Who Murder3d Joachim Peiper? The Strange de4th of Himmler’s Favourite W4rrior
SS Ordan Furer or Lieutenant Colonel Ukim Piper, holder of the Knights Cross with oak leaves and swords and one of the most famous and some would say infamous Panza officers of World W4r II, d1ed pistol in hand f1ghting his enemy. enemies to his last breath. The only problem with this picture is the fact that Piper didn’t d1e in World W4r II in such a manner, but in 1976 and was f1ghting for his life in his own living room.
And even more bizarrely, that house wasn’t in Germany, but in France. This is the story of the strange demise of one of the most famous sold1ers of World W4r II. A Nazi poster boy and a fearsome and relentless w4rrior whose reputation was deeply sullied by w4r crimes and of course a long pr1son sentence.
In this episode, we will look at who Yurkim Piper was, what was his w4r record, why was he so famous, and what sort of mentality did he have? Ukim Piper was born in Vilmersdorf, Germany on the 30th of January 1915 from a middle cla.ss family. His father had been an officer in the German Imperial Army in Africa and in World W4r I served in the Ottoman Empire or Turkey.
After World W4r I, Piper’s father had been very active in Frycore paramilitary groups, including taking part in the suppressing of the Polish Sillesian uprisings of 1919 to 21. Yurkim Piper determined to become an army officer like his father. He had two older brothers. The middle brother of the three named Host joined the SS and served as a concentration camp guard in the SS Torton Copibanda later serving in the third SS Panza division in France in 1940.
Horpiper d1ed in Poland in June 1941. believed to have taken his own life due to his homosexuality. Piper’s eldest brother, Hans Ha.ssel, was mentally unst4ble and also attempted to end his own life. He eventually d1ed of tuberculosis in 1942. Ukim had joined the SS in October 1933, serving in the cavalry branch. He was promoted and in 1934 came to the attention of Reichkes Furer SS Henrik Himmler himself.
Sent on a leadership course, some rather unsavory aspects of Piper’s personality were noted by his instructors. He was egocentric and constantly named dropped his relationship with Himmler. SS psychologists concluded that Piper was a difficult man. As a subordinate, he might prove troublesome and as a superior, probably arrogant.
However, he wasn’t binned, probably due to his relationship with Himmler. And in March 1936, Piper completed his officer training was commissioned as an unashm furer or second lieutenant. And of course, after going to SS officer school was thoroughly versed in the anti semitic worldview of the SS. He would also join the NSDAP in 1938, contradicting his later contention that he had been an a olitical sold1er in World W4r II.
He was certainly during the w4r a fully paid up Nazi. In June 1938, Piper was promoted onto the personal staff of Himmler as an agitant. He became in fact Himmler’s favorite agitant and accompanied him everywhere he went. During the invasion of Poland, Piper was with Himmler aboard his armor train and also sometimes acted as an agitant to Hitler during his front visits or at Fura headquarters.
Piper first saw the true face of the regime. He served on the 20th of September 1939 when he was present alongside Himmler at the execution of 20 Polish socialist leaders by ethnic German defense militia commanded by SS officer Ludolfph von Alvin. On the 13th of December 1939, Piper accompanied Himmler to a village near Pausnan in Poland and witnessed the ga.ssing of mentally ill patients in a hospital there.
This was part of the Octium T4 euthanasia program. He also accompanied Himmler on inspection tours of concentration camps including Nuan Gama and Zakenhausen and in 1940 Bookenvald and Flossenborg including witnessing another Action T4 ga.ssing demonstration. All of this information is often lost in the retelling of Piper’s SS service with most people concentrating on com grouper Piper and his activities in the Arden offensive in 1944.
that these early activities should be weighed against his later military service in action. The man knew what he was f1ghting for and for whom. During the invasion of France in May 1940, Piper was released to get some combat service, commanding a platoon of the Liandata SS Adolf Hitler, the most prestigious unit in the SS, serving in the motorized regiment.
for his actions in capturing a French artillery battery. Piper was aw4rded the iron cross second cla.ss and promoted to Hobdom Fura or captain. Soon after Piper was aw4rded the iron cross first cla.ss. Then in June he returned to his post as Himmler’s agitant. In the months before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarasa in June 1941, Piper accompanied Himmler and his staff to Poland, Norway, Austria, and Greece, inspecting army and SS units and so on.
He then took part in an SS conference during which Himmler outlined his plan to exterminate 30 million Slavs. Once the invasion was launched, Himmler and Piper visited Enzat Groupen mobile de4th squads operating behind the German front line, including watching actual ma.ss executions.
One of Piper’s jobs was to deliver the daily de4th counts to Himler, giving him intimate knowledge of the SS murd3r machine operating on the Eastern Front. Piper was next a.ssigned to the first SS Panza division, LSSH. He commanded a tank company and was noted for his aggress1ve leadership style and for the high casualties among his own men.
The LSSH also a.ssisted the Anzat groupin in murd3ring Soviet Jews, commisars, Red Army pr1soners of w4r and partisans. In May 1942, the LSSH was sent to France. Piper becoming a battalion commander. Back east. In January 1943, Piper’s unit was highly commended during the third b4ttle of Karkov, rescuing a trapped German infantry division.
At the conclusion of the b4ttle, Piper’s troops discovered that a small SS medical detachment of 25 men who had been left behind in the village of Kranoya, Polana had been k1lled and some of them mutilated by Soviet forces. Piper ordered the village burned down and all of the inhabitants sh0t or burned alive, earning Piper’s unit the nickname of the Blowtorrch Battalion.
aw4rded the German cross in gold for his actions at Karkov. Piper was involved in further ma.ssacres. The village of Yframovka and also at Seamonovka. LSSH troops under his command k1lled 872 men, women, and children, including burning alive 240 people in the Ephraimovka church. Piper received the Knight’s Cross on the 9th of March, 1943.
The German press was quick at Himmler’s urgings to lord Piper as the ideal German officer, handsome, brave, and a born leader. This Nazi propaganda actually had a very long life and has contributed to how Piper was viewed postw4r and indeed even today in certain quarters. An a olitical sold1er of exceptional abilities who happened to be in the Vafaness.
The reality was, as we have seen, a little different. After f1ghting at the b4ttle of Kursk in July 1943, the LSSH was transferred to northern Italy, taking part in Operation Axa, the German military takeover of Italy following Mussolini’s fall from power. Shortly after this, Piper was involved again in a ma.ssacre.
during a g.un b4ttle with Italian partisans at Bouves in Pedmont the 19th of September 1943 during which two SS men were taken pr1soner and one was k1lled. Piper thre4tened to destr0y the village if the men were not released immediately. After desperate negotiations, the SS men were indeed set free, but Piper nonetheless ordered his men to k1ll 24 Italian men from the village in retaliation.
One woman was also murd3red. Piper’s command methods have been questioned, particularly his poor use of tactics and his apparent disinterest in German casualties. During b4ttles at the Ukrainian city of Zitmir, Piper commanded the first SS Panza regiment. His aggress1ve way of leading led to very heavy casualties amongst his own men.
He also caused so much damage to his equipment that he was transferred to a staff position immediately afterw4rds. However, on the 27th of January 1944, Hitler aw4rded Piper the Oak Leaves to his Knights Cross. Redeployed to the West, the LSSH saw extensive action in the Battle of Normandy. The division would lose every tank it possessed and 25% of its men during the weeks of f1ghting there.
And from the f1ghting around the city of Co, Piper suffered a nervous breakdown and was evacuated and hospitalized for a long time. rejoining his regiment in October 1944. Piper is of course most famous for the activities in the Arden and the Battle of the Bulge when his b4ttle group Comf Grouper Piper led the sixth Panza army’s @ttack making the deepest penetration in that sector until surrounded the village of Laglaz in Belgium.
Forced to abandon all of his vehicles and tanks, Piper and 717 of his men, out of 3,000 who started off, managed to f1ght their way out of the encirclement and get back to German lines. During the campfer’s advance on the 17th of December, 1944, a convoy of 30 US vehicles were confronted at the Bonet Crossroads near the village of Malmade.
Over a hundred Americans were taken pr1soner and once Piper and the Punza regiment moved off, firing broke out. The US pr1soners then being under guard by SS pioneers of the LSSH and 84 US sold1ers were k1lled by the SS. This is the Malmade ma.ssacre. The cause of the firing has never been fully est4blished. However, men under Piper’s command k1lled many US pr1soners of w4r in the Arden and also lots of Belgian civilians.
It has been estimated that KF grouper Piper murd3red 362 US Ps and 111 civilians dur Hitler aw4rded Piper the swords to his Knights Cross in January 1945. Tow4rds w4rs end, Piper fought in Hungary until on the 1st of May 1945, then in Austria, the LSSH was informed of Hitler’s de4th the day before in Berlin.
Keen, for obvious reasons, not to surrender to the Soviet Union, Piper was ordered to surrender his unit to US forces on the 8th of May. However, Piper had no reason to be taken pr1soner by the Americans either, and he made himself scarce and walked all the way home, but was apprehended by US military police on the 22nd of May, 1945.
The US Army investigated the Malmade ma.ssacre in great detail and scoured P camps to find LSSH sold1ers who had been involved. And Piper and many of his subordinates were placed on trial for w4r crimes. Piper was a devout Nazi. Under US interrogation in July 1945, when asked about the Poles and Jews during the w4r, Piper became angry and said the following.
Quote, “All Jews are bad and all Poles are bad. We have just cleansed our society and moved these people into camps, and you let them loose.” End quote. Well, how close were you to these people that were firing from the wind? I was driving right past these houses and underneath the windows. I had to get my head down several times. And I saw these people shoot.
Did you see the people? How are they dressed? These were people which one could see only for an instant. They usually wore civilian headgear and the civilian jacket. But of course, I can’t give any details. Did you see any 80year old women firing at you from the windows there in Bullingham? In those short moments, I had no occasion to determine the age of the person firing.
Well, did you see any one year old babies firing at you from the windows in Bulling? No, not even in Russia did I see any one year old babies spiring. Piper took command responsibility for the crimes committed by his men. tried at Dao alongside 73 other defendants including Piper’s old sixth Panza army commander Zep Dietrich Dietrich’s chief of staff Fritz Kramer and the first SS Panza commander Herman Priest Piper and the others were sentenced on the 16th of July 1946.
The American military tribunal was determined to extract justice for their de@d sold1ers at Malmay. Piper was found guilty of w4r crimes and sentenced to de4th. He had a slight smile on his face as he received the sentence and as he marched away from the court. In March 1948, the US authorities reviewed 43 de4th sentences of the 74 men who were tried at Dhaka and upheld 12, including Pipers.
The rest were commuted to terms of impr1sonment. However, in 1951, Piper’s de4th sentence was also commuted after some pressure from various high level sources, and instead he was given 35 years impr1sonment. However, Piper was suddenly released early on the 22nd of December 1956. Searching for work, he used the Vafaness Mutual Aid Community Organization or Hyag to help find such work.
Piper going to work for Porsche in Stuttgart in 1957 as a salesman. He would keep in contact with his SS subordinates and superior officers and attended many reunions of Knights Crossholders, though he tended not to attend SS reunions. However, then in the late 1960s, Piper took the rather extraordinary step of moving to France, placing in train the events that led to his unlikely and vi0lent end.
And in episode two, we will find out why Piper moved to France, what happened when he was living there, and possibly who k1lled him and why. Many thanks for watching. Please subscribe and share, and also visit my audio book channel, W4r Stories with Mark Felton. You can also help to support both of my channels at PayPal and Patreon.
Details in the descr.i.ption box below.
SS Ordan Furer or Lieutenant Colonel Ukim Piper, holder of the Knights Cross with oak leaves and swords and one of the most famous and some would say infamous Panza officers of World W4r II, d1ed pistol in hand f1ghting his enemy. enemies to his last breath. The only problem with this picture is the fact that Piper didn’t d1e in World W4r II in such a manner, but in 1976 and was f1ghting for his life in his own living room.
And even more bizarrely, that house wasn’t in Germany, but in France. This is the story of the strange demise of one of the most famous sold1ers of World W4r II. A Nazi poster boy and a fearsome and relentless w4rrior whose reputation was deeply sullied by w4r crimes and of course a long pr1son sentence.
In this episode, we will look at who Yurkim Piper was, what was his w4r record, why was he so famous, and what sort of mentality did he have? Ukim Piper was born in Vilmersdorf, Germany on the 30th of January 1915 from a middle cla.ss family. His father had been an officer in the German Imperial Army in Africa and in World W4r I served in the Ottoman Empire or Turkey.
After World W4r I, Piper’s father had been very active in Frycore paramilitary groups, including taking part in the suppressing of the Polish Sillesian uprisings of 1919 to 21. Yurkim Piper determined to become an army officer like his father. He had two older brothers. The middle brother of the three named Host joined the SS and served as a concentration camp guard in the SS Torton Copibanda later serving in the third SS Panza division in France in 1940.
Horpiper d1ed in Poland in June 1941. believed to have taken his own life due to his homosexuality. Piper’s eldest brother, Hans Ha.ssel, was mentally unst4ble and also attempted to end his own life. He eventually d1ed of tuberculosis in 1942. Ukim had joined the SS in October 1933, serving in the cavalry branch. He was promoted and in 1934 came to the attention of Reichkes Furer SS Henrik Himmler himself.
Sent on a leadership course, some rather unsavory aspects of Piper’s personality were noted by his instructors. He was egocentric and constantly named dropped his relationship with Himmler. SS psychologists concluded that Piper was a difficult man. As a subordinate, he might prove troublesome and as a superior, probably arrogant.
However, he wasn’t binned, probably due to his relationship with Himmler. And in March 1936, Piper completed his officer training was commissioned as an unashm furer or second lieutenant. And of course, after going to SS officer school was thoroughly versed in the anti semitic worldview of the SS. He would also join the NSDAP in 1938, contradicting his later contention that he had been an a olitical sold1er in World W4r II.
He was certainly during the w4r a fully paid up Nazi. In June 1938, Piper was promoted onto the personal staff of Himmler as an agitant. He became in fact Himmler’s favorite agitant and accompanied him everywhere he went. During the invasion of Poland, Piper was with Himmler aboard his armor train and also sometimes acted as an agitant to Hitler during his front visits or at Fura headquarters.
Piper first saw the true face of the regime. He served on the 20th of September 1939 when he was present alongside Himmler at the execution of 20 Polish socialist leaders by ethnic German defense militia commanded by SS officer Ludolfph von Alvin. On the 13th of December 1939, Piper accompanied Himmler to a village near Pausnan in Poland and witnessed the ga.ssing of mentally ill patients in a hospital there.
This was part of the Octium T4 euthanasia program. He also accompanied Himmler on inspection tours of concentration camps including Nuan Gama and Zakenhausen and in 1940 Bookenvald and Flossenborg including witnessing another Action T4 ga.ssing demonstration. All of this information is often lost in the retelling of Piper’s SS service with most people concentrating on com grouper Piper and his activities in the Arden offensive in 1944.
that these early activities should be weighed against his later military service in action. The man knew what he was f1ghting for and for whom. During the invasion of France in May 1940, Piper was released to get some combat service, commanding a platoon of the Liandata SS Adolf Hitler, the most prestigious unit in the SS, serving in the motorized regiment.
for his actions in capturing a French artillery battery. Piper was aw4rded the iron cross second cla.ss and promoted to Hobdom Fura or captain. Soon after Piper was aw4rded the iron cross first cla.ss. Then in June he returned to his post as Himmler’s agitant. In the months before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarasa in June 1941, Piper accompanied Himmler and his staff to Poland, Norway, Austria, and Greece, inspecting army and SS units and so on.
He then took part in an SS conference during which Himmler outlined his plan to exterminate 30 million Slavs. Once the invasion was launched, Himmler and Piper visited Enzat Groupen mobile de4th squads operating behind the German front line, including watching actual ma.ss executions.
One of Piper’s jobs was to deliver the daily de4th counts to Himler, giving him intimate knowledge of the SS murd3r machine operating on the Eastern Front. Piper was next a.ssigned to the first SS Panza division, LSSH. He commanded a tank company and was noted for his aggress1ve leadership style and for the high casualties among his own men.
The LSSH also a.ssisted the Anzat groupin in murd3ring Soviet Jews, commisars, Red Army pr1soners of w4r and partisans. In May 1942, the LSSH was sent to France. Piper becoming a battalion commander. Back east. In January 1943, Piper’s unit was highly commended during the third b4ttle of Karkov, rescuing a trapped German infantry division.
At the conclusion of the b4ttle, Piper’s troops discovered that a small SS medical detachment of 25 men who had been left behind in the village of Kranoya, Polana had been k1lled and some of them mutilated by Soviet forces. Piper ordered the village burned down and all of the inhabitants sh0t or burned alive, earning Piper’s unit the nickname of the Blowtorrch Battalion.
aw4rded the German cross in gold for his actions at Karkov. Piper was involved in further ma.ssacres. The village of Yframovka and also at Seamonovka. LSSH troops under his command k1lled 872 men, women, and children, including burning alive 240 people in the Ephraimovka church. Piper received the Knight’s Cross on the 9th of March, 1943.
The German press was quick at Himmler’s urgings to lord Piper as the ideal German officer, handsome, brave, and a born leader. This Nazi propaganda actually had a very long life and has contributed to how Piper was viewed postw4r and indeed even today in certain quarters. An a olitical sold1er of exceptional abilities who happened to be in the Vafaness.
The reality was, as we have seen, a little different. After f1ghting at the b4ttle of Kursk in July 1943, the LSSH was transferred to northern Italy, taking part in Operation Axa, the German military takeover of Italy following Mussolini’s fall from power. Shortly after this, Piper was involved again in a ma.ssacre.
during a g.un b4ttle with Italian partisans at Bouves in Pedmont the 19th of September 1943 during which two SS men were taken pr1soner and one was k1lled. Piper thre4tened to destr0y the village if the men were not released immediately. After desperate negotiations, the SS men were indeed set free, but Piper nonetheless ordered his men to k1ll 24 Italian men from the village in retaliation.
One woman was also murd3red. Piper’s command methods have been questioned, particularly his poor use of tactics and his apparent disinterest in German casualties. During b4ttles at the Ukrainian city of Zitmir, Piper commanded the first SS Panza regiment. His aggress1ve way of leading led to very heavy casualties amongst his own men.
He also caused so much damage to his equipment that he was transferred to a staff position immediately afterw4rds. However, on the 27th of January 1944, Hitler aw4rded Piper the Oak Leaves to his Knights Cross. Redeployed to the West, the LSSH saw extensive action in the Battle of Normandy. The division would lose every tank it possessed and 25% of its men during the weeks of f1ghting there.
And from the f1ghting around the city of Co, Piper suffered a nervous breakdown and was evacuated and hospitalized for a long time. rejoining his regiment in October 1944. Piper is of course most famous for the activities in the Arden and the Battle of the Bulge when his b4ttle group Comf Grouper Piper led the sixth Panza army’s @ttack making the deepest penetration in that sector until surrounded the village of Laglaz in Belgium.
Forced to abandon all of his vehicles and tanks, Piper and 717 of his men, out of 3,000 who started off, managed to f1ght their way out of the encirclement and get back to German lines. During the campfer’s advance on the 17th of December, 1944, a convoy of 30 US vehicles were confronted at the Bonet Crossroads near the village of Malmade.
Over a hundred Americans were taken pr1soner and once Piper and the Punza regiment moved off, firing broke out. The US pr1soners then being under guard by SS pioneers of the LSSH and 84 US sold1ers were k1lled by the SS. This is the Malmade ma.ssacre. The cause of the firing has never been fully est4blished. However, men under Piper’s command k1lled many US pr1soners of w4r in the Arden and also lots of Belgian civilians.
It has been estimated that KF grouper Piper murd3red 362 US Ps and 111 civilians dur Hitler aw4rded Piper the swords to his Knights Cross in January 1945. Tow4rds w4rs end, Piper fought in Hungary until on the 1st of May 1945, then in Austria, the LSSH was informed of Hitler’s de4th the day before in Berlin.
Keen, for obvious reasons, not to surrender to the Soviet Union, Piper was ordered to surrender his unit to US forces on the 8th of May. However, Piper had no reason to be taken pr1soner by the Americans either, and he made himself scarce and walked all the way home, but was apprehended by US military police on the 22nd of May, 1945.
The US Army investigated the Malmade ma.ssacre in great detail and scoured P camps to find LSSH sold1ers who had been involved. And Piper and many of his subordinates were placed on trial for w4r crimes. Piper was a devout Nazi. Under US interrogation in July 1945, when asked about the Poles and Jews during the w4r, Piper became angry and said the following.
Quote, “All Jews are bad and all Poles are bad. We have just cleansed our society and moved these people into camps, and you let them loose.” End quote. Well, how close were you to these people that were firing from the wind? I was driving right past these houses and underneath the windows. I had to get my head down several times. And I saw these people shoot.
Did you see the people? How are they dressed? These were people which one could see only for an instant. They usually wore civilian headgear and the civilian jacket. But of course, I can’t give any details. Did you see any 80year old women firing at you from the windows there in Bullingham? In those short moments, I had no occasion to determine the age of the person firing.
Well, did you see any one year old babies firing at you from the windows in Bulling? No, not even in Russia did I see any one year old babies spiring. Piper took command responsibility for the crimes committed by his men. tried at Dao alongside 73 other defendants including Piper’s old sixth Panza army commander Zep Dietrich Dietrich’s chief of staff Fritz Kramer and the first SS Panza commander Herman Priest Piper and the others were sentenced on the 16th of July 1946.
The American military tribunal was determined to extract justice for their de@d sold1ers at Malmay. Piper was found guilty of w4r crimes and sentenced to de4th. He had a slight smile on his face as he received the sentence and as he marched away from the court. In March 1948, the US authorities reviewed 43 de4th sentences of the 74 men who were tried at Dhaka and upheld 12, including Pipers.
The rest were commuted to terms of impr1sonment. However, in 1951, Piper’s de4th sentence was also commuted after some pressure from various high level sources, and instead he was given 35 years impr1sonment. However, Piper was suddenly released early on the 22nd of December 1956. Searching for work, he used the Vafaness Mutual Aid Community Organization or Hyag to help find such work.
Piper going to work for Porsche in Stuttgart in 1957 as a salesman. He would keep in contact with his SS subordinates and superior officers and attended many reunions of Knights Crossholders, though he tended not to attend SS reunions. However, then in the late 1960s, Piper took the rather extraordinary step of moving to France, placing in train the events that led to his unlikely and vi0lent end.
And in episode two, we will find out why Piper moved to France, what happened when he was living there, and possibly who k1lled him and why. Many thanks for watching. Please subscribe and share, and also visit my audio book channel, W4r Stories with Mark Felton. You can also help to support both of my channels at PayPal and Patreon.
Details in the descr.i.ption box below.
