“there is strong documentary evidence that the US brought in additional bodies to make it appear worse than it was”
Bullshit. The US Army did not need to bring bodies to Malmedy and dress them as US soldiers. You should be ashamed of yourself.
SS is SS. But there’s a freaky subculture that seems enamored with them think of them as some anti-communists. That’s so far off as to be laughable. The only differences in a Nazi and a communist are a few minor economic differences.
You misunderstand. The massacre of POWs at Baugnez (Malmedy) was just the largest of 11 massacres of POWs in no-man’s land. But it was the one that everyone paid attention to, so the casualties of some of the other massacres were included, and confused, with it. And things get very fuzzy from there.
About 120 men were at the Baugnez site. By all accounts they were fired on by machine guns. But of the 84 bodies recovered a month later, at least 20 had gunshot wounds to the head with powder burns, about that number had gunshot wounds to the head without powder burns, 10 had fatal crushing or blunt-trauma injuries. There is also evidence they were clustered together. A dozen were found in an adjacent field, mostly machine gun casualties.
Further massacres of POWs were reported in Stavelot, Cheneux, La Gleize, and Stoumont, on December 18, 19, and 20. At the latter, about 100 Belgians were murdered.
According to some sources, 538 to 749 POWs had been the victims of war crimes perpetrated by Peiper’s men. These figures are, however, not corroborated by the report of the United States Senate subcommittee that later inquired into the subsequent trial; according to the Committee, the number of dead would be 362 prisoners of war and 111 civilians.
The one case I mentioned, of the innkeeper’s son, is clearly known and was positively identified by his parents, who stated that he had died and been buried, but his body was dressed in a US Army uniform, with one or more bullet injuries, and was included among the dead. A Scots war museum owner in Belgium gathered evidence that at least his name should be removed from the memorial, across the street from his parent’s inn.