Retaliation Against German Prisoners
Knowledge of the massacre "led to considerable retaliation against German prisoners of war during and after that battle." Few Waffen-SS soldiers came to be taken prisoner by units such as the 3rd Armored Division. An example of the aftermath of the massacre is the written order from the HQ of the 328th US Army Infantry Regiment, dated December 21, 1944: "No SS troops or paratroopers will be taken prisoner but will be shot on sight." ii A possible example of a related large massacre against Germans is the Chenogne massacre. At the Saar river the 90th Infantry Division "murdered Waffen-SS prisoners in such a systematic manner late in December 1944 that headquarters had to issue express orders to take Waffen-SS soldiers alive so as to be able to obtain information from them."
Read more about this topic: Malmedy Massacre
Famous quotes containing the words retaliation, german and/or prisoners:
“The retaliation is apt to be in monstrous disproportion to the supposed offense; for when in anybody was revenge in its exactions aught else but an inordinate usurer?”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)
“I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)