The killing of Jochen Peiper

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PoorOldSpike

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Photographed in 1976 aged 61 while giving interview to French journalist just weeks before his murder..
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After serving 11 years in jail from 1945 to 1956, Peiper got a job with Porsche (who had built the Panther) as a sales manager,and later with Volkswagen. He had a small house (below) built in France and moved there in 1972 with his wife, living off his service pension and doing translation work for a publisher. Here he sits at the garden table with the journalist.
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The house was just outside the village of Traves..
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And Traves was west of Vesoul..
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Peiper's house was in thick woods. He was on good terms with his German neighbour..
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But ominous slogans began appearing on local roads leading to Peiper's property..
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Power lines leading to Peiper's house give away its secluded position in the woods in this 1982 photo.
His mailbox was on the wooden pole on the left and was sometimes ransacked..
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The house was firebombed in 1976 with Peiper inside. His wife was away visiting Germany. Nobody was ever caught or admitted responsibility.His body was badly charred and an autopsy found smoke in his lungs, he'd gone down fighting, firing his .22 rifle and a pistol.
His remains were interred in the Peiper family plot in Landsberg, Bavaria.
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His name was later scrubbed out, but his supporters sent mail to local dignitaries threatening reprisals, forcing them to cancel the annual village fete that year..
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Peiper on the cover of a 1982 issue of the Waffen-SS old comrades magazine. I've underlined the words "Emordet am 14.7.76 in Frankreich" ("Murdered 14.7.76 in France")
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Ironically, although Peipers tactical knowhow had kept him alive through 5 years of combat in France, Italy and Russia, he made one tactical error that cost him his life- he decided to settle in France..


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PoorOldSpike said:
Ironically, although Peipers tactical knowhow had kept him alive through 5 years of combat in France, Italy and Russia, he made one tactical error that cost him his life- he decided to settle in France..
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It does seem strange that he would choose France as a place to spend the rest of his days, but maybe no where would really be safe.
 
Wigam said:
Its does seem strange that he would choose France as a place to spend the rest of his days, but maybe no where would really be safe.
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Argentina seemed to work for some former Nazis.
 
The French had been hating the Germans since 1940 and many probably couldn't just switch off the hate at the end of the war, understandable considering massacres like Oradour-sur-Glane, and the Gestapos ruthless treatment of Resistance suspects etc.
Unlike other Nazis, Peiper wasn't hung for alleged war crimes which must have rankled the French, and when he decided to go live on French soil it must have made a lot of them hot under the collar.
Perthaps he had a "death wish complex" brought on by guilt feelings at having survived the war when many of his comrades didn't, hence his going to live in France and making no attempt to disguise himself or even change his name, and his house was located in thick woods making it easy for assassins to sneak up; almost as if he sent out invitations.
Perhaps he got a kick out of living dangerously and missed the excitement of war, so he settled in the "hostile environment" of France to try to recreate that adrenaline buzz.
It's a pity he was killed like that, but sad to say, he practically asked for it.
 
As for Peiper's murder i m sure that the cowards that murdered him,during the war they were hiding somewhere waiting for the Allies to liberate them.
 
Great idea for a novel; American survivor of Malmedy massacre becomes millionaire after the war... He hires a professional hit-man to kill Peiper, making it look like French locals did it...
 
mgk said:
Murderer was murdered and that's all
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Nice attitude. That really helps in an objective discussion.

The guys on the receiving end always get the blame - and not every war crime can get proven (which is especially true for some that supposedly happened during the Ardennes offensive).
 
AirborneBob said:
War crimes are defined by the Victor....
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Of course, but that's not the point. If I do stick to that, I can let myself be made responsible for the atrocities of the Nazis until I die - because we lost the bloody war and were thus guilty on all charges including those we weren't even accused of. See where that's going?
 
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"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 knew is that I took the blame as a good CO should and was punished accordingly."
-Jochen Peiper, quoted in A Traveler's Guide to the Battle for the German Frontier by Charles Whiting
 
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I am far from accusing all Germans for war crimes ( I had several German friends during my studies in Belgium :) and I see that Germans suffer a lot during the war - you just got bad luck that there were Hitler and his comrades but ---- Peiper was one of them - SS scum - judged and sentenced to death by court ... He was also SS officer - and eye witness of many civilian mass murders in Poland and Russia as Himmler right hand
We can discuss about Rommel, Guderian and many other Wehrmacht soldiers if they were responsible for war crimes and genocide, but SS was organisation of primitive criminals
 
mgk said:
We can discuss about Rommel, Guderian and many other Wehrmacht soldiers if they were responsible for war crimes and genocide, but SS was organisation of primitive criminals
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That is what modern propaganda wants us to believe, but the truth isn'st as black and white as that - far from it. You could even say Rommel actually condoned atrocities(or turned a blind eye) during his time in Africa as commander-in-chief. And turning a blind eye is as bad as actually commiting crimes in my opinion. Which doesn't change the fact that even the SS wasn't just made up of "primiive criminals". What#s the Soviet Union and the avegae Red Army soldier for you then?
 
I would recommend caution in discussing this topic with MGK. If you continue, he will accuse you guys of being Nazi sympathizers for your points of view. He has already accused Cargol of being a Nazi sympathizer simply for his Avatar. You have NO chance of having a logical discussion about it with him so I recommend that you shelve the topic before it gets ugly.
Lord Bane
 
average of Red Army was similar to average of Wehrmacht but you can compare NKWD to SS
 
No army is innocent or clean in war... no army.
And a fact is, the winner writes the history books.
A fact also is, ignoring the political wing of the ss, and looking at the military arm, the waffen ss. These guys where determined, well trained and very much elite in terms of equipment, training and selection; For at least the early years and the begining of the war. And you got to have some respect for the things they acheived under incredibly diffcult circumstances. At least i do as a proffessional soldier.

As for pieper, cos that is what this thread is about, well, i agree with bootie. It feels double, but i think that he probably went the way he wanted, and that was by the sword if u get what i mean.
Just my 2 cents.
Breaklight
 
POS footnote- Busse also featured in a Brit TV docu about German POW's who had settled in Britain.
In Russia he was a Panther radio operator in 10th SS Pz 'Frundsberg'.
In Normandy he was a Tiger commander with 12th SS Pz 'Hitlerjugend', the rest of his crew were killed when it was knocked out.
He said the Brits treated him very well.
When he settled in Scotland after the war, he was made an honorary member of a local Brit Army sergeants mess.
 
Himmler, the leader of the SS, was a chief architect of the Final Solution. The SS Einsatzgruppen death squads, formed by his deputy, Heydrich, murdered many civilian non-combatants, mostly Jews, in the countries occupied by Germany during World War II. Himmler was responsible for establishing and operating concentration camps and extermination camps in which millions of inmates died of systematic mass gassing, shooting, hanging, inhumane treatment, overwork, malnutrition, or medical experiments. After the war, the judges of the Nuremberg Trials declared the SS and its sub-parts criminal organizations responsible for the implementation of racial policies of genocide and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. (wiki)
so if somebody voluntary and in grown up age joined this organization - that was scum of worse sort
I know that in waffen ss there were many kids and (at the end f war) enlisted by force but Peiper was in SS from very early stage of this criminal organization and he exactly knew what they were doing.
 
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