ϟϟ-Standartenführer der Waffen-SS Peiper

Joachim Peiper as SS-Hauptsturmführer 1940

Joachim Peiper as SS-Obersturmbannführer 1945

Jochen Peiper was born in Berlin-Wilmersdorf on January 30 1915, son of an Army officer. His father, Captain Waldemar Peiper served with the small German detachment that took part in the guerrilla fighting against the British troops and native auxiliaries in German East Africa during World War I. Joachim Peiper decided to join the SS, with the intention of becoming an officer in the elite guard of the Nazi Reich. He first joined the SS-Reiterstandarte 7 of Berlin and was later accepted for duty with Sepp Dietrich's Leibstandarte SS. Peiper was a member of the first class of officer candidates to graduate from the SS Junkerschule at Braunschweig in 1935. He was one of Germany's most colorful military commanders of World War II with a reputation for conducting extremely daring operations. The name Peiper will always be linked to the Malmedy Massacre. The highly decorated East front veteran Peiper at the very young age of 29 had been chosen to lead the spearhead unit, SS-Kampfgruppe Peiper, during the German offensive through the Ardennes in December 1944. Peiper commanded a platoon up to a regiment within the Leibstandarte SS, one of the most elite divisions within the Waffen-SS. He was an exponent of the tough SS leadership. Peiper was charismatic and extreme loyal to his unit. He was also a smart independent thinker. His men trusted him as a leader, even under the most extreme conditions. It was a logical decision that Peiper became the commander of the spearhead unit, but there were factors other than leadership leading to this decision, such as tactical considerations and a “we-know-what to-expect”-principle. About the troops under his command in 1944, Peiper said: I recognize that after the battles of Normandy my unit was composed mainly of young, fanatical soldiers. A good deal of them had lost their parents, their sisters and brothers during the bombings of Germany. They had seen for themselves in Cologne, thousands of mangled corpses after a terror raid had passed. After the war, Peiper was prosecuted as a war criminal for the Malmedy incident, even though he most likely never gave any order to execute POWs and was several kilometers away when the incident occurred. He was convicted and originally sentenced to death by hanging, however on January 30 1951 this sentence was changed to life in prison because U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy from Wisconsin proved the courts perfidy. During the Malmedy trial Peiper shared a cell in Dachau with tank commander SS-Untersturmführer Arndt Fischer. On November 17 1995 Fischer said: We didn't just talk about the daily progress of the trial. For example, he once told me that he had worked on the idea of a regimental march song. In this connection, I heard the following verses for the first time from his mouth: Einst reiten auf Flammen wir nach Walhall, man fragt nach der Einlasskarte, da rufen wir laut und mit lachendem Schall: Wir sind von der Leibstandarte; und einer spricht leis, der uns lange schon kennt: der sind vom 1. Panzerregiment. I remember the text so well because I printed it with the stub of a pencil on one of the boards of our bunks for subsequent generations. Peiper was paroled and released from Landsberg Prison in 1956. Twenty years later, in 1976, he was murdered in France. The French did not expend a great deal of energy searching for those responsible for the attack upon Peiper and no one has been charged with the crime to this day. In respect to this revered Waffen-SS commander, veterans refer to Peiper as Der Letzte Gefallen, the Last of the Fallen. He is quoted as saying: I was a National-Socialist and I remain one. The Germany of today is no longer a great nation, it has become a province of Europe and History is always written by the victors, and the histories of the losing parties belong to the shrinking circle of those who were there. Credit: Beginning of the end: Thesis by Major Han Bouwmeester, Royal Netherlands Army. Top image: the 25-year-old Peiper after the Western campaign in 1940, he was promoted SS-Hauptsturmführer on June 6 1940. Bottom image: the 30-year-old Peiper at the Austrian front in April 1945, he received the Swords to his Knight's Cross with Oakleaves on January 11 1945 as SS-Obersturmbannführer and commander of SS-Panzer-Regiment 1 Leibstandarte. Commons: Bundesarchiv.