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44th Evacuation Hospital Orderlies Carry Malmedy victim on Stretcher, "Massacre at Malmedy," "Battle of the Bulge."
On the second day of the "Battle of the Bulge", December 17, 1944, SS troops herded a group of Americans, mostly from Battery B from the 285th Field Artillery observation battalion into a field at the "Five Points" of Baugnez crossroads near the Belgian town of Malmédy. The POWs were lined up, and then the Germans suddenly opened fire on them for reasons that remain unclear.
As the German soldiers and tanks left the area, they shot Americans who showed signs of life and pumped more bullets into those already dead. The exact number killed was never determined with certainty, but it was between 90 and 130. Several men somehow escaped, but some were found hiding in a nearby cafe. The Germans set the building on fire and then shot the men as they ran out. A handful of other GI's eluded the Germans and got out the word that the Germans were shooting POWs. An article in Stars and Stripes alerted the world to the massacre in stark terms, which was used for anti-Nazi propaganda.
A group of ex-Waffen SS officers of the 1st Panzer Corps were convicted before an American military tribunal convened May 12-July 16, 1946, at Dachau. Seventy-two were found guilty and 42 were sentenced to death, though all these were later commuted to life imprisonment. One defendant committed suicide and one was acquitted; the remainder were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.
