military tribunal established Peiper's command responsibility for having committed the Malmedy massacre (1944) and sentenced him to death, which later was commuted to perpetual imprisonment. Peiper fought in the Third Battle of Kharkov and in the Battle of the Bulge, from which battles his eponymous battle group - Kampfgruppe Peiper - became notorious for committing war crimes against civilians and PoWs. As a tank commander, Peiper served in the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) in the Eastern Front and in the Western Front, first as a battalion commander and then as a regimental commander. During the Second World War in Europe Peiper served as personal adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, and as a tank commander in the Waffen-SS.Īs adjutant to Himmler, Peiper witnessed the SS implement the Holocaust with ethnic cleansing and genocide in Eastern Europe facts that he obfuscated and denied in the post–War period. Joachim Peiper (30 January 1915 – 14 July 1976) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and a Nazi war criminal convicted for the Malmedy massacre of U.S. Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and SwordsĮmployee at Porsche sales trainer at Volkswagen Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS (as adjutant to Heinrich Himmler)ġst SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler