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History Commons

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Military History

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

2022

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in History

A Nazi War Criminal Reflects On The War In Russia, James J. Weingartner Jun 2022

A Nazi War Criminal Reflects On The War In Russia, James J. Weingartner

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

The name Joachim (or “Jochen”) Peiper is instantly recognizable to any American with a passing knowledge of World War II. He was the commander of the Waffen-SS battlegroup held responsible for the “Malmédy massacre” of American prisoners of war during Hitler’s Ardennes offensive. At the time of his 1946 trial by a U.S. Army court, he was called “the most hated man in the United States.” Given the crimes of which he was accused – the slaughter of hundreds of POWs and Belgian civilians –this is easy to understand. Less so is the attention that this man- a relatively minor …


Strange Alliance: An American, A Nazi, And The Battle Of The Bulge, James J. Weingartner Mar 2022

Strange Alliance: An American, A Nazi, And The Battle Of The Bulge, James J. Weingartner

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

One of the stranger episodes in the history of World War II occurred over a period of 90 hours in the Belgian village of La Gleize in December 1944. During the bloody Battle of the Bulge, Hal McCown, a major in the U.S. 30th Infantry Division, was captured by troops of the Nazi Waffen SS and taken to La Gleize, where Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Joachim Peiper had established his headquarters. Peiper commanded a battlegroup whose orders were to capture crossings over the Meuse river, thus opening the way to Antwerp, the primary German objective. It was also …