets; in one case, the autopsy report suggests the man may have been alive when this happened, though crows or similar birds were more probably responsible, as commonly occurs when bodies are left exposed for extended periods. (HistoryNet, "The Malmedy Massacre today", n.d.)

The vast majority of the dead still had rings, watches, money, and other valuables on them, contradicting most survivors' statements that the Germans had stripped everything worthwhile. At least fifteen bodies had been struck by shell and mortar fragments after death, the result of artillery from both sides hitting the Baugnez area during the intervening weeks. (HistoryNet, "The Malmedy Massacre today", n.d.)

The Fate of the Civilians (17–18 December)

Adèle Bodarwé, the fifty-five-year-old widow who owned the café at the crossroads, had welcomed the first German vehicles with open arms. Her neighbours remembered that she had done the same in 1940. She had three sons in the German army, and the locals considered her more German than Belgian. Henri Lejoly-Quirin, the forty-five-year-old farmer whose house stood just north of the crossroads, had been drinking a beer at the café when the first American trucks arrived. He watched the massacre from his kitchen window alongside Madame Bodarwé. (Parker, Fatal Crossroads, 2012, pp. 212–213)

When the firing began, Bodarwé cried out, “Oh my God!” and fled back into the house. Lejoly scurried from the back of the café to the front of his own farmhouse, where he confronted young SS troops in black panzer uniforms. “Why are you shooting the American prisoners?” he demanded in German. An SS man approached. “It's because we have no time to look after them,” he stammered. Lejoly bit his lip as tanks and halftracks passed bumper to bumper, the crews staring him down. (Parker, Fatal Crossroads, 2012, pp. 214–215)

Twenty minutes later, Lejoly ventured out again to check on Madame Bodarwé. A tank had pulled across from the road, blocking the path to his house. A young soldier on the tank pointed a gun at him and fired two shots, one passing close to his right ear. Lejoly ran for his cellar, where Joseph Bodarwé and other refugees had taken shelter. (Parker, Fatal Crossroads, 2012, p. 215)

Briesemeister Arrives (c. 15:30)

At approximately 15:30, SS-Sgt. Kurt Briesemeister's Panther Nr. 114 halted about ten metres from the crossroads with damage to its tracks. Briesemeister was a battle-hardened NCO from Stralsund, originally a baker, who had fought with the Leibstandarte since 1940 and been wounded five times. “I executed the orders of my superiors 100 percent,” he would later say. While his crew repaired the tracks, he observed roughly sixty Americans lying dead or wounded in the field south of the café. “Were they all dead?” his crew asked. Briesemeister told them to make sure. (Parker, Fatal Crossroads, 2012, pp. 215–216; endnote 30, p. 359)

Lejoly, hearing the commotion, emerged again. He stopped fifteen metres from the Panther, hands raised, and demanded in German: “Why are you firing at my house?” The young troopers, half his age, accused him of speaking to the Americans. “That was betrayal,” one said, motioning menacingly with his rifle. Lejoly stood his ground. “I have two brothers in the German army and I myself was born in Germany. I was German before you were even born!” A Waffen-SS NCO came inside, reviewed his papers, and was mollified. “They are some really wild individuals,” the officer told Lejoly. “I can't always control them.” He gave Lejoly a handwritten promissory note for the damage to his house, signed: “SS Unteroffizier K. Briesemeister.” (Parker, Fatal Crossroads, 2012, pp. 215–216; endnote 29, p. 359: NARA, RG-549, Case 6–24, Box 42)

Meanwhile, Madame Bodarwé's barn was on fire. Briesemeister's crew had set it alight, though Briesemeister denied giving the order: “My men, which ones I don't know, set the barn on fire which borders directly the field with the prisoners.” American soldiers who had hidden in the barn and shed ran from the flames. Briesemeister admitted that he “now shot at the American prisoners who were running away with the machine gun which I laid on the shoulder of SS-Pvt. Nüchter.” (Parker, Fatal Crossroads, 2012, p. 216; endnote 32, p. 359: Statement of Kurt Briesemeister, 4 April 1946, NARA, RG-549, Case 6–24, Box 8)

The Death of Madame Bodarwé

When Briesemeister's tank departed, Lejoly looked out and saw the entire Café Bodarwé engulfed in flames. The next day, he searched the smouldering ruins. He found nothing of Madame Bodarwé. “I have always thought they shot her,” Lejoly said. “If Briesemeister would not have been there, I too would have been shot.” (Parker, Fatal Crossroads, 2012, p. 216)

Parker, drawing on a detailed nineteen-page interrogation of Briesemeister at Schwäbisch Hall, identifies the killer. SS-Pvt. Günther Nüchter, Briesemeister's loader, approached his tank commander after the departure from Lejoly's house and “told him that he had shot a civilian woman in the house next to the field, claiming 'This woman had a pistol in her hand.'” Nüchter's claim that he had found arms and ammunition hidden in the shed served as his justification. Briesemeister was still maintaining this version as late as April 1948. At the Malmedy trial itself, Briesemeister made a plea for clemency: “I have never denied what I had done and if responsible should answer for it.” (Parker, Fatal Crossroads, 2012, p. 216; endnote 34, pp. 360–361)

The question of whether American escapees sheltering behind the café precipitated Bodarwé's death remains open. Several Americans did hide behind the building, and one survivor, Pete Piscatelli, may have taken temporary refuge inside. If the Germans became aware of this, “it may have sealed the fate of Madame Adele Bodarwe.” (Parker, Fatal Crossroads, 2012, endnote 49, p. 198)

After the war, Adèle Bodarwé's son Louis returned from the German army to find his home destroyed, his mother missing, and his brother Alphonse dead in Russia. A third brother, Joseph, had not yet come home. Louis sifted through the charred ruins of the café and located a severed leg bone, later identified as belonging to a woman. Lacking DNA forensics, identification was impossible. In 1953, a Maria Themann from the village of Auw responded to a search notice in the Grenz Echo newspaper of Eupen, reporting that she had buried a fifty-five-year-old Belgian woman with a severe leg wound who had died at a nearby German aid station in Vershneid in early 1945. When Louis Bodarwé approached the authorities, the body had already been interred in a communal grave; they refused to allow an exhumation. The fate of Madame Bodarwé has never been conclusively established. (Parker, Fatal Crossroads, 2012, pp. 219–220; endnote 42, p. 361)

“There were thousands of Belgians for whom the tragedy of war did not end and were treated like traitors by their own people when they returned,” Louis Bodarwé would later say. Having fought for Hitler, he was now a pariah in eastern Belgium. (Parker, Fatal Crossroads, 2012, endnote 42, p. 361)

The Memorial and the Record

Today, eighty-four names appear on the Belgian memorial at the Baugnez crossroads. Some are misspelled. Private Louis Vairo's name was mistakenly deleted. (HistoryNet, "The Malmedy Massacre today", n.d.)

The Baugnez massacre was part of a larger pattern of atrocities committed at twelve localities along Kampfgruppe Peiper's route of advance between 16 December 1944 and 13 January 1945. The prosecution at Dachau described the crimes as leaving a "trail of blood of murdered American prisoners of war and non-combatant civilians." On 17 December alone, approximately 350 unarmed American prisoners were killed after surrendering; around 100 Belgian civilians were also killed during the wider series of atrocities. (United States Senate, 1949; U.S. Army JAGC, 1946; Crookenden, Battle of the Bulge 1944, 1980)

This section covers the massacre at the Baugnez crossroads. The story of Kampfgruppe Peiper's column continues in Ch 09.4: Ligneuville, where the Spitze arrives at approximately 13:30 (Castor) / 14:00 (Grégoire) / 14:20 (Bovy). The war crimes trial arising from these events is treated in the appendices.

Named Persons

Bibliography

• Beevor, Antony. Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble. London: Viking, 2015.
• Cooke, David, and Wayne Evans. Kampfgruppe Peiper: The Race for the Meuse. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2005.
• Crookenden, Napier. Battle of the Bulge 1944. London: Ian Allan, 1980.
• HistoryNet. "The Malmedy Massacre today." n.d.
• MacDonald, Charles Brown. A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge. New York: William Morrow, 1984.
• Parker, Danny S. Fatal Crossroads: The Untold Story of the Malmedy Massacre at the Battle of the Bulge. Boston: Da Capo Press, 2012.
• Parker, Danny S. Peiper's Last Gamble: Hitler's Panzer Spearhead in the Battle of the Bulge 1944. Barnsley: Frontline Books, 2025.
• Pergrin, David E., and Eric M. Hammel. First Across the Rhine: The Story of the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion in France, Belgium, and Germany. New York: Atheneum, 1990.
• Reynolds, Michael. The Devil's Adjutant: Jochen Peiper, Panzer Leader. Staplehurst: Spellmount, 1995.
• U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps. Investigation of Action of Army. 1946.
• United States Senate. Malmedy Massacre Investigation: Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services. 1949.
• Wynn, Stephen. Joachim Peiper and the Nazi Atrocities of 1944. Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2022.