SS Colonel Peiper involved personally in one war Crime?

[tonyh]

In Gordon Williamson's 'Loyalty is my Honour', page156...

"For a long time I commanded III./Panzergrenadierregiment 2 of the Leibstandarte. This unit had made quite a name for its night attacks in Russia and was known in divisional and Korps areas as the 'Blowtorch Battalion'. Our troops used this highly practical tool in the winter to pre-heat the engines in our vehicles, to heat water quickly for cooking and many other things. There was also a saying among the soldiers in those days when they were given a task: "we will soon torch that". The vehicles even used a blowtorch as a tactical symbol. During post-war interrogations, however, this name was twisted from the "Blowtorch battalion" to the "Arson Battalion". It was suggested that the blowtorches were used to burn down houses. In action our armoured personnel carriers were in the habit of going into the attack at full speed and with all guns blazing. As the Russian houses mostly had thatched roofs, it was inevitable that they would catch fire during the battle. It would certainly be unnecessary for troops to dismount from their vehicles and use blowtorches to set houses on fire when they would already catch fire during the firing, but it was just one more allegation with which to blacken the image of Waffen-SS troops."


Tony

[Harro]

Since the day the forum started. Even as a moderator for several years. Now cut the crap. Blowtorch or not - Peiper's SPW-battalion made a habit out of burning villages and killing prisoners. The facts speak for themselves. Or perhaps you see some other logic in a 3000 to 3 kills-prisoners ratio. As for your quote. When I've to choose between the words of LSSAH veterans and the author of a book named 'Loyalty is my Honour' I know what I believe.

[David Thompson]

A number of insult posts were deleted by this moderator. Posts containing sourced information on the topic are welcome. Further insulting posts, one-line unsourced comments and the like will be deleted on sight.

[Dimitrii]

Off course. Several commanders of other LSSAH battalions clearly stated after the war that Peiper used to burn down complete villages:

Yes, but who are those "Several commanders of other LSSAH battalions"? You didn't even name one and your quote ("Dort brannte es") also comes without source?

Also, the claim of "burning villages" is very vague to use as an accusation. Everything burns in a war, that is a result of the fighting. But what strikes is me that you also cannot offer any real proof that Peiper deliberatry burned the villages. If burning down villages counts a warcrime I wonder what we should think about Berlin or Dresden. Also the Russians had their "scorched earth" policy which essentially meant everything had to be burned down. It's unclear what you are trying to prove or say with those allegations.

Just look at his award documents. The descriptions of the heroic actions of his SPW-battalion: 800-900 Russian soldiers killed - no prisoners, 1450 Russian soldiers killed - no prisoners, 930 Russian soldiers killed, no prisoners. A ratio of 3280 killed enemies and three captured in not normal.

These numbers are obviously very inflated. I wouldn't trust the SS claim on killed Russian troops.

[Harro]

Inflated figures you say? It is not about the height of the figures. You totally missed the point. It is about the fact that the SS didn't even hide the fact that they made no prisoners. I'm actually quite tired of these discussions simply because people don't want to believe that Peiper was involved in dirty warcrimes. The claim isn't "vague" because it is exactly what they were talking about: warcrimes. Understandable warcrimes because the war in the East was a Rattenkrieg - a war that was unimaginately dirty. And from both sides - German and Russian. I can understand why they did it but that does not mean I approve. An understandable warcrime is still a warcrime. Burning down those villages was standard procedure. For Peiper and for Panzermeyer. Every LSSAH veteran - officer, nco or lower ranks - knows that but I won't give you their names. Peipers men modified their blowtorches into a sort of mini-flame throwers. Fact. Ideal for setting buildings on fire. The famous Peiper tactics: Dort brannte es. Burn everything to the ground. Delibrately. Veterans make no secret of that. Overrun the enemy. Spread fear. Burn down everything. Peiper in his SPW-period was a master of fighting in the dark. You won't find that info in the books written by Agte, Williamson, or any of the other authors who portray Peiper as a shining knight. The hero Peiper. Created by the SS press office first and the HIAG later. People love their stories because they want to hear about Peiper the master tactician. The daredevil. They don't want to read about all the people in the LSSAH who disliked him, or how Peiper burned his Panzer-Regiment to the ground in a few days to be replaced by Kühlmann, or about his time as adjutant of his godfather Himmler. And they certainly don't want to believe that Peiper described - icecold - how he watched throught the window of the gaschamber as they killed T4 victims. Peiper, who said about himself in a 70's interview: "I was a nazi and I will always be one".

[tonyh]

Harro, you haven't the first clue what you are talking about. I doubt you have even read a single book by Gordon Williamson.

Tony

[Dimitrii]

The claim isn't "vague" because it is exactly what they were talking about: warcrimes.

Okay, but at least offer some credible evidence rather than very vague accusations. You are constantly changing the topic and making smoke screens for yourself. We are not talking about moral of war bur about you proving your assumptions.

For Peiper and for Panzermeyer. Every LSSAH veteran - officer, nco or lower ranks - knows that but I won't give you their names.

That is very easy of course. You come here and throw things around "several LSSAH batallion commanders", but who are they and what did they write?

Peipers men modified their blowtorches into a sort of mini-flame throwers. Fact.

So you keep saying, but this is the third time I ask for evidence. Also I don't get what is so criminal about burning things down, things burn in a war, yes so it has been since forever mankind waged war. But you make it seem like only Peiper was a criminal for doing this and you don't even offer any proof for it. Was this argument of "burning down villages" even ever used against him before? it seems like you suddenly made it up. Every artilleryman in every army would have comiitted the same war crime in that case.

You won't find that info in the books written by Agte, Williamson, or any of the other authors who portray Peiper as a shining knight.

Have you even read the book by Willamson? It just contains small stories by veterans and the quote by Peiper, that is all. It's not a book in the sense that Willamson tries to whitewash Peiper, he himself just wrote some very general context, unrelated to the people he had interviewed.

And they certainly don't want to believe that Peiper described - icecold - how he watched throught the window of the gaschamber as they killed T4 victims.

Yes, now you are almost ad verbatim repeating Westemeier on feldgrau.

Peiper, who said about himself in a 70's interview: "I was a nazi and I will always be one".

of course, he was adjudant to Himmler and officer in Leibstandarte. But that doesn't exlcude you from still having to deliver proof. Anybody can make unfounded accusations.

[Harro]

Also I don't get what is so criminal about burning things down, things burn in a war, yes so it has been since forever mankind waged war.

Yet people are determined to steer away the "blowtorch" symbol from the truth by making it "just a tool to heath the engine".

But you make it seem like only Peiper was a criminal for doing this.

Do I? I think I was quite clear that everybody behaved in the worst possible way on the Eastern Front...

Understandable warcrimes because the war in the East was a Rattenkrieg - a war that was unimaginately dirty. And from both sides - German and Russian.

Still - people insist that Peiper was no part of this dirty war.

As for sources: I already told you that I don't give you names of veterans.

[David Thompson]

Dimitrii -- Drop the hostile tone. As for bumptious statements such as:

Also I don't get what is so criminal about burning things down, things burn in a war, yes so it has been since forever mankind waged war.

you would find it easier to understand if you familiarized yourself with the basic concepts of war crimes law. As a start, you might read through the Annex to the Hague IV Convention of 1907. You can find it at:

Hague IV - Laws and Customs of War on Land: 18 October 1907
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/ava.....ague04.htm

[Dimitrii]

Dimitrii -- Drop the hostile tone. As for bumptious statements such as:

Also I don't get what is so criminal about burning things down, things burn in a war, yes so it has been since forever mankind waged war.

you would find it easier to understand if you familiarized yourself with the basic concepts of war crimes law. As a start, you might read through the Annex to the Hague IV Convention of 1907. You can find it at:

Hague IV - Laws and Customs of War on Land: 18 October 1907
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/ava.....ague04.htm

That link is dead. But I'd like to know where it says that setting fire to things is a war crime.

[David Thompson]

Try this: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague04.htm and read Article 23 on the destruction of property. See also Article 46.

[Dimitrii]

Try this: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague04.htm and read Section 23 on the destruction of property. See also Article 46.

Okay, that is clear. But that poses even more questions than it answers. That would mean the people who organised the bombing campaigns over Germany, or even the destruction of Aachen in combat, violated the rules of war.

Perhaps in the year this was agreed, it was concievable that no private property would be damaged. But in something like WW2 this seems woefully utopic, if not impossible to maintain. For example; see bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

If even Peiper would deliberatly burn down villages, there is currently no evidence for that, he certainly wasn't doing anything any other army wasn't doing. As you know the Allied armies relived heavily on bombing campaigns such as in Caen 1944 or Monte Cassino. So I fail to see how this particular argument is suddenly solely used against one German, it's absurd.

[David Thompson]

Dmitrii -- You wrote:

That would mean the people who organised the bombing campaigns over Germany, or even the destruction of Aachen in combat, violated the rules of war.

No, it doesn't. The question has been extensively discussed in other threads.

For the allied bombing campaigns, see:

Can the bombing of cities be considered as "Warcrimes"?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=9136
Dresden 1945
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=1000
Dresden 1945
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=4838
Bombing of Dresden
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=20370
Destruction of Dresden
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=43901
Dresden bombing & post-liberation Euro gas chambers
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=33480
Dresden photos
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=27506
USAF Historical Analysis of the 14-15 February 1945 Bombings of Dresden
http://forum.axishistory.com/v.....620#304620
Surface and subterranean petroleum, oil and lubricant facilities in the Dresden area
http://forum.axishistory.com/v.....916#395916
Churchill & Harris Terror Raids
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=29691
Debate over UK WWII strategic bombing
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=25898
Terror bombing -- The Nazis started it
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=25592
US Strategic Bombing Survey (Europe) on bombing accuracy
http://forum.axishistory.com/v.....939#395939
Carpet-bombing towns and cities
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=44286
Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- War crimes?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=9209
Lessons of Hiroshima
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=5507
The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (1959)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=66910
"Legitimate bombing target"
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=71437
Was Dresden bombing "Terrorism"?"
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=70783
Dresden 1945 -- Just Another Raid?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=71835

For the German bombing campaigns, see:

Rotterdam 14 May 1940: Tactics or Terrorism?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=72797
Belgrade 6 Apr 1941: Tactics or war crime?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=73365
Stalingrad 23 Aug 1942: Tactics or Spoliation?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=72803

For the destruction of cities in the course of artillery bombardments, see:

Was Manila the Dresden of SE Asia, and was that a warcrime?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=75989
The legality of targeting civilians
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=82959

For similar topics involving the interplay between destruction and military necessity, see:
The flooding of Holland
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=101200
Nazi bioterror Italy 1944
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=95462
Dam busters....war criminals?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=66496

For a detailed legal analysis of military necessity and the war crime of spoliation, see:

Rendulic and the evacuation of Finmark
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=60710

For the applicability of the Hague IV Convention to the war in the east, see:

The Hague and Geneva Convention on the Eastern Front
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=56059

For helpful links to war crimes law and discussions about how and when it applies, see:

The Laws of War
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=26829

Now let's get back on the topic at hand -- "SS Colonel Peiper involved personally in one war Crime?"

[Harro]

So I fail to see how this particular argument is suddenly solely used against one German, it's absurd.

Because this topic is about Peiper and the origins of the "blowtorch batallion". Yet it is clearly noted that the war on the Eastern Front was a terrible dirty war (Rattenkrieg) in which everybody from both sides participated.

[Juha Hujanen]

The Platz der Leibstandarte book shows some cruelsome pictures of LSSH in combat near Kharkov,Also there's this earlier discussion of subject:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... bstandarte

Personally i think there's little to choose who's story is more credible.The Peiper's or Timo's 10 years's recearch of AA LSSAH.

Just mu 10 cents

Regards/Juha