Lippach massacre

class="summary" colspan="2" style="background-color: #B0C4DE; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle;" | The Massacre of Lippach
colspan="2" style="background-color: #B0C4DE; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle;" | Part of World War II
colspan="2" style="text-align: center; font-size: 90%; border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa; line-height: 1.5em;" | File:Kriegsgräber der deutschen Opfer des Masskers von Lippach vom April 1945.png Mass grave of the Lippach massacre victims at the Lippach cemetery; The first line of the inscription reads “Fallen 22 April 1945”. This is followed by 26 names and at the end the remark “and ten unknown German soldiers”.
Date 22 April 1945 Location Lippach near Aalen-Westhausen, Gau Württemberg-Hohenzollern, German Reich Result Mass murder Mass rape
colspan="2" style="background-color: #B0C4DE; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle;" | Belligerents
style="width:50%; border-right:1px dotted #aaa;" | US Army	Waffen-SS
colspan="2" style="background-color: #B0C4DE; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle;" | Strength
style="width:50%; border-right:1px dotted #aaa;" | 600 to 800 men 80 Shermans tanks	300 boys and men
colspan="2" style="background-color: #B0C4DE; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle;" | Casualties and losses
style="width:50%; border-right:1px dotted #aaa;" | Unknown	36 killed/murdered

The Lippach massacre and the following mass rape was committed by the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th U.S. Armored Division on 22 April 1945, at the over 800-year-old village of Lippach, during the Allied invasion of Germany.

History

File:From the north, via Bad Mergentheim and Crailsheim, American troops advanced on the Ostalb in April 1945.png

From the north, via Bad Mergentheim and Crailsheim, American troops advanced on the Ostalb in April 1945

File:Black soldier of the 12th Armored Division in Germany with Wehrmacht POWs in April 1945.png

Black soldier of the 12th Armored Division in Germany with Wehrmacht POWs in April 1945

File:Lippach (2023).png

Lippach (2023)

As the Americans approached Ellwangen, a town in the district of Ostalbkreis in the east of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany (in the command area of ​​the 1st Army/Army Group G) from the northwest, several units received orders to head south. A large defensive position on the Lauchheim – Aalen – Schwäbisch Gmünd line is to be explored and expanded. Ellwangen and the surroundings had also been headquarters for two Panzergrenadier training and replacement battalions (SS-Panzergrenadier-Ausbildungs- und Ersatz-Bataillon 3 "Totenkopf" and SS-Panzergrenadier-Ausbildungs- und Ersatz-Bataillon 5) until the 19. Volks-Grenadier-Division took over the city on 21 April 1945. The highway Reichsstraße 19 to Aalen was already blocked by the US Task Force "Rodwell", but east of it was still free. In the night of 21 April 1945, the SS-Panzergrenadier-Ausbildungs- und Ersatz-Bataillon 3 as rearguard arrived in the area around Lippach and took up their positions of defense on the outskirts of the village and in the surrounding terrain.

Advancing on the right flank of the 12th U.S. Armored Division’s line of march (coming from the direction of Crailsheim, passing by Ellwangen on the east), the vanguard of the 23rd Tank Battalion reached the outskirts of the village of Lippach (from Röttingen, over the Stockmühle and over the Kahlhöfe) in the morning of this Sunday 22 April 1945. The Americans halted, waited for reinforcements and then attacked just before noon. The tankers soon found themselves embroiled in a nasty situation, as the Germans responded with heavy small arms, Panzerfaust, small anti-tank artillery, and Nebelwerfer fire. Both sides had casualties, the Germans counted c. 30 fallen men and various wounded.

Not until 1 p.m. that afternoon, seeing the futility of their endeavors, to resist against the might of tanks, did the Germans retreat to the southwest/south between Westhausen and Lauchheim, reaching Günzburg on 24 April 1945 and Leipheim on 25 April 1945, with the order to stop the American advance across the Danube. After fierce fighting, Leipheim was occupied by the US Army. One historical source reports, the battalion commander left his small group (according to the grave list, apparently all from the 6th Company) behind to cover the retreat, but also, because they were the weakest, and he had hoped, they would become prisoners of the Americans and survive the war.

The German battalion consisted mainly of young soldiers between the ages 16 and 18 years. Most of them had only recently been drafted into the Ellwangen garrison and had no combat experience. This was not the volunteer elite of 1940 or 1941, since the July 20 plot, all young men were conscripted into the Waffen-SS. The enemy tanks set eleven buildings, houses, stables and barns on fire, burning 80 livestock. A contemporary witness, Paul Oppold, said that seven Panzergrenadiers and a woman were quartered with him. When the American troops moved in, they men tried to escape through the backyard, but only a few managed to do so. While one soldier was shot while escaping, another, presumably SS-Unterscharführer Georg Roth from Waldhütten, was taken prisoner. The captured SS soldier was beaten so brutally that he collapsed several times. When he could no longer stand up, his skull was bashed in with the butt of a rifle. His bayonet was then pushed through his chest and into the ground.

As most of the tankers hurried on in direction Lauchheim pursuing the Germans, the 3rd Provisional Company, a unit of African Americans, searched the town for hidden enemy soldiers. What they found, however, proved to be as explosive as any German booby trap, for in the late afternoon the black GIs stumbled upon an alcohol warehouse. Perhaps stressed by the recent shoot-out in the streets of Lippach, some of the GIs sought solace in the bottled spirits. Eyewitness Franz Frank reported:

Around 4 p.m., six of the 17 and 18-year-old SS soldiers, wearing only boots, pants and undershirts, with their hands raised, were chased to the cemetery by about 20 drunken negro soldiers, cheering and accompanied by music. Every now and then the boys were beaten into the ditch, from which they got up again covered in blood. At the Stations of the Cross [Note: Kreuzwegstationen are pilgrimage stations in honor of Jesus Christ.], the Americans fired several volleys into the air. The six boys had their skulls bashed in and brain matter was splattered all over the place.

Eyewitness Felix Pfitzer, who recovered the dead, confirmed:

“All of them had crushed skulls and no gunshot wounds. The names of the six slain boys are unknown because neither identification tags nor pay books were found on them.”

In farmer Ladenburger's barn, drunken negro soldiers placed two disarmed SS soldiers, Martin Erk and his comrade Heinz Zinke, on the table of a circular saw and attempted to saw them alive. This was only not possible due to a power outage. Both were then shot together with machine guns. While Zinke died, Martin Erk was presumed dead and thrown into a hedge behind the house. According to a woman from Lippach, the next day a US American officer arranged for the seriously wounded man to be taken to a military field hospital.

American investigators later found six Germans with their skulls bashed in at the entrance to the cemetery. Ten dead lay in a sheep pasture, all shot from behind, some with shots in the head. Four dead were lying at the exit of the town in the direction of Baldern. None of these 14 young soldiers still had a weapon with them; they were all lying at least 50 meters from their foxholes, where their weapons were also found. Only one other soldier, Hans Schymek, survived the massacre. Others were found who had been shot in the back or crushed by tank treads. In all, 36 SS soldiers lost their lives in Lippach.

Mass rape

Evidently not satisfied with murdering the German POWs, the black GIs now turned on the defenseless civilians of Lippach. Some twenty women between the ages of seventeen and forty were raped before the rampage came to an end. It was only thanks to the courageous intervention of the old Pastor Josef Boy that there weren't more women. He kept them hidden in his spacious parsonage basement. Some of them were even pregnant women. Houses were ransacked, looted and destroyed. Finally, a black officer stopped these horrendous assaults. These rapes and murders were hushed up for most of several decades.

Recovery and burial

On Monday 23 April 1945, the day after the massacre, an American officer arranged for the bodies of the victims to be recovered and buried. Forcibly commissioned to do so were:

• Ludwig Beuther (the houses of Beuther and his neighbor Zwickel were the first to be destroyed by the Americans)
• Georg Oppold (father of Paul Oppold)
• Johannes Ernst
• Alfred Opitz
• Felix Pfitzer

For the sake of simplicity, the weapons lying around were placed in the graves with the dead. It is thanks to war-disabled Alfred Poitz, a music director from Dortmund who was amputated and ended up in Lippach, that 26 of the dead SS soldiers could be identified and registered using their pay books and dog tags that were collected and hidden by the enemy. Ten soldiers, where these items were missing, were buried as "unknown soldiers".

Grave care

The eyewitness Theresia Beuther, wife of Ludwig Beuther, cared after the gravesite of these 36 murdered boys secretly in the first few years, often at night; after Theresia's death, her daughter-in-law Petronilla Beuther did this. A later SS comradeship from Schwäbisch Gmünd had the gravesite in its care, and was supported by the regional association and the troop comradeship of the 3rd SS Panzer Division “Totenkopf”.

Late remorse

In August 1986, at the initiative of US American General Raymond Haddock, commander of the Pershing (nuclear) missiles stationed at Mutlangen (Schwäbisch Gmünd) and in the rest of Europe (later commander of the American sector of Berlin), a memorial service took place at which he confirmed the incidents, spoke to contemporary witnesses (Paul Oppold, Mrs. Beuther and others) and asked for friendship, if not forgiveness, across graves.

Criminal Investigation Division

In 1995, members of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID), stationed in Stuttgart (Army CID Europe Field Office), came to Lippach and investigated the war crime. The 1948 founded newspaper Schwäbische Post reported in detail. Criminal Investigators Scott von Haden and Paraskevi Harvey-Wilson "took notes". Specific questions about the clients were dismissed by the Americans with mysterious references to the “highest authorities in Washington”. The agents promised "to do everything possible to clarify the events and bring those responsible to justice". Given the fact that the Schwäbische Post never reported about any results or consequences, one can assume that the investigation came to nothing.

The CID agents also visited Jungholzhausen where on the evening of 15 April 1945 members of the notorious 63rd U.S. Infantry Division, also known as the "gangster division", murdered 13 to 48 (depending on the source) boys and men they had captured, alltogether 63 dead Germans were transported to Bensheim. Two boy engineer soldiers, Herbert Keßler and Heinrich Weber, survived. Keßler hid two days in a large bread oven, Weber was lined up to be shot with his comrades. He received a grazing shot, dropped down and was lucky enough to have one of his dead comrades fall on top of him. The retired US lieutenant colonel George Finley had originally investigated in the 1990s, was shocked and informed the CID. Jungholzhausen was visited for a second time in autumn 1996 by investigators of the CID (newspapers Junge Freiheit and Haller Tagblatt reported), but here too the investigations had no consequences.

Commemoration

Even today (as of 2023) many citizens of Lippach make a pilgrimage on Remembrance Day (Volkstrauertag) after going to church to the graves of the young soldiers in the cemetery and commemorate the victims of the atrocities of the liberators.

Victims

The 26 German victims of the Lippach massacre known by name (in alphabetical order):

File:Massaker von Lippach, Gedenken 1995.png

1. Helmut Biskup (b. 30.5.1928 in Oppeln, Schlesien)
2. Paul Braatz (b. 5.3.1928 in Roman bei Kolberg)
3. Willi Buehr (b. 21.4.1926 in Tremessen/Oberhenenweide), SS-Sturmmann
4. Euard Rudolf Flohr (b. 5.3.1928 in Liebstal)
5. Stanislaus Gwosdz (b. 11.11.1928 in Sandowitz)
6. Werner Hille (b. 2.3.1928 in Hohenleuna)
7. Ferdinand Jülich (b. 2.9.1909 in Bonn)
8. Alfred Martin Kirchmeier (b. 6.9.1926 in Nürnberg), SS-Sturmmann
9. Rudolf Wilhelm Klinge (b. 13.11.1928 in Westerkappeln)
10. Erich Knittel (b. 14.8.1929 in Dittersbach )
11. Otto Max Kramer (b. 1.7.1928 in Lichtenstein)
12. Johannes Kura (15.12.1928 in Odertal)
13. Erich Lakotta (b. 12.11.1928 in Waldenstein)
14. Hermann Pastoors (b. 7.10.1924 in Oberhausen)
15. Gottfried Piwonn (b. 6.4.1928 in Alteheide)
16. Werner Pretsch (b. 28.7.1927 in Halle an der Saale)
17. Karl Heinz Pyka (b. 9.12.1927 in Vogelhain )
18. Georg Roth (b. 19.11.1924 in Waldhütten), SS-Unterscharführer
19. Kurt Lothar Horst Schüller (b. 27.1.1928 in Friedrichsgrün)
20. Otto Walter Veit (b. 7.1.1927 in Apollensdorf)
21. Richard Karl Heinz Vomberg (b. 1.11.1924 in Görlitz), SS-Rottenführer
22. Jürgen Voth (b. 29.7.1928 in Stettin)
23. Kurt Herbert Weber (b. 10.10.1928 in Neukirchen)
24. Harry Günter Zaremba (b. 28.9.1928 in Berlin-Lichtenberg)
25. Heinz Artur Zinke (25.2.1928 in Heudorf)
26. Emil Zobel (b. 10.2.1928 in Riesenberg near Ossegg)

Two of the wounded German soldiers of the original fighting also did not make it far. They were brought to Westhausen where they succumbed to their wounds on 23 April 1945:

• Heinz Eichler (27.7.1921 in Zodel, Kreis Görlitz), SS-Unterscharführer, musician before joining the Waffen-SS
• Gustav Podschadlowski (b. 16.9.1928 in Kosel, Kreis Neidenburg, East Prussia), agricultural apprentice before being conscripted

Sources

• Sturmfeder, Gmünder Literaturzeitschrift (literature magazine), Nr. 3, 1st year, April–May 1981, pp. 58–66
• Der Freiwillige (The Volunteer), Nr. 4, 1982, pp. 16 f.
• Schwäbische Post ("Swabian Post"), 20 April 1985
• Aalener Volkszeitung, 30 November 1985
• Südmährisches Jahrbuch 2004 (South Moravian Yearbook 2004)
• National-Zeitung (Gerhard Frey), 28 October 2005
• Walter Wörz: Das Massaker von Lippach bei Westhausen am 22. April 1945, 2016