SS officer and convicted Nazi war criminal (1915–1976)
Joachim Peiper (30 January 1915 – 13 July 1976), more often known as Jochen Peiper from the common German nickname for Joachim, was a World War II German SS officer and convicted war criminal who was responsible for the 1944 Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war. He served as personal adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, in the period April 1938 to August 1941. By the end of his military career in 1945, Peiper was the youngest regimental colonel in the Waffen-SS, holding the rank of SS-Standartenführer.
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My boys may charge me with all they want. The main thing is, it helps them. They are not evil and no criminals. They are the products of total war, grown up on the streets of scattered towns without any education! The only thing [they] knew was to handle weapons for the Dream of [the] Reich. They were young people with a hot heart and the desire to win or to die, according to the word: right or wrong—my country!
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I admit willingly that after the Normandy battles, my unit was composed of young fanatic soldiers. Many of them had lost their parents, or brothers and sisters in the bombardments. Some had seen for themselves at Cologne where thousands of bodies were crushed after the terrorist raids. Their hatred of the enemy was such that I admit that I could not always control them. At Malmédy, there were, no doubt, some excesses.