Chenogne massacre

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Prelude
Kesternich - Wahlerscheid

German attack
Losheimergraben - Clervaux - Stößer - Greif

Allied defense and counter-attack
Elsenborn ridge - St. Vith - Bastogne - Bure

German counterattack
base plate - north wind

War crimes
Malmedy - Chenogne

The massacre Chenogne was an Allied war crimes during World War II , several dozen in which at 1 January 1945 prisoners of war from the army of soldiers US Army near the village Chenogne in Belgium were shot, about 8 km west from the center of Bastogne . The bloodbath took place shortly after the Malmedy massacre , in which around 82 captured US soldiers were killed by members of the Waffen SS . It was one of several war crimes that took place in the course of the Battle of the Bulge .

The events were kept secret at the time and none of the perpetrators were prosecuted. The bloodbath is said to have been based on orders from higher authorities not to take prisoners.

prehistory

On December 17, 1944, during the Ardennes offensive, soldiers of the Waffen-SS shot about 82 captured US soldiers at the crossroads of Baugnez near the town of Malmedy . News of this massacre quickly made the rounds among the US armed forces and aroused great anger among soldiers at the front. In the US 328th Infantry Regiment, which was under the supreme command of General Patton, the written order was issued that SS troops and paratroopers should not be captured, but should be shot on the spot.

Eyewitness John Fague

The main source of the war crimes in Chenogne is the eyewitness account of John Fague of the B Company of the 21st Armored Infantry Battalion of the 11th Armored Division , which took part in the Battle of Chenogne and describes how US Troops killed German prisoners. He is quoted extensively by Peter Schrijvers, among others. As far as villagers were present, their statements largely agree with this report. Fague said he had no knowledge of the Malmedy massacre at the time of the Chenogne massacre. Hence one cannot speak of retribution.

Chenogne was one of the villages in the vicinity of the small town of Bastogne that was captured by the Wehrmacht in the course of the siege of Bastogne at the end of December and was held by the US Army. Chenogne was occupied by soldiers of the 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division under the command of Major General Walter Denkert . With the Americans, the 21st Armored Infantry Battalion had the task of retaking the village of Chenogne. According to Fague, a "high-ranking commander" of the US 11th Armored Division instructed the soldiers not to take prisoners. Fague's company was led by a Major Tansay and a Captain Fabrick. The soldiers of the US 11th Armored Division were young and inexperienced in combat. Machine gun fire from the Wehrmacht inflicted heavy losses on them; numerous Sherman tanks were also lost. Fague describes how he captured two Germans and handed them over to his comrade Joe Minnaugh, who spoke German. He later learned that the Germans had been shot behind a haystack.

The main resistance of the German Panzergrenadiers came from the Burnotte family's farm, which was defended with a machine gun, but in the spacious basement of which there was also a troop training area with wounded Wehrmacht soldiers. When Sherman tanks shot holes in the house and it caught fire, the resistance collapsed. First, a German medic with a Red Cross flag appeared in the entrance. Like him, all the paramedics, wounded and other Wehrmacht soldiers who followed him, some of whom were desperately pleading for mercy, were shot immediately, so that a “ring of corpses” formed until there was no man left. When several children and women from the village appeared at the entrance to the house, the fire was briefly stopped and the villagers fled to the nearby forest.

Soon afterwards, several prisoners were taken behind a hill and shot. Some very young German prisoners were wearing US uniforms, according to Fague. Later two groups of German prisoners were set up outside the village on either side of the road, about 25 to 30 on each side. They were shot with a machine gun. Fague writes that at first he hated the shooting of the prisoners, but after these massacres the thought of further murders of captured Germans did not upset him. His greatest concern at the time was that Wehrmacht soldiers would see this crime and then treat US prisoners in the same way. He explains that he only found out about the Malmedy massacre after the fighting for Chenogne.

The losses on the American side in the fighting for Chenogne were given as 120 dead, missing and wounded, while 23 Belgian civilians lost their lives. Only one of the 32 buildings in the village remained standing. In addition, 300 head of cattle were killed.

On his return on January 3, 1945, the mayor of Chenogne found the bodies of 21 German soldiers shot in a row in front of the Burnotte family farm in the destroyed village.

Dealing with the events after World War II

Excerpt from Patton's war diary of January 4, 1945. Referring to the events in Chenogne on January 1, 1945, Patton wrote "Also murdered 50 odd German med. I hope we can conceal this."

The massacre is not mentioned in official publications of the US government after the Second World War. An official text states that it is likely that Germans who tried to surrender after December 17, 1944 were at greater risk than before of being killed, but there is no evidence that US troops are taking orders - be they implicitly or explicitly - had used them to kill their SS prisoners. Nonetheless, Cole states that the US 328th Infantry Regiment issued an order not to take any prisoners from Waffen SS soldiers or paratroopers. However, George Henry Bennett argues with regard to this statement that it is insincere and that orders to shoot prisoners, such as those issued with the 328th Infantry Regiment, were probably carried out, and that other US regiments in all likelihood were carried out after receiving similar orders. Some US units are said to have routinely killed SS prisoners. According to Peter Schrijvers, the 90th US Infantry Division killed its prisoners from the Waffen SS on the Saar in December 1944 in such a systematic manner that the leadership issued express orders to let prisoners of the Waffen SS live in order to obtain information from to be able to receive them.

According to Peter Lieb , General George Patton refers to the Chenogne massacre in his diary with his entry: “ The 11th Panzer Division is still very green behind the ears and has suffered unnecessary losses without achieving anything. Unfortunately, several prisoners were shot. I hope we can keep this under the covers. "(" The 11th Armored is very green and took some unnecessary losses to no effect. There were also some unfortunate incidents in the shooting of prisoners. I hope we can conceal this. ") Lieb thinks it likely that in the following weeks Until the end of the war, US troops often shot German prisoners, especially from the Waffen SS. According to Peter Lieb and Sven Felix Kellerhoff , the actual content of the diary was falsified by Martin Blumenson when it was published in 1974 . Patton therefore wrote expressly of the murder of paramedics (not just "prisoners"), and the wording "unfortunate incidents" is not found in the original version. In the manuscript published in the Library of Congress Patton wrote " The Div is very green and took unnecessary losses to no affect. Also murdered 50 odd German med. I hope we can conceal this. " Antony Beevor suspects no prisoners despite the reports of orders make that the officers had lost control of their soldiers after the terrible losses in Chenogne and that is how the massacres had come about.

Number of victims and perpetrators

The victims include about 21 Wehrmacht soldiers, the majority of whom were previously wounded in the fighting, and medics with Red Cross flags on the Burnotte family's farm, whose bodies were counted by the mayor of the community. Other victims are around 50 to 60 already disarmed Wehrmacht soldiers who were shot on the street outside of the village, for whom the rather imprecise figures are based on statements from watching US soldiers. The names of the officers who issued and passed on the orders have not survived, nor are the names of the shooters and victims. The victims were shot dead . According to Schrijvers, it is impossible to determine the total number of victims of this "serious war crime".

literature

  • Roger Marquet: You sang, des ruines et des larmes. Chenogne 1944-1945 . Weyrich Éditions, Neufchâteau 2004.
  • Peter Schrijvers: Those Who Hold Bastogne: The True Story of the Soldiers and Civilians Who Fought in the Biggest Battle of the Bulge . Yale University Press, 2014, pp. 203f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin K. Sorge: The Other Price of Hitler's War: German Military and Civilian Losses Resulting From World War II . Greenwood Press, July 23, 1986, ISBN 0-313-25293-9 , p. 147.
  2. ^ Hugh M. Cole: Footnote Chapter XI. The 1st SS Panzer Division's Dash Westward, and Operation Greif . In: The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge . Office of the Chief of Military History , Department of the Army, Washington, DC, United States 1965, pp. 261-264.
  3. ^ Richard Gallagher: The Malmedy Massacre . Paperback Library, New York 1964.
  4. ↑ John Fague: B Company 21st AIB . In: Thunderbolt Unit Histories . The 11th Armored Division Association. 2006.
  5. ^ A b Peter Schrijvers: Those Who Hold Bastogne: The True Story of the Soldiers and Civilians Who Fought in the Biggest Battle of the Bulge . Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut 2014, pp. 203-204.
  6. ↑ a b c Peter Schrijvers: The unknown dead. Civilians in the Battle of the Bulge . University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 2005, pp. 303-304.
  7. ↑ Hugh M. Cole: Chapter XI. The 1st SS Panzer Division's Dash Westward, and Operation Greif . In: The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge . Office of the Chief of Military History , Department of the Army, Washington, DC, United States 1965, pp. 261-264.
  8. ^ GH Bennett: Destination Normandy: three American regiments on D-Day . Praeger Security International, Westport, Conn 2007, ISBN 978-0-275-99094-7 . P. 78.
  9. ^ Peter Schrijvers: The Crash of Ruin: American Combat Soldiers in Europe During World War II . MacMillan Press, London 1998, pp. 79-80.
  10. ↑ Peter Lieb: Conventional War or Nazi Weltanschauungskrieg ?: Warfare and Fight against Partisans in France 1943/44 . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2007, p. 175.
  11. ↑ George Patton: Martin Blumenson (Ed.): The Patton Papers 1940-1945 1996, p. 615.
  12. ^ Image 110 of George S. Patton Papers: Diaries, 1910-1945; Original; 1944, Oct. 3-1945, Feb. 5. Retrieved January 3, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Sven Felix Kellerhoff The crime General Patton wanted to cover up , Die Welt , January 1, 2020
  14. ^ Antony Beevor: The Ardennes Offensive 1944: Hitler's Last Battle in the West . C. Bertelsmann Verlag, Munich 2016, p. cciii .

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