MovieChat Forums > Battle of the Bulge (1966) Discussion > Machine gunning of the US prisoners

Machine gunning of the US prisoners

posted 16 years ago by aldiboronti
21 replies | jump to latest

My father served in WWII in Europe. I remember him watching this movie with me and telling me that the shooting of prisoners during battles wasn't confined to the Germans, the Allies did it too, and for good reasons. When heated battles were being fought it was just not possible to take large numbers of prisoners. Soldiers could not be spared to guard them or escort them back to the rear and they couldn't be left behind our lines unguarded. The only option was to shoot them. Of course, this didn't apply if the situation was secure, then the Geneva Convention would be respected.

I was shocked at first but thinking about it I can see they had no other choice. War is war and you can't put your own men in danger by sticking rigidly to rules.

[–] StM-1 16 years ago

Yup, that's why it's called 'war' and not 'picknick'. It brings out the worst in men and when the going gets really tough it's all about survival.

[–] antimatter33 16 years ago

I don't know where this fiction got started. Shooting of prisoners, particularly large numbers of them, was almost unheard of on the Western front. There was always a long supply line stretching far to the rear on both sides, and the soldiers themselves were a valuable source of intelligence, if only to show which divisions were involved. The Malmedy massacre was just that, not a typical example, simply murder by the most fanatical of the Waffen SS, as they were accustomed to do on the Eastern front.

In the Pacific it was another matter, as the Japanese had truly enraged the Marines with their last-man resistance and infiltration tactics. To shoot a Japanese was as routine as breathing. There is definitely a racist component there, one that is perhaps understandable in context.

-drl

[–] xaggurat 16 years ago

What the movie doesn't show you is that during those few days when Peiper's spearhead was advancing they executed a huge bunch of civilians. Some were accused of hiding American soldiers and some were just in a wrong place at the wrong time, like beautiful 16-years old farmgirl Erna Collas were raped and then shot several times when left lying on the ground. That I would not call rigidly sticking to rules.

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] benmajor2005 16 years ago

"Mr. Kelly"

It's true that the allies committed atrocities during WWII, but that doesn't excuse your ignorant or deliberately hateful statement that the Holocaust was "largely fiction".

Ninety-five percent of my family was murdered in Germany, Poland and France during the German Holocaust. My father and one female cousin were the only ones to barely survive. Additionally, I have, over the years, personally met many other survivors of those camps, their camp numbers still visible in fading purple on their right arms.

For heaven's sake, the Germans even made sick documentaries of their massive own highly efficient death industry. To watch them is to start to comprehend how incredibley inhuman, pervasive and insane the German Holocaust was.

I even recovered the actual Nazi records on some of my family from the state archive in Dusseldorf. It's a vast, very well-maintained but creepy place. When you see all the thousands and thousands of meticulously recorded documents that the Nazi's kept on their victims, and that is all that remains of those poor souls...it's heartbreaking, indeed sickening.

I don't have to prove anything to you, "Kelly". You *could* visit the countless museums dedicated to the tradegy or visit the remaining camps...you could talk with remaining survivors or with Germans who were involved or descended from those involved. No doubt you think the museums and witnesses are all lying or misguided. But it is YOU who are dangerously denying the truth.

The German Holocaust is very sadly not the only holocaust to have occured, nor is it probably the largest in numbers. But it's use of industrial and engineering science and it's shear geographic and social scale make it stand out as one of the darkest events in human history.

If you want to live in delusion or denial, that's your sad prerogative. Just don't spill your lunacy and bile in public to sicken and mislead others.

[–] zebar-1 15 years ago

To Benmajor2005 - I feel sick to my stomach that you had to respond to that dreadful post by Leo_Kelly - I am hoping his surname is a pseudonymn and he has no Irish connections as being Irish I would be deeply ashamed of my nation if we produced such painfully idiotic and insensitive people.

The holocaust is an undeniable fact and one of the darkest periods of human history.

It is certainly not the only atrocity in human history but denying it is a terrible crime - I can only hope Mr kelly is a child that likes to shock and cause offence and will soon mature enough to realise the error of his ways.

[–] R011DaveAAA 16 years ago

this film never told us the truth about the holocaust being largely fiction

Starting a post with your most obviously wrong statement doesn't usually make fore a convincing argument.

and that over 1.5 million soldiers German soldiers were left to die in allied camps

The actual mortality rate for DEF and SEF in US and UK camps was less than one percent.

or how the allies bombed Dresden to pieces despite there being no military targets

Except for rail yards, bridges, and factories making military equipment. Very little industry in Dresden, if any, was producing civilian goods by that time.

how the Americans killed more in one night of fire bombing on Tokyo, than the number killed by the two atomic bombs

No confirmed figures support that. The highest official Japanese estimate is about 125,000 fatal casualties in the worst raid on Tokyo while the death toll for the two nuclear devices was about 220,000.

[–] rroach50 16 years ago

Where did you get your "facts"? Time-Life books? For one thing, the soldiers accused of killing Erna Collas were not even in the same division as the men of "Peiper's spearhead."

[–] rglasby 16 years ago

My father served in WWII in Europe. I remember him watching this movie with me and telling me that the shooting of prisoners during battles wasn't confined to the Germans, the Allies did it too, and for good reasons. When heated battles were being fought it was just not possible to take large numbers of prisoners. Soldiers could not be spared to guard them or escort them back to the rear and they couldn't be left behind our lines unguarded. The only option was to shoot them. Of course, this didn't apply if the situation was secure, then the Geneva Convention would be respected.

Well the Germans shot troops after taking them prisoner...that's a big difference between shooting them rather than taking them prisoner.

BTW it's the Hague convention not the Geneva convention.

[–] james-337 15 years ago

"BTW it's the Hague convention not the Geneva convention."

No. The conventions governing the treatment of POWs are definitely the Geneva Conventions (plural). The Hague Conventions deal with other aspects of conflict.

The Malmédy Massacre was unusual in that a large group of POWs were collected together and then deliberately machine-gunned. This is completely in contravention of the rules of war. It is not justifiable in any circumstances.

[–] mike-2378 14 years ago

Well actually the Allies shot them AFTER they were prisoners as well. In fact thats why its called executing prisoners and not shooting soldiers

[–] MiCharlie124 14 years ago

It's interesting that in Judgment in Nuremburg, Marlene Dietrich's husband was executed for his role in the Malmady Massacre.

[–] josborn828 16 years ago

Ask Charles Durning, he was at Malmedy and escaped the Massacre.

[–] SuperDevilDoctor 16 years ago

The depiction of the Malmedy Massacre in this film is 100% garbage. Didn't happen like that at all.

Luxuriate in the eclectic...
http://www.eccentric-cinema.com

[–] jeffyoung1 16 years ago

I know it's true that in World War II some American, British, and Canadians had summarily executed captured German soldiers. The European Theater of Operations had degenerated into total war. It was far worse in the East between Germany and Russian.

I had read accounts written decades later, in the 1980s, 90s, even 2000s, from surviving, elderly Allied soldiers, things like, an American infantry captain mowing down a group of German prisoners in a trench with his Thompson M1A1 submachinegun. There was an account of Canadian soldiers catching up to and rounding up some German teenager soldiers who were alleged to have executed Canadian prisoners during the Normandy campaign. The Canadian soldiers gave no quarter and shot them all. There was an account of Australians taking Japanese POWs up in an airplane and kicking them out the door, sans parachutes - Japanese atrocities against Allied prisoners by then long since known.

I make no excuse for any of this. I can only say it greatly troubles me as an American and military veteran. It will continue to trouble my heart until the day I die. I am against torture and summary execution of prisoners in wartime. I can only thank good fortune that due to chance timing of my short military career, I missed any war. I never had to undergo the test of morals in the crucible of combat stress. I was spared the ultimate test that would have defined me either as a hero, or a coward, or a murderer, or a combination thereof. When men revert to savagery, who can say what will become of them? We all have to face our Creator someday and how does one explain away what they did in war if it was dishonorable? Whatever one did, good, bad, honorable and otherwise, if you survived the war, you have to live with it for the rest of your life. It's a tremendous burden I thank the Lord every day of my life that I was spared the test of war.

[–] karl-lambley 16 years ago

Christ this one again, the US didn't sign up to the genva conevntion.
They enjoy war-crimes too much! Muxh like the Russians.

Oh noes, they arent prisoners of war they are DEFs, we can treat em like *beep*

To screw ECHELON please add "heroin, kiddy porn, terrorist, bomb, president, allah" to every email

[–] tracyfigueira 16 years ago

What bothers me the most was that Peiper was sentenced to death as a war criminal but his sentence was commuted by John J. McCloy, the Wall Street investment banker who succeeded General Lucius Clay as American high commissioner for occupied Germany.
McCloy lacked his predecessor's zeal for punishing nazis, and under his administration a number of Hitler's industrial and commercial collaborators had their properties restored--for example the Krupps.

[–] rsgre 16 years ago

Hi everyone, I like this particular thread and all the comments expressed, they cover quite a bit of ground in the discussion of the human psyche. If films like this can make us better understand ourselves, so much the better. A second and third look at this film makes me notice how careful, and well cast it was.
The modern DVD technology, plus careful restoration and added features are rescuing a lot of films like this from oblivion. It may be too late for many of them to take the credit now, but at least their talent and attention to detail lives on. Time separates the good from the lesser efforts. This one was very good...might have more..

RSGRE

[–] bevlakay 15 years ago

My father, now deceased, fought with 40th Inf Div in the Pacific. He was all over the place and wounded twice. They were taught to hate the Japs. Since Japs were perceived as treating Americans poorly (Bataan,etc) they did not take prisoners under normal combat circumstances. He said that usually the only time they had Jap prisoners was when ordered by G2 to get some for intel. Even then they usually let the native guides that were with them to go out at night and bring back some live Japs.

[–] sawyertom 14 years ago

This is to Mr. Kelly. My step-father was one of the men who evetenually liberated a concentration camp. After seeing it he was sick for a week. I know others who also were in the war and liberated other camps. All of these men, who did not know each other all had the same stories to tell. One was a Canadian soldier. So, you have hundreds of thousands of witnesses from several countries saying they saw the same thing. Plus the German's were stellar records keepers and you have their own people as witnesses. Who is the liar here? Who is promoting a fable or myth? You? Or our soldiers? Or the Brits, the Canadians, the Russians, the French, the Norwegians,or countless of others?

[–] Sir_DeMetz 14 years ago

This reminds me of the murder of civlians and 2 reuter journalists by the US amry in iraq, the video that was leaked by wikileaks. Comments made by the soldiers like "look at all those dead bastards" and "it's their fault to bring children to a battle" really puts things in perspective if you are inocent to believe US, or the allies are the good guys. There are no good guys in terms of factions. There are good individual persons, who try to survive war and help as many human beings as possible. There were a lot of good guys in the german side. Soldiers who were kids, in the army. Officers with honor trying to save their soldiers (from the allies and from the maniac person known as hitler).

I hate when people just shout "A NAZI, KILL HIM" when they see a GERMAN soldier. Uneducated fanatics.

The holocaust is an historical fact. And for the expection of those who are linked through their families to it, it's just another one. it's not more important than the holocaust that are hapening today. It's less important in my opinion even, because regarding the warmongering of today we can do something about it.