Killing Patton The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General (14 page)

Not today.

The Ninety-Ninth is made up of mostly green recruits who arrived in Europe just weeks ago. The unit was activated in October 1942, but many of those original members who trained together at Camp Van Dorn in Mississippi and Camp Maxey in Texas are either dead or in a hospital somewhere. Some units within the division are at half strength, meaning that cooks and clerks are now serving temporary duty as riflemen. The ground is almost frozen, but it is still possible to dig a deep foxhole, leaving the Ninety-Ninth less exposed and vulnerable. Their boots are not waterproof or insulated, so when they finally scrape away enough earth to make the home in the ground that will protect them from shrapnel and snipers, trench foot and frostbite add to their misery.

The German artillery and tanks fire from the safety of the valley forest, pounding the Ninety-Ninth as they huddle in their foxholes. The ground shakes so badly from the explosions that the few nearby trees fall over without being touched.

Snipers, meanwhile, kill anyone who exposes his head aboveground. And even when the Germans aren’t firing, the sounds of their laughter and snippets of conversation carry up the hill to the Ninety-Ninth. The Americans grow depressed and anxious as they hear the clank of tank treads from the forest, reminding them that the force now gathered below is, indeed, an enormous army.

It is only a matter of time before that army races up the Elsenborn Ridge to wipe out the Ninety-Ninth. The German forces outnumber the Americans by a ratio of five to one.

Those in the Ninety-Ninth who live to tell the story will long remember the scream of the high-velocity 88 mm shells, a sound that gets higher and more pronounced just before impact. They will remember reciting the Lord’s Prayer over and over as those assault guns pound their position. They will remember “the filth, the hunger, the cold, and the life of living like an animal.”

They abide by a new list of unwritten rules: They cannot sleep for any length of time because the German attacks have no set routine. They cannot leave their foxholes during daylight because German gunners zero in on any sign of movement.

Over the next four days, the Ninety-Ninth will see 133 more of its men die. Six hundred will fall back to the battalion aid stations to be treated for frozen feet. As many as 1,844 will go “missing,” meaning that their loved ones will never enjoy the closure that comes with having a body to bury. “This was our Valley Forge,” one soldier will remember.

Through it all, the leadership skills of the Ninety-Ninth’s officer corps will be sorely tested. Some will show themselves to be true leaders of men. Others will not. One senior officer will drive away in terror. Another will favor total surrender to fighting. After all, the Ninety-Ninth is facing elements of the Waffen SS, Hitler’s most elite and brutal fighting force. Surely it is better to raise the white flag of surrender and live to see home and family when the war ends than to face almost certain death or go “missing” at the hands of the SS.

It is Heinrich Himmler, the psychopathic leader of the SS, who preaches a philosophy that if an enemy is made to feel enough terror, there is no need for battle. He will simply quit.

But the Ninety-Ninth will soon learn that surrender does not always prevent violent death.

*   *   *

As the second day of Operation Watch on the Rhine begins, the First SS Panzer Division is on the move. They are the lead element in the much-larger Sixth Panzer Army, tasked with racing through the countryside to capture three vital bridges over the Meuse River.

The First comprises the best of the best, a fighting force so highly regarded by Hitler that he has allowed them to sew his name onto their uniform sleeves. In the buildup to Operation Watch on the Rhine, a lack of manpower was solved by shifting men from the Luftwaffe and German navy into the infantry. This is not the case with the First. They are all hardened fighters who have seen more than their share of combat in this war. And their armament bears testimony to their elite nature. It’s nothing but the finest for the First SS Panzer: sixty tanks, three flak tanks, seventy-five halftracks, fourteen 20 mm guns, twenty-seven 75 mm assault guns, and numerous 105 mm and 150 mm self-propelled howitzers.

“The morale was high throughout the entire period I was with them despite the extremely trying conditions,” an American officer will later write of his time as a prisoner of the First SS Panzer. “The discipline was very good. The physical condition of all personnel was good … The equipment was good and complete with the exception of some reconditioned half-tracks among the motorized equipment. All men wore practically new boots and had adequate clothing. Some of them wore parts of American uniforms, mainly the knit cap, gloves, sweaters, overshoes, and one or two overcoats. The relationship between officers and men … was closer and more friendly than I would have expected.”

In command of this magnificent fighting force is the dashing poster boy for the SS, twenty-nine-year-old Joachim Peiper. “He was approximately 5 feet 8 inches in height, 140 lbs. in weight, long dark hair combed straight back, straight well-shaped features with remarkable facial resemblance to the actor Ray Milland,” the American POW major will later write.

Peiper is a graduate of the SS military college at Bad Tölz, the German equivalent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, or Britain’s Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. The requirements for admission are rigorous, and include a background check to ensure Aryan racial purity
⁴
and personal behavior that the SS considers to be proper. The curriculum includes ample time in the classroom combined with hours of long-distance running to ensure maximum physical fitness. Combat exercises include using live rounds of ammunition to inure the future warriors to the feel of combat. The end result is an officer in the tradition of the legendary Greek Hoplites, who formed the backbone of the Spartan heavy infantry.

Amazingly, an advanced education is not necessary for admission to the SS-Junkerschule at Bad Tölz. The most important qualification is total loyalty to Adolf Hitler. Which is why a man such as Joachim Peiper, who dropped out of school to join the army, not only was accepted to the school but became a star alumnus.

Upon graduation, Peiper was selected to serve as a top assistant for SS leader Heinrich Himmler, a calculating and brutal man whom Peiper came to idolize. He even allowed the Reichsführer-SS to arrange his marriage.

Himmler was loyal to Adolf Hitler’s
Nationalsozialismus
(National Socialism, later shortened to Nazi) long before the Führer achieved absolute power over the German people in 1933. As such, he enjoys Hitler’s confidence, and is given the harsh task of carrying out the extermination and suppression of those races, ethnicities, and enemies whom Hitler deems a threat to the Reich, including Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and Nazi political opponents. Under Himmler’s tutelage, Peiper developed the philosophies of intolerance that now guide his military tactics. He stood at Himmler’s side to witness the shooting of Polish intellectuals in the early days of the war, and was an eyewitness to the first gassing of Jewish civilians, including women and children. When Himmler rewarded Peiper with an assignment to lead a halftrack battalion on the Russian front, the fanatical young officer developed a reputation for battlefield cunning. His men and tanks moved quickly, thrusting and feinting in a manner reminiscent of George S. Patton’s lightning-fast maneuvers. In one daring nighttime raid, his men rescued a German infantry division surrounded by Soviets who, on the verge of decimating the German unit, the 320th Infantry, had ceased their attack in order to rest and recoup. After waiting until well past midnight to make sure the Russian tank crews were sound asleep, Peiper’s First Panzer smashed through their lines, guns blazing. Not only were the able-bodied members of the 320th saved, but so were more than fifteen hundred wounded Wehrmacht fighters.

Joachim Peiper

Heinrich Himmler inspecting a German POW camp in the Soviet Union

It was Adolf Hitler himself who presented his dashing Aryan tank commander with the prestigious Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, making Peiper the youngest officer in the German army ever to be so honored.

During their time on the Russian front, Peiper’s men took few prisoners, believing that the
Untermenschen
, or “subhumans,” as the Germans called the Russians, did not deserve to live. They also developed a nickname for themselves, based on their passion for using fire in battle: the Blowtorch Brigade. On two occasions Peiper’s tanks completely surrounded Russian villages. His assault troops then set fire to every building, burning to death every man, woman, and child inside them. This is how Peiper punishes the subhuman.

Since the suicide of Field Marshal Rommel, there are few other German tank commanders who can compare to Peiper. He and his men now bring their ruthless talents to Operation Watch on the Rhine, where the need for speed on the battlefield is vital. The Germans must destroy the Allied army before replacement troops arrive, giving the Americans a numerical advantage in soldiers and weapons.

In his final act before Operation Watch on the Rhine launches, Peiper issues orders stating, “There will be no stopping for anything. No booty will be taken, and no enemy vehicles are to be examined. It is not the job of the spearhead to worry about prisoners of war.”

That job would be left to the slower columns of infantry trailing in their wake.

But the spearhead gets off to a slow start.

Thanks to the Ninety-Ninth’s defiant stand at the Elsenborn Ridge, Peiper’s intended route toward the Meuse is blocked. Furious at the sight of his Mark IV and Mark V Panther tanks stuck behind the horse-drawn artillery carriages of a support unit known as the Twelfth Volksgrenadier Division, Peiper personally begins directing traffic in order to take charge of the mess. Fourteen hours after the initial artillery barrage that launched Operation Watch on the Rhine, Peiper finally manages to get his tanks on the move. It is after dark. The dirt roads have been turned to thick, sloppy mud after the winter rains, and have not yet frozen for the night. To his chagrin, many German infantry commanders are ordering a halt, so that their men might find a warm house in which to enjoy a few hours’ sleep.

But Peiper and the men of the First do not sleep. All night long, the five-man
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crews of the twenty-five-ton German Panzers and forty-four-ton Panthers push through the forest, hoping that their tanks do not sink into the mud. Minefields force them to slow even further, and there are brief firefights as they breach the American lines. By morning the breakout is complete. There is no more American opposition. December 17 is a new day for Joachim Peiper and the men of the First Panzer Division. Knowing that overcast skies will keep American fighter-bombers grounded, Peiper races toward the Meuse.

Just before dawn, he and his men pass through the tiny village of Honsfeld, where they spot American jeeps parked outside a row of local houses. As Peiper presses on to the town of Büllingen, where he knows there to be a fuel dump, he leaves the SS infantry behind. They quickly search the houses and emerge with a group of American soldiers, who were literally caught napping. The seventeen men are marched outside wearing nothing but thin army-issue boxer shorts. The Americans stand barefoot in the darkness, cursing their fate even as they marvel at the enormity of the German caravan passing before them. Tanks, halftracks, and trucks curve into the distance as far as the eye can see. Clearly this is no mere spoiling attack.

Suddenly, SS troopers open fire on the unarmed captured Americans. Sixteen are shot dead where they stand. The remaining soldier pleads for his life, but the SS takes no pity, murdering him by throwing him in front of a tank.

Peiper successfully locates the American fuel dump in Büllingen, where two hundred U.S. soldiers are taken prisoner and forced to refuel the German tanks. Meanwhile, twelve members of the Second Infantry Division’s signal company have a bittersweet moment of luck. They manage to avoid detection by the SS, and spend the morning hiding in a cellar. When it becomes obvious that Tuffy, their beloved company dog, might bark and give them away, they reluctantly strangle the animal.