Joachim Peiper by Jens Westemeier, A Review

[Michael Miller / ABR]

Mike - that's too simple and easy a get-out for Stauffenberg. Its why we have the saying "a falling-out among thieves" in the English language. His action wasn't just an anti-Hitler action, it was a pro-his and the plotters' own agenda action, not a simple black-white, right-wrong flip of the coin opposite.

I am aware it was not just an anti-Hitler action and I have not expressed that this a black & white issue, nor that von Stauffenberg was an angel. Whatever the case, I believe he died for his country and his convictions. That his motivations were not 100% pure is not at issue here.

Truth be told, I don't even know what's at issue here now. Are we really talking about the relative value of two human beings? How did we get there? As with all human beings, they each had their good and bad qualities. End of story. Their career paths might have had some similarities, and they also had differences. I don't think comparing the two really accomplishes anything.


~ Mike

[phylo_roadking]

Are we really talking about the relative value of two human beings?

Take a look at the question I posed at the bottom of page two And if you work out who it is, you'll see the difficulty of deciding on someone like Peiper.

[Michael Miller / ABR]

I'm going to guess-- are you referring to Eisenhower?

[phylo_roadking]

Nope. But a good guess. Same criteria as Peiper was judged on. Go further back....

[John Kilmartin]

Hi Phyllo,
I'll go with 'who was Julius Gauis Caesar?'.
Cheers
John K

[pzrmeyer2]

Necessary for what? and for whom? those who enjoy history slanted in the direction they think it occurred? or written for their little group of friends to curry favor with them? sorry, ainy buying it. And if Jens analysis is so chrystal clear, then why did he have to go so over the top in smearing Peiper? wouldnt Peiper's own actions, presented in an even tone, speak for themsleves as to how eeee-vil he was?

The level/tone of your reaction shows that my questions hit the nail

I have not to chase anything/ anybody, I am just interested in historical research, that's my matter

aha, so thats it: anger at how good of a job the HIAG did in protecting one of their own is what has you (and Jens) so upset? guess you should direct your anger at them, not cheap character assassination of Peiper. or would everything be ok if the HIAG bungled everything?

Again you seem to fail in your "interpretations". Researching history is something else than simple repeating of old fairy tales

Maybe you simply put to much projection into the person Peiper, this would explain your anger against everbody who dares to bring back the mystified Peiper figure on the ground of serius history.



Jan-Hendrik

what is my tone? it s hard to detect that from typed words. if you think I'm agitated, its more like frustrated because you are unable to come to terms with the fact that your friend Jens wrote a seriously compromised book becuase of his intense hatred of his subject.

If you were "just interested in historical research" then maybe you would actually read what I wrote in my review and see if it matched the book. I havent invested in fairy tales and my review makes no defense of Agte or Peiper. And i'm not angry at anyone, I just wish you and your friends would be a bit more objective about "serious history". "Serious" historians dont make wild accusations without evidence and applying common sense and make absurd judgement calls about what wives would appreciate if their husbands refer to them as "comrades". "serious" historians can supress their own biases and calmly and rationally describe the subject in the context of the times. Have you even read the book, or are you taking it as gospel because Jens says so?

[phylo_roadking]

John - quite correct! A soldier, self-publicist, tyrant, would-be god and genocide who by his own admission killed or enslaved a THIRD of the population of the area that is now modern France.

See how standards and points of perspective change like the direction of the wind?

[pzrmeyer2]

Peiper's involvement, minimal as it MAY have been, was complicit. His Adjutant duties had an impact on the conduct of war crimes, even if he was just transmitting a telegraph for Himmler ordering Fegelein to destroy a village or to treat all Jews as "Partisanen

whoa! thats quite a high standard. What about Himmler's driver? surely he's complicit since he had to drive to the camps? and how about his clerk/typist? surely he/she had to type his dictations and is therefore complicit? Peiper was a junior officer--an adjutant (does anyone know what the duty description of that is?) Even Westemeier concedes the tasks that Peiper performed were menial. Its simply because he was there that makes him somehow the devil. I'm sure all the chairborne website warriors so quick to condemn these people for their "complicity" would have been the ones to have personally shot Hitler dead had they been there at the time.

[pzrmeyer2]

I would already be happy if people could acknowledge that history is seldom black& white, but in most cases in different shades of Grey

Jan-Hendrik

tell that to Westemeier. There is nothing remotely "gray" about his interpretations of Peiper. It seems everything from day one (his birth) was calculated eeee-vil.

[pzrmeyer2]

but to my sorrow this sinking level can be seen on the whole forum this year

ahhh.. is this the start of the predictable "blame the forum" spiel when the debate goes against your thinking? I suppose your next post will say "I'm never posting here again!". Jan, we've seen this all before. Your playbook needs updating.

[pzrmeyer2]

It's quite a stretch to suggest that von Stauffenberg, who had no influence in 1932, could have "enabl[ed] Adolf Hitler". But even if he did- what of it? Who knew in 1932 what Hitler would do to Germany and Europe by 1945?

If he did commit these sins you apparently see as grave- supporting Hitler in the 1930's, fighting as a modestly-ranked staff officer of the Heer in World War II-

well, everything you say applies to Peiper too doesnt it?

except of course the part about treason against the head of state. Himmler himself tried to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies and leave Hitler to his fate aka treason. Does that take him off the hook too?

[pzrmeyer2]

This discussion is not a war crimes trial. I simply think people should get the whole story on Peiper.

Agreed, Mike. I'm not interested in a whitewash of Peiper. My review makes no judgements of him. It is simply an examination of the overbearing tone and selectivty that Mr Westemeier uses in his bio. He could have made his point better without all the hyperbole.

[Michael Miller / ABR]

Why, Erik, all the posturing and hyperbole on YOUR part? The bit about Himmler's driver, and clerk-typist...? And the sarcastic use of "the Devil" re: Peiper for merely being there.

It's all a matter of personal opinion on my part, and therefore not of much value to any forum, but my take on Peiper is- I was always willing to give him the benefit of the substantial doubt about Malmedy. But knowing now that he was right in the middle of a command whose primary purpose during 1941/42 was the extermination of multitudes of innocent people- that just makes me think he was likely a very callous, less-than-humane individual. Not necessarily deserving of the rope, but not someone I'd like to have a beer with either. I think a true soldier- my conception of one, anyway- would have resigned his commission and accepted the consequences thereof after that visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau in '42. I think it almost stands to reason that he didn't object or resign because he approved of it. Now people can say all they want that I'm projecting my own beliefs on people of an entirely different time and place, but I think these beliefs have their origins in another hemisphere several thousand years ago. The fact that he may have believed that the extermination of the Jewish people was in the best interests of the Reich does not make it so, and does not make his views- if indeed such were his views- any less repugnant to me.

The following- excerpted from Richard Breitman's The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution, p. 95- might give a small [very small, unfortunately, but still interesting] glimpse into Peiper's views (this is based on interrogations of the Tibet researcher of Ahnenerbe, SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Ernst Schaefer, dated 1 April 1947, NA RG 238/ M-1019/R 62/636-38; and 12 Feb. 1946, NA RG 238, M-1270/R 27/192):

"In late January [1940] Himmler took a train trip on 'Heinrich' to Przemysl with an entourage large enough to require a second railcar: his chief of staff, Karl Wolff; his office manager, Rudolf Brandt; his bodyguard and adjutant; his favorite poet, Hanns Johst; his Tibet expert, Ernst Shaefer; and several others. During the trip Himmler's young adjutant Jochen Peiper told Schaefer that Hitler had entrusted Himmler with the extermination of the Polish intelligentsia, and that Himmler had even taken part in one execution [maybe a false recollection by Schaefer or an embellishment by Peiper, but I doubt this is true/Mike]. Afterward, Peiper claimed, Himmler had not spoken for several days. Peiper also talked of the incident in which Ludolf von Alvensleben had executed his own relatives; they would all look at the potatoes from underneath, Peiper commented gaily..."



~ Mike

[sid guttridge]

Hi MH,

Stauffenberg certainly had a full and distinguished military career in the service of Germany and was very seriously wounded in the process.

However, he had no political investment in the regime, unlike Peiper.

Peiper could have followed Stauffenberg's apolitical path, but chose not to. Peiper's career decisions clearly show him as a political animal.

Cheers,

Sid.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Guys,

A measure of the level of "debate" within this "review" is contained in the following pragraph:

"Indeed, in another private correspondence the reserve Bundeswehr officer Westemeier points out that he had made Major by 34 and Lt-Col before 40, apparently a meteoric progression in today’s Bundeswehr. Is it plausible that, in the modern Germany, with its constant paranoia about Nazism and neo-Nazism, that someone "got to" Westemeier and "suggested" that he "correct" his Peiper book, on pain of messing up his career? It certainly seems possible, as the vast majority of footnoted sources in the new book were available to Westemeier before he published his very different first book, if one goes by dates of letters and interviews. If so, it puts the author in a similar position as his own subject, who, 60 years earlier and in the early stages of a promising military career, “went along to get along”."

This is simply a character slur unsupported by a thread of evidence and advanced only by insinuation. It raises more questions about the motives of the reviewer than it does about the author. Why was this included?

It would be easier to take this "review" more seriously if it was conducted in a more detached and less desperate manner.

In the final analysis, Peiper was a minor political and military player, barely worthy of a first biography, let alone more. There are a thousand more significant Germans of the era meriting attention first.

Why Peiper? His most prominent exploit was crowned by failure and marred by atrocity.

Cheers,

A mystified Sid.