Joachim Peiper

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Joachim Peiper
30 January 1915 - 13 July 1976

Nickname Jochen
Place of birth Berlin
Place of death Traves
Allegiance Germany
Years of service 1933-1945
Rank Standartenführer
Awards Ritterkreuz mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern

Joachim Peiper (January 30, 1915 - July 13, 1976) more often known as Jochen Peiper from the common German nickname for Joachim, was a senior Waffen-SS officer and commander in the Panzer campaigns of 1941-1945 and a convicted war criminal. By the end of his military career in 1945, Peiper was the youngest regimental colonel in the Waffen-SS, holding the rank of SS-Standartenführer. He also served as personal adjutant to the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler in the period April 1938 to August 1941.

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[edit] Biography

Peiper was born in Berlin. His father was an Army officer who fought in East Africa during WW I, and he had two brothers, Hans-Hasso and Horst.

Peiper was recruited into the SS-Verfügungstruppe in 1933. Sepp Dietrich reviewed his application and admitted him into the "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler " (LSSAH) honour guard regiment. In 1935 Peiper attended the SS officer's (Junkerschule) training school at Braunschweig and was commissioned the following year. Peiper was appointed adjutant to Heinrich Himmler in April 1938 and held this position until August 1941, save for a period during the Battle of France in which he was detached for combat service. After returning to frontline duty in late 1941 he moved on to command various infantry and Panzer units within "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler". While on Himmler's staff, Peiper met and married his wife, Sigurd, with whom he had three children: Heinrich, Elke, and Silke. Himmler was particularly fond of Jochen Peiper and took a keen interest in Peiper's ascension towards command. At age 29 Peiper was a full colonel of the Waffen-SS, well respected and a holder of one of wartime Germany's highest decorations, the Knight's Cross with Swords personally awarded to him by Adolf Hitler.

Peiper was a skilled combat leader and took part in a number of major battles of the war. His men were fiercely loyal to him, and he was regarded by many as a "charismatic leader." Peiper participated in several major battles including the two battles for Kharkov and the Kursk offensive of 1943. On the East front Peiper and his men got among the German army a reputation of merciless soldiers since they had burned several Russian villages and killed their inhabitants; earning them the epithet the 'Blowtorch Battalion,' although Peiper claimed this to be fraudulent and that the 'blowtorch' nickname arose from its usage as a tool to unfreeze vehicles in the winter campaigns.

Most notably, he commanded the Kampfgruppe Peiper of the LSSAH (assigned to the 6th SS Panzer Armee under Sepp Dietrich) during Operation Wacht am Rhein (Battle of the Bulge). Kampfgruppe Peiper advanced to the town of La Gleize, Belgium, before running out of fuel and coming under heavy fire from American artillery and tanks. Peiper was forced to abandon over a hundred vehicles in the town, including six Tiger II tanks, and made his way back to German lines with 800 men on foot.

During its move from Lanzerath, Belgium to La Gleize, the Kampfgruppe Peiper killed American POWs at several places, the most notable being the Malmedy massacre. Moreover, in the area of Stavelot, more than 80 Belgian civilians (including women and children) were killed by units under Peiper’s command.


After the end of World War II, Peiper and other members of the Waffen-SS were tried for war crimes in the Malmedy massacre trial. Peiper volunteered to take all the blame if the court would set his men free: the court refused. Peiper was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging, as were many of his men. Peiper later requested that his men be shot by firing squad and was denied.

After the trial, the sentences created a big turmoil in some German circles, including the Churches, leading the commander of the US army in Germany to commute some of the death sentences in life imprisonment. The main reason for that, however, were probably the protests of the Germans' defense attorney in the case, that is American military attorney Lt. Col. Willis M. Everett, who petitioned US Supreme Court claiming that defendants were found guilty on the ground of "illegal and fraudulently procured confessions" and were subjects of a mock trial. His claims raged a big scandal. This turmoil would soon be relayed in the United States where the Senate would eventually investigate the case.

In its investigation of the trial, the Senate’s Subcommittee of Committee on armed services came to the conclusion that improper pre-trial procedures (including mock trial, but not torture as sometime stated) had harmed the process and, although in some cases there was little or no doubt that the accused were indeed guilty of the massacre, the death sentences could hardly be applied.

At the end, the sentences of the Malmedy defendants were commuted to life and then to time served, and Peiper was released on parole from prison at the end of December 1956, after serving 11 and a half years.

Peiper has also been accused of, but never prosecuted for, the Boves Massacre. In 1968 the German Minister of Justice declared that there was no reason to prosecute Peiper, and the case was dismissed on December 23, 1968.

After release Peiper eventually went to live in Traves, Haute-Saône, France, and supported himself as a translator. Following explicit death threats, Peiper was murdered in a fire bomb attack on his house on July 13, 1976. The attackers were never prosecuted, but were suspected to be former French Résistants.

[edit] Quotations

C-Port

  • "I recognize that after the battles of Normandy my unit was composed mainly of young, fanatical soldiers. A good deal of them had lost their parents, their sisters and brothers during the bombing. They had seen for themselves in Köln thousands of mangled corpses after a terror raid had passed. Their hatred for the enemy was such; I swear it and I could not always keep it under control."
  • "Imagine yourself acclaimed, a decorated national hero, an idol to millions of desperate people, then within six months, condemned to death by hanging."
  • "It's so long ago now. Even I don't know the truth. If I had ever known it, I have long forgotten it. All I know is that I took the blame as a good CO should have been and was punished accordingly." - Jochen Peiper on the Malmedy massacre, excerpted from A Traveler's Guide to the Battle for the German Frontier by Charles Whitting
  • "My men are the products of total war, grown up in the streets of scattered towns without any education. The only thing they knew was to handle weapons for the Reich. They were young people with a hot heart and the desire to win or die: right or wrong – my country. When seeing today the defendants in the dock, don't believe them to be the old Kampfgruppe Peiper. All of my old friends and comrades have gone before. The real outfit is waiting for me in Valhalla."
  • "History is always written by the victor, and the histories of the losing parties belong to the shrinking circle of those who were there."
  • "I was a Nazi and I remain one...The Germany of today is no longer a great nation, it has become a province of Europe" - from an interview given in 1967 by Peiper to a French writer, quoted in "The Devil's Adjutant" by Michael Reynolds, page 260

[edit] Summary of SS career

[edit] Dates of rank

[edit] Notable decorations

[edit] Portrayals in Popular Culture

While no work has specifically been made about Peiper, his career and reputation for ruthlessness influenced the realization of at least two fictional characters in movies set in World War II: the fanatical Nazi Colonel Martin Hessler (Robert Shaw) in Battle of the Bulge (film) and the psychotic General Tanz (Peter O'Toole) in The Night of the Generals (1967)

[edit] References

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