Malmedy is a picturesque Belgian town where on December 17, 1944, American soldiers fell victim to the worst atrocity of World War II in Europe involving American forces. Lieutenant Colonel Joachim Peiper’s battle group of the 1st SS Panzer Division, fresh from combat on the Eastern Front, was spearheading the German Army’s last great offensive of the war in the Battle of the Bulge.

They met and quickly overwhelmed the American Battery B, 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. Herding their prisoners into a nearby field, the SS shot and killed most of their captives. This is the story of that combat, massacre, and the investigations and war crimes trials that followed the defeat of Germany.

But following the trials, none of the Germans were executed and none served their full sentences. The author, John Bauserman, has reconstructed the events of that December and takes the reader into the trials in a manner never done before.

This book describes the Massacre in detail. Once started, it is difficult to put down. Nine specially drawn maps, rare photographs, and unique information-packed appendices give the reader a special insight into the last months of the war in Europe and its aftermath.