18th December,1944, several Panzer IVs, failed to seize Salm bridge near Trois Ponts had been ordered to pull back to north, passed through Stavelot with SS-Stbf Gustav Knittel’s HQ Company of SS-Pz AA 1 and 2./Pz AA 1 at approximately 1430 hours. They reached the main body of the Kampfgruppe Peiper in the evening near La Gleize.
Afterwards, the 1./501 Schw Pz Abt arrived Stavelot at 1530 hours, only found the town had been occupied by the enemy, the U.S. 117th Inf. Rgt. After crossing Ablève bridge, the leading Tiger II commanded by SS-OStbf Wessel was immobiled by AT guns nearby the triangle market square. Though Wessel jumped on second Tiger II and forced his way out towards west, the third Tiger II, commanded by SS-Obersch Brandt was also immobiled by the air-strike 30 meters behind the bridge, blocked the way of fourth Tiger II commanded by SS-Obersch. Wendt. Time was getting dark. Found themselves totally isolated, losing all contact with forward and rear, Brandt and Wendt decided to await the night.
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The weirdest thing among this incident was that Stavelot seemed completely wild-open during this period of time! Neither Peiper nor Knittel set up the perimeters around the town after passing through, it is a possibility that the town had never been cleared out of enemy while the columns of KG Peiper passing by.
We have two hypothetical reasons which might cause such circumstance. First, Peiper was too hasty to sprint towards Meuse river, thus he neglected to secure the passages behind him. Second is simply he couldn’t to since he had only four Pz Gren Kps, two Pion Kps, and one Btn of Fallschirmjägers from the 9th FJ Rgt under his disposal, he didn’t have enough troopers to watch over the villages in his back, nor the common sense allowed him to disperse his troops while he still trying to sprint towards west.
In fact, due to the fiasco of Otto Skorzeny’s 150th Pz Bde that failed to seize Malmedy, and the slow and bloody progress of the SS-Pz Div 12 “Hitlerjugend” around Krinkelt-Elsenborn line, the flank of KG Peiper was continuously exposed during its advance. It was also perplexed that neither the 12nd VG Div nor the 3rd FJ Div seized the opportunity to follow up Peiper’s tails.
Perhaps after five years endless war, the German officers had gradually lost not only the control of their exhausted troops, but also the nerve to capture the opportunities either. For instance, Gustav Knittel, who was a five years veteran who participated in every LSSAH campaigns throughout the war, had never left his CP in the Farm Antoine during the whole period of fight in and around Stavelot!
Following the lost of Stavelot, the commander of LSSAH, SS-Brigf Mohnke, launched numbers counterattack attempting to take it back, but all efforts resulted in vain. The Americans blew up the Ablève bridge, and the Germans couldn’t effectively re-supply its troops on the north bank. For example, the KG Hansen arrived south bank with 25 Jgd Pz IVs, yet none of them were able to join the fight on the north side, in the contrary, however, the Americans had TF Lovelady with 2nd Btn of 33rd Armd Rgt at Stavelot along. Put the armored strength aside, the Americans also had superior artillery support. Excluding the mortars, the Americans had 154 various artillery pieces against 74 of the Germans. With more adequate supply, the U.S. 118th Fd Arty Btn alone reported firing over 3,000 shells into a 1,000 yard square of area of Stavelot in 19th December.
Peiper didn’t sent his tanks to take Stavelot back, it was conceivable that his KG was suffering from serious shortage of fuel. In 19th December, when SS-Ostuf Coblenz, commander of 2./SS-Pz AA 1, requested to use his SPWs before the first effort to reclaim Stavelot, his battalion commander, Knittel, rejected it, insisting the attack be made on foot. Two days later, when Peiper’s men retreated from Cheneux, they left fourteen flak wagons, six SPWs and four trucks behind, all of them were out of petrol.
Why neither Mohnke nor Hansen thought of using the twenty plus Panzer IVs of the 6th and 7th SS-Pz Kp standing by at Wanne is one of the most puzzling aspects throughout this operation. They had been refuelled and sitting idle for the past 48 hours. Maybe the fact the both company commanders, Junker and Klingelhöfer, were forward with Peiper accounts for the inactivity of these two companies. It is all the more surprising that Mohnke’s divisional HQ was located in the same area!
Copyright © 2017 John C.W. Lai, Taipei.
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The last effort to save KG Peiper ended up with a bitter taste in 23rd December. The grenadiers of III./SS-Pz Gren Rgt 1 assaulted through Biester capturing TF Lovelady’s aid station at Petit Coo, ripping TF Lovelady into three parts, though their casualty were also high. Facing losses of his 3rd Battalion and the 1st Battalion was still stalled around the Masures farm and Ster, Hansen broke off his advance. At 1700, Peiper received a message from Mohnke telling him that all relief efforts had failed.
Surrounded by the enemies with fourteen TK Coys, fourty-seven Inf Coys, two TD Coys, and thirty-six Arty Btrys, according to Michael Reynolds, Peiper had merely equivalent two Pz Kp, six Pz Gren (or Pion) Kp, twelve flak wagons, and eleven artillery pieces for which there was virtually no ammunition. Under the dim light of Christmas Eve, he lead the rest moveable 800 men to break out from La Gleize, almost thirty-six hours later, they reached German line with 770 men without confronting major conflict with the U.S. troops.
Sources:
Ralf Tiemann, 1998, “The Leibstandarte IV/2”, p. 66-68.
Patrick Agte, 2006, “Michael Wittmann Volume Two”, p. 277-280.
Michael Reynolds, 2013, “The Devil’s Adjutant”, p. 188, 219-220, 245.
Thomas Fischer, 2003, “The SS-Panzer-Artillery Regiment 1 Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (LAH) 1940-1945”, p. 199.
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