01/05/08

The German offensive began at 5:30 am on 16 December with a massive artillery bombardment.  The weather was just what Hitler desired: cold, misty, with ground fog in many areas.  Most American front-line units were surprised by the artillery fire and initial breakthrough attacks, but the attacks were not as swiftly successful as the Germans hoped.  While Peiper fumed and waited to advance, the volksgrenadiers in his front did not open the way until the afternoon of 16 December.  s. SS-Pz.Abt. 501 finally rolled out of its assembly area late in the afternoon.  The initial order of march was 2. Kompanie, Headquarters, 3. Kompanie, and 1. Kompanie.

The tanks of 2. Kompanie, s. SS-Pz.Abt. 501 pass through the village of Tondorf on their way to the front during the afternoon of 16 December.  From an SS war reporter film. (US National Archives at College Park, RG 242 National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized, 242-MID-3136)

Tondorf today.  The Gasthaus zum Weißen Roß ("White Pony") is still in business.  (Geoff Walden)

The Tigers followed in the wake of Peiper’s advance through most of the night.  The kampfgruppe had elements of a parachute regiment attached as it moved through Lanzerath, and a number of paratroopers hitched a ride on some of the Tigers.  The battalion passed through Honsfeld, where one Tiger destroyed two American antitank guns.  In the darkness along the muddy, twisting road von Westernhagen’s battalion was already losing its cohesiveness.  Several tanks had dropped out with mechanical failures, while others had lagged behind and become separated.

17-18 December:  Loss of Organization

The Tigers made very slow progress on the 17th.  The lead elements of the kampfgruppe had churned the country lanes into muddy tracks.  Rollbahn D at this point traversed some of the worst roads in the area.  The 2. and 3. Kompanies continued through Büllingen, Schoppen, Faymonville, Ondenval, and Thirimont.  In several places the assigned road was too tight for the large tanks to pass, and they had to detour through fields, at the risk of bogging down.

By the afternoon of the 17th the battalion had lost its organization.  In the evening some of the 2. and 3. Kompanie tanks with the battalion command group passed through Ligneuville (the Germans called this town Engelsdorf) and continued toward Stavelot.  On the way toward Ligneuville they passed the Baugnez crossroads south of Malmedy.  Earlier in the day this location had become the scene of the infamous “Malmedy Massacre,” as other elements of Kampfgruppe Peiper killed some 80 American prisoners of war.  The exact sequence of events at Baugnez remains a mystery and the truth will probably never be known.  Germans who survived the war maintain that the prisoners were killed while they attempted to escape.  In 1946 seventy-four former Waffen-SS soldiers (most of them from Kampfgruppe Peiper) were accused of war crimes and tried by a U.S. military court for their actions at Baugnez.  Peiper and 42 others were sentenced to death, but none of those convicted were ever executed.  Investigations revealed irregularities and illegal actions by the prosecution during the trial, and all were finally released.  None of the former soldiers of s. SS-Pz.Abt. 501 were indicted or tried.  (3)  They could not have been involved; they passed Baugnez after the tragedy had already occurred.  However, Peiper’s first notification that a number of American prisoners of war had been shot by his forces came from von Westernhagen as he came forward to Trois Ponts on the morning of 18 December.  (4)

Map showing route of Kampfgruppe Peiper from the Malmedy area to La Gleize.  (Microsoft MapPoint via Expedia.com)

A modern view of Rollbahn D between Ligneuville and Stavelot. The road is barely wide enough for a Königstiger tank to pass. (author's photo)

The main body of the battalion, consisting of the battalion command group and the 2. and 3. Kompanie tanks that had kept up, closed on the rear of Peiper’s main element during the night of 17 December and followed it through Stavelot the next morning.  The kampfgruppe’s lead elements only cleared the streets necessary to move through Stavelot and continue toward Trois Ponts, and American infantry continued to fire at the tanks from other parts of the town.  The Königstiger crews returned fire with their machineguns and continued on.

Peiper’s lead elements continued down the N23, a relatively good road, to Trois Ponts.  As the name indicates the town contained three bridges.  Peiper hoped to cross the Ambleve River there and continue on better roads to the Meuse.  However, American engineers blew the bridge over the Ambleve just as the kampfgruppe was coming into sight, and Peiper was forced to turn right onto the N33 road to parallel the river and cross it farther north.

About noon Peiper passed through the small hilltop village of La Gleize and took a local road toward Cheneux, where his scouts had told him a bridge across the Ambleve was intact.  He crossed there and continued toward an intersection where he could again take the N23 west.  The main part of s. SS-Pz.Abt. 501 still followed in the rear, but was reduced to only six tanks, with one more from the 1. Kompanie following farther behind.  The 3. Kompanie had lost two tanks to antitank fire as it passed through Stavelot, and another stalled with a thrown track in a sharp bend on the N33 just before the road turned uphill to enter La Gleize.  By this time von Westernhagen and his adjutant, SS-Obersturmführer Kalinowsky, were riding in a command car.  Kalinowsky had left his Tiger 008 between Stavelot and Trois Ponts with engine trouble.  There is no evidence that the battalion commander’s tank 007 ever left the assembly area.

The village of La Gleize.  (author's photo)

SS-Hauptsturmführer Möbius and his three 2. Kompanie tanks continued close behind the main body of the kampfgruppe as it moved out from La Gleize.  Just after Peiper crossed the Ambleve on the intact bridge and climbed the hill toward Cheneux American fighter-bombers attacked his column during a two-hour period of cleared weather.  The bombing at Cheneux forced the Germans to take cover and disabled a Panther that blocked the road.  Peiper reportedly jumped out of SS-Sturmbannführer Diefenthal’s half-track and sought shelter in an old bunker beside the road, from which he emerged soaked with muddy water.  (5)  None of the Tigers were damaged, but Kalinowsky was wounded in the arm.  One of the American P-47s was shot down, perhaps by a Wirbelwind from the 4. Kompanie of s. SS-Pz.Abt. 501.

Peiper is said to have sought shelter from the American fighter-bombers in this old bunker near Cheneux on 18 December 1944.  (author's photo)

Fog closed down again around 4:00 p.m. and Peiper continued his advance.  He regained the N23 but had to cross a small bridge over the Lienne creek before he could start out of the valley.  In the darkness the lead Panthers slowly approached the bridge, only to have it blown in their faces by a squad from the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion.  Peiper, close to the front, is said to have pounded his knee in frustration and sworn, “The damned engineers!  The damned engineers!”

Peiper sent scouting parties up and down the creek, but they could find no bridges capable of carrying his tanks.  He decided to retrace his route through La Gleize and continue his advance toward Stoumont and another bridge farther to the north in the morning.  SS-Unterscharführer Karl Wortmann of the kampfgruppe’s Flak company remembered seeing some Königstigers of the 2. Kompanie towing others back toward La Gleize from Cheneux that night.  He thought that the tankers were doing this to conserve their rapidly dwindling fuel.  (6)

The rest of the operational Tigers were far behind.  What was left of the 1. Kompanie attempted to pass through Stavelot during the afternoon of the 18th.  SS-Obersturmführer Wessel was leading in Tiger 105.  The Americans still controlled much of the town, and stiff enemy fire forced the Tigers to detour from the main route that led toward the town market square.  Wessel led his tanks up a steep narrow street called the Rue Haut Rivage.  As he reached the top of the street and prepared to turn left on the main road to Trois Ponts, his tank was struck on the gun mantlet by American antitank fire.  The fire may have come from an antitank gun near the church, or it may have been from a bazooka in a house; Wessel's radio operator SS-Unterscharführer Belbe reported seeing a flash from a window.  Wessel ordered his driver to reverse.  The driver evidently lost control of his huge mount; at any rate, he sent it careening backwards into a house in the Rue Haut Rivage.  The outer wall collapsed on the tank, immobilizing it.  The crew escaped through the hull hatches.  Wessel climbed into the next tank and continued toward Trois Ponts, arriving at La Gleize during the night.  (7)

Tiger 105 crashed into this house in the Rue Haut Rivage in Stavelot.  (M. Courtejoie, Stavelot) 

All is repaired today in the Rue Haut Rivage.  (author's photo)

The fighting caused great damage to buildings and a number of civilian deaths in Stavelot.  The citizens had not evacuated the town.  Many took shelter in cellars, including that of the Lemaire-Crismer home when Wessel’s tank crashed into the house.  A retired man named Jules Grégoire found the means to wet down what remained of the Lemaire-Crismer house and several others nearby, saving them from fire, while the battle raged.  Some of the houses in Stavelot still bear the marks of the battle today.

Bullet holes still pockmark this house in the Rue Haut Rivage.  (author's photo)

SS-Oberscharführer Jürgen Brandt in Tiger 131 and SS-Oberscharführer Werner Wendt in Tiger 133, plus another tank followed Wessel through Stavelot.  They were attacked by the same Allied fighter-bomber sorties that were bombing Peiper’s point elements at Cheneux.  Many of the paratroopers riding on the tanks were wounded.  After crossing the bridge Brandt’s tank sustained track damage and he was forced to stop, with Wendt behind him.  The other tank continued, and Wessel used it to carry on toward Trois Ponts.  It was the only 1. Kompanie tank to reach Peiper at La Gleize.  Wendt could not pass Brandt’s tank in the narrow street, and the two crews stayed in Stavelot to repair 131.

Other elements of s. SS-Pz.Abt. 501 were even more badly scattered.  Tanks that had fallen out or left the assembly area later were forced to try to catch up during darkness after the short winter days.  The narrow, muddy roads were difficult enough in daylight.  Night movements were reduced to a crawl.  Peiper reported after the war that ground guides had led the tanks with white handkerchiefs, and a U.S. half-track commander moving through the Ardennes on the night of 18 December said that it was so dark that he had to walk in front of his vehicle with a flashlight on the back of his belt while a crewman perched on the fender called directions to the driver.  (8)

Notes:

(3) Information on the Malmedy Case to be Heard at Camp Dachau, Germany 2 May 1946.  Headquarters European Aviation Engineer Command, 1946.

(4) U.S. v Valentin Bersin et al., roll 3, 1939, National Archives Building, Washington, DC.

(5) Gerd J. Gust Cuppens, Massacre a Malmedy? Ardennes: 17 décembre 1944 (Bayeux, France: Editions Heimdal, 1989), 60.

(6) Karl Wortmann, “Parole: ‘Frohe Weihnachten.’” Der Freiwillige 24 no. 12 (December 1978): 5.

(7)  Werner Wendt, letter to author, 31 March 1997.  Although German sources agree that this action took place about 1500 hours, it may have occurred earlier.  The After Action Report of Company A, 825th Tank Destroyer Battalion for 18 December 1944 relates a battle between one of the company’s towed 3” tank destroyers and a Tiger Royal that “had come into town by another route” around 1130 hours.  “One of the rounds from the 3” gun hit the tank at a point where the gun extends from the turret, and the tank withdrew.  In doing so, the tank backed into a brick building, and pulled the building down pinning the tank underneath the wreckage." After Action Report, Company “A” 825th Tank Destroyer Battalion, page 2; National Archives Building, Washington, DC.

(8) U.S. Army, ETHINT 11, question 8, National Archives Building, Washington, DC.; and Bill Edie, letter to author, 25 June 1996.

All text copyright 2005-2008 Gregory A. Walden. All rights reserved; material from this website may only be republished with the author’s permission.