6 minute read
The Malmedy Massacre: the Survivor Story of Sergeant Henry "Roy" Zach
The Malmedy Massacre was a German war crime committed by soldiers of the Waffen-SS on 17 December 1944 at the Baugnez crossroads near the city of Malmedy, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945). Soldiers of Kampfgruppe Peiper summarily killed eighty-four U.S. Army prisoners of war. A few survived including Sergeant Henry "Roy" Zach of Burnett County, Wisconsin. This is his story of survival taken from an interview with the Wisconsin Veterans Museum in 1999.
This December marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive. Germany’s Adolf Hitler launched the offensive to try and stave off defeat on Germany’s western border. He chose to attack through the Ardennes, a forested area in southeast Belgium and northern Luxembourg that resembles, and shares a latitude with, northern Wisconsin. The offensive’s goal was similar to the German attack through the area in 1940: cross the Meuse River, capture Antwerp, and split British and Canadian forces from their U.S. and French comrades. The Nazi’s goal of the Ardennes Offensive was to reach Antwerp within four days, a timeline which Nazi generals felt was unreasonable. To keep the offensive on track, reportedly Hitler gave the order to take no prisoners.
In December 1944, Sgt. Zach and his platoon in the 32 Division were in a U.S.(the reinforced defensive line on Germany’s western border). Prior to the Ardennes Offensive, Zach landed at Omaha Beach on June 17th, 1944. Alongside the 1st Infantry Division, they’d slowly gained ground through the hedgerows on the way to Paris. Although he was normally reconnaissance and commanded an armored car, Zach and his platoon were assigned “Military Government Police” duties once they were in Germany, which meant they ensured German civilians stayed off the roads, watched for enemy paratrooper drops, and patrolled the area.
On December 16th, the Nazis broke through the lines south of where Zach’s platoon was located. The next morning, Zach, who was third in command at that time, received word from the platoon leader, a lieutenant, that they were going on a secret mission.
Zach recalled, “We had breakfast early and left. There was (sic) four jeeps of us with eleven recon men, in these four jeeps. And we went back through the first dragon’s teeth (Siegfried Line), 20 miles further west, we came to the Eupen point, where the first line of dragon’s teeth were. We stopped there and he handed me a notebook and a pencil, and he said, every time I raise my arm, make a mark. So, we went through Eupen and turned south, which would have been towards where the Germans had penetrated our lines, although us enlisted men didn’t know anything about that.”
Zach recalled, “We had breakfast early and left. There was (sic) four jeeps of us with eleven recon men, in these four jeeps. And we went back through the first dragon’s teeth (Siegfried Line), 20 miles further west, we came to the Eupen point, where the first line of dragon’s teeth were. We stopped there and he handed me a notebook and a pencil, and he said, every time I raise my arm, make a mark. So, we went through Eupen and turned south, which would have been towards where the Germans had penetrated our lines, although us enlisted men didn’t know anything about that.”
Meanwhile, south of Zach was Hitler’s own bodyguard, the 1st SS-Panzer Division, ‘Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’ leading the northern part of the German attack. The division spearhead under Joachim Peiper was slashing through the Ardennes toward Antwerp. Zach recalls being quite literally in the dark as they traversed the landscape not knowing the Germans had broken through the Allied lines, “It was foggy. This was called the Ardennes section of that part of the country, which was a low-lying, wooded area. We couldn’t see hardly over 200 yards ahead of us, very distinctly.”
Zach said, “The first thing we knew, we saw a line of tanks ahead of us parked alongside the road. It was so murky, we couldn’t tell if they was ours or the enemy’s. And we got up to them, right even with the first tank, a German tank, and their soldiers ran out and put their rifles to us.”
Soon the Nazis surrounded the platoon. Zach said, “The first lieutenant that was in command of us he said, don’t fire, don’t fire…They searched us.”
The German unit, as Zach recalled, was mostly tanks and personnel carriers and led by a German officer that could speak perfect English, presumably the ruthless Joachim Peiper (Peiper was convicted of giving the order for the massacre at the Dachau war crimes trial in 1945 – 47). “They wanted our vehicles… so, the drivers of these vehicles stayed…and drove.”
Zach’s platoon, now part of the German column, headed East and off the black top roads where the large German tanks chewed up the terrain. The vehicle Zach was in broke down, but the Germans wanted that vehicle and towed it. Zach and two other men got off and started walking but were not able to keep up with the tank column. They were then placed behind the turret of the tank commander.
Zach recalled, “Then we kept going quite a ways, cross-country…but after the three of us got on a tank, I never saw any more of my company.”
“We came pretty close to another road and there were American six-by-six, two-and-a-half ton trucks, they were going pretty fast trying to escape from where they came from, which was just a little ahead of us.”
“We came pretty close to another road and there were American six-by-six, two-and-a-half ton trucks, they were going pretty fast trying to escape from where they came from, which was just a little ahead of us.”
This group included members of Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion who were en route to join the 7th Armored Division. This battery, of approximately 150 men, was not trained or equipped for frontline batteries; their mission was to spot enemy artillery. This lack of experience no doubt cost prisoners their lives as Zach explains later.
“These German tanks were firing on these trucks of ours that were trying to get away. They had captured, another German task force had, where several crossroads came together by a big, I call it a roadhouse, I think it was called Baugnez (a hamlet in the municipality of Malmedy, Belgium). They stopped and let us off and motioned to us to get in the other column.”
To read what happened next, click on the link https://wisvetsmuseum.com/the-malmedy-massacre-the-survivor-story-of-henry-roy-zach/
