The Malmedy Massacre

The Malmedy Massacre occurred on December 17, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge. A U.S. Army convoy inadvertently became involved in unplanned combat, surrendered after a brief fight and were herded into a field and methodically gunned down by the Germans. Bauserman's reconstruction of events before, during and after the atrocity is so meticulous that he is able to diagram the position of each of the 86 GIs in the convoy and to locate where each fell on the killing field. The narrative of the massacre itself, drawn from statements by German veterans and Belgian civilians, captures the horror of the moment. In one vignette a German rifleman stands patiently by as a U.S. medic binds up a fellow GI's wounds, then shoots them both. Bauserman describes how the frozen bodies were recovered three weeks later by the Army's graves-registration personnel. Several autopsy reports are presented in the appendices, along with photos of the corpses. For those drawn to objective studies of mass death in a military context, Bauserman's is of high caliber. (Feb.)