newBodies of executed American servicemen at Malmedy, Belgium. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
16. In response to the Malmedy massacre in 1944, the United States Army tolerated, if not actively encouraged, the unlawful killings of unarmed and surrendering German soldiers
Although the Malmedy massacre is an infamous and widely-known war crime committed by the Nazi SS, in which 84 American POWs belonging to the 285th Field Artillery Observation Batallion were unlawfully executed by firing squad, the criminal retaliation of the United States Army is less well-known. Responding in a tit-for-tat manner, the U.S. Army granted soldiers permission to respond in kind to surrendering German soldiers in what has subsequently been recognized as a flagrant violation of international law and a war crime.
In the aftermath of the Malmedy massacre on December 17, 1944, a written order was circulated from the Headquarters of the 328th U.S. Army Infantry Regiment stating that SS troops or paratroopers were no longer to be taken alive as prisoners but instead were to be shot on sight, a violation of the Third Geneva Convention. Similarly in 1945 Major-General Raymond Hufft instructed his troops to not accept prisoner surrenders after they crossed the Rhine, instead of permitting them to engage in the unlawful execution of captured German soldiers; Hufft later reflected on this order that “if the Germans had won, I would have been on trial at Nuremberg instead of them”. Whilst the official record asserts few soldiers partook in this offer historical evidence contrarily indicates at least one-third of veterans observed instances of American war crimes post-Malmedy involving soldiers shooting unarmed German prisoners with their hands up.