SS-Standartenführer
Joachim Peiper
Life and Destiny
of a German WW II Soldier
Joachim Peiper became
the commander of the “SS-Panzerregiment
1” (tank regiment) of the “Leibstandarte”
(Lifeguards) of Adolf Hitler
and
at the age of 28 was honored with the Knight's Cross and Oak-Leaves. In
1945 he was falsely accused and arrested as a war criminal by the Americans
because of the “Malmedy Case”.
He was tortured, sentenced to death, but not executed as the truth was somewhat
different. After eleven years of imprisonment he was released. As
trade unions black-mailed him, he lost his jobs and therefore decided to go to
France
to be able to live in peace. After the then “DDR” and the
French communist daily “L´Humanité” had launched a
press campaign against him, he was killed in his house on July 4th,
1976.
The spectators were waiting in front of
the trial barrack on July 16th, 1946, when the sentence concerning
Peiper and his men was announced.
It took the American judges two hours to discuss the sentences.
Their decision: forty-three death sentences and
thirty years imprisonment. It took only two minutes for each
individual sentence.
It
was midnight when the villagers heard shots at the “Befestigung”
(fort), the name given to Peiper´s house.
When the police and the fire-brigade arrived, everything was finished.
Apart from a burnt corpse, three bullet cases and rifle
Peiper had borrowed from neighbours were found as well as five bullet
cases of a 7.65mm revolver. “Peiper was like that”,
one of his German friends said, “fighting up to the
very last”. The district court of
Vesoul,
France, officially declared
Peiper as dead but under communist pressure did not
have the guts to declare it a murder. The murderers have
never been found. Some time ago, the
Peiper family had his burnt corpse taken to
Munich. The prosecutors office at
Munich had the coffin opened and they found that only
parts of the corpse were in it! The head, which would
be important to
identify Peiper based on his teeth, was missing!
This was the way the French justice authorities 'handled' this murder
case.
France, you know, is a constitutional state and
its judges are all 'honorable' men.