Joachim Peiper (1915–1976)
Born 1915 CE, died 1976 CE.
Joachim Peiper (30 January 1915 – 14 July 1976) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) commander and a Nazi war criminal convicted for the Malmedy massacre of U.S. Army prisoners of war. 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. As adjutant to Himmler, Peiper witnessed the SS implement the Holocaust with the 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 on the Eastern Front and on 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 Battle of the Bulge, from which battles his eponymous battle group—Kampfgruppe Peiper—became notorious for committing war crimes against civilians and PoWs. In the Malmedy Massacre Trial, the US military tribunal established Peiper's command responsibility for the Malmedy massacre (1944) and sentenced him to death, a sentence later commuted to life in prison, then 35 years.
Text from the Wikipedia article Joachim_Peiper, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.