Joachim peiper biography

Joachim Peiper (30 January 1915 – 14 July 1976) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer, convicted war criminal and car salesman.
Joachim Peiper was a German Schutzstaffel officer, convicted war criminal and car salesman.
In this new historical investigation, German historian Jens Weste-meier portrays the rise and fall of an SS war criminal, and demolishes persistent myths of a.

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At the age of 26 the German SS adjutant Joachim Peiper participated in Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Peiper soon became Hauptsturmführer (captain) in a SS combat unit. Between 1941 and 1943 he led several combat units in the Soviet Union, in Italy, where he was responsible for the massacre of 22 civilians, and in Ukraine. In the Nazi press Peiper developed a reputation as an outstanding leader and became Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) at the end of 1943. From December 1944 onward he played an important role in the Ardennen Offensive. His task was to conquer the bridges on the Meuse, for which he had the support of the most powerful material of the Nazi army: the Tiger II. This new tank weighed 70 tons, but had a very high consumption of fuel. Peiper and his unit were responsible for the Massacre of Malmedy, where, according to the official report, 86 American soldiers were killed as well as 164 civilians in Stavelot. Finally the unit ran out of fuel and was enclosed by American troops in the village La Gleize. Peiper and his s

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Lt. Col. Joachim Peiper’s Grisly Death After the Battle of the Bulge

By Major General Michael Reynolds

One of the foremost German characters in the Battle of the Bulge was Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Joachim Peiper, the notorious Waffen-SS commander of the strongest armored Kampfgruppe (KG) of the 1st SS Panzer Division, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). It was his KG of 117 tanks, some 700 other vehicles, and nearly 5,000 men that Hitler had intended should reach the Meuse River first, but he failed and, after 10 days of intense fighting, was forced to escape through American lines with no heavy equipment and only 800 men left.

Even so, Peiper received swords to his Knight’s Cross for his part in his beloved Führer’s last great offensive in the west. After the war he was labeled “GI Enemy Number One” for his alleged part in the Malmedy Massacre of American prisoners, and to this day he is remembered by most Americans, and certainly by all Bulge veterans, as a condemned war criminal whose murder in France in 1976 is seen as poetic justice for the man t

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Joachim Peiper

SS officer and war criminal

Joachim Peiper (30 January 1915 – 14 July 1976) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer, convicted war criminal and car salesman. During the Second World War in Europe, Peiper served as personal adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, and as a tank commander in the Waffen-SS. German historian Jens Westemeier writes that Peiper personified Nazi ideology, as a purportedly ruthless glory-hound commander who was indifferent to the combat casualties of Battle Group Peiper, and who tolerated, expected, and indeed encouraged war crimes by his Waffen-SS soldiers.

As adjutant to Himmler, Peiper witnessed the SS implement the Holocaust with ethnic cleansing and genocide of Jews in Eastern Europe; facts that he obfuscated and denied in the post-War period. As a tank commander, Peiper served in the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) in the Eastern Front and in the Western Front, first as a battalion commander and then as a regimental commander. Peiper fought in the Third Battle of Kharkov and in the Batt