Joachim Peiper

Rare card · No. 31294

Joachim "Jochen" Peiper (30 January 1915 – 14 July 1976) was a German battalion commander in the Waffen-SS. He was known as a Nazi war criminal found guilty of 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. 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. 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. In the Malmedy Massacre Trial, the...

Read on Wikipedia · Image U.S. Army Signal Corps, Public domain