The Malmedy Massacre: Nazis Kill 84 American Prisoners of War

After visiting the Bastogne War Museum in Belgium, I drove northeast to the Baugnez crossroads, site of the Malmedy Massacre.  On December 17, 1944, a convoy of American troops in trucks was cut off and captured by a tank column of the 1st SS Panzer Division.

More than 100 American troops were herded from the trucks into a field near the crossroads. Nazi soldiers surrounded the Americans and opened fire with machine guns.  when all of the Americans were dead or wounded, the SS troops walked among the bodies firing a headshot into any soldier who was not dead.

At this point in the Battle of the Bulge, the massacred Americans were behind enemy lines until January. As the battle turned in favor of the Americans, advancing soldiers saw the frozen bodies of their comrades left in the snow. Eventually 43 soldiers were discovered in hiding who escaped the massacre, but 84 American soldiers were dead.

There is a memorial at the roundabout at the Baugnez crossroads.  The name of every American soldier killed is on the stone wall. 

Attacking NATO Allies is Stupid and Dangerous

The Malmedy Massacre, 17 December 1944

Seventy years of peace and prosperity after centuries of nearly continuous war is an amazing treasure that no one should take for granted. Yet here we are with a fool in the White House who loves dictators and hates the the Allies who have kept the peace in Europe since the end of World War II.

Yesterday, September 1, 2019, is the 80th Anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939.

Beginning 9am yesterday, I watched the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Belgium at the Spa Circuit that is located in the southeast corner of this small country that has suffered so many invasions. The track is just four miles from Malmedy where Nazi troops massacred 84 American prisoners on 17 December 1944. Spa is 35 miles from Bastogne where American soldiers were surrounded and held out in the last major Nazi attack of World War II.

Belgium is at the center of the European Union and the headquarters of NATO, the treaty organization at the center of peace across Europe since the end of World War II in 1945.

As I watched the race, I was more aware than usual that a French driver in an Italian car is leading a British driver in a German car. Drivers from Germany, Finland, Italy, Canada, Mexico, Poland, Holland, Russia, Australia, Spain follow the leaders. The series is now owned by Americans, though there is currently no American driver.

The 21 races are held in 21 countries on five continents. Ten of the races are in NATO member countries. Part of the reason these races and every other world sport can exist is more than 70 years of peace under NATO.

NATO held the line against the Soviet Union in the Cold War. I served in both the Air Force and the Army off and on since 1972. The Cold War is the only clear victory in my years of service.

When I hear, see and read the President trashing NATO, I get ill. Europe has never been safer and more peaceful than the last seven decades and the foolish, shallow, friend of dictators in the White House is squandering this achievement.