Mule Deer On A Frosty Morning

Mule deer on a frosty morning

Butter….keeping a watchful eye out for squirrels to chase

Tbh this is really sad. :(

Malmedy massacre

On December 17, 1944, the 1st SS Panzer Division of the Sixth Panzer Army, commanded by Colonel Joachim (Jochen) Peiper, was heading west from Büllingen, Belgium. This movement was part of the general German advance during the Battle of the Bulge. At the same time, a US convoy of thirty vehicles and nearly 140 men of Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion was heading south from  Hürtgen Forest toward Ligneuville.

The two forces converged just before noon at the crossroads hamlet of Baugnez, two and a half miles south of Malmedy. Combat Group Peiper (Kampfgruppe Peiper) (part of the Waffen SS) immediately began firing upon Battery B. The US troops panicked. Those who did not escape, including medical personnel, quickly surrendered. After being searched and relieved of their personal possessions, the US troops were lined up in eight rows in a field at the crossroads. Then for reasons that are unclear, Combat Group Peiper fired on the GIs. German troops walked among the bodies and shot any who appeared to be alive. Survivors of the atrocity recalled being fired upon several times, and even hearing laughter as the Waffen SS troops killed the Americans.

When the Germans left the site, at least 84 US soldiers were dead.Just over 40 Americans survived the incident, now known as the Malmedy Massacre, either by fleeing into the woods or pretending to be dead.

The Malmedy Massacre was one of a series of atrocities committed by Peiper’s division. US prosecutors claimed officials believed that his unit was responsible for killing some 350 unarmed American soldiers and about 100 Belgian civilians over a one-month period in Belgium as well as other atrocities on the eastern front.

History & favourites | moments in time: The Christmas Truce of 1914 

Leading up to Christmas 1914, the first-holiday season since the start of the first world war, Pope Benedict XV called for a truce on both sides to celebrate Christmas. This was refused by warring countries however, along the western front there was some short-lived ceasefire and unofficial truces.

On Christmas Eve British and German soldiers sang Christmas carols to one another across enemy lines. On Christmas Day allied forces saw German soldiers leave their trenches and cross no man’s land, fearing this was a trap the allies were sceptical until they saw the Germans were unarmed. The two camps met at No Man’s Land, shook hands, collected their dead, exchanged gifts and there are even reports they played football. This was not the first time there was an unofficial truce but would be one of the lasts. 

The Christmas truce happened relatively early in to the war and any attempts at a truce the next year was quashed by officers. Even if officers hadn’t intervened, the hostility between the allied and central powers had grown, too much blood was shed for friendly fraternisation, the old ways of war where chivalry was a custom was over. Europe had entered a new age of warfare.  

“When you look into the void, sometimes the void gazes back”

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