It's Memorial Day, time to remember those who died for this country. I remember my maternal uncle, Madelia native John D. Osborne, who died from a blow to the head from from a German soldier in the Malmedy Massacre during the Battle of the Bulge.
According to military records and a 2012 book, Fatal Crossroads, John's body was tagged #1 when American forces recovered the bodies in the snow weeks later. After the war ended, the U.S. Army tried a number of the Germans involved for war crimes. Concerns about the fairness of the trial led to a Senate investigation; the report is available here.
After 70 years, the stories of Malmedy and the postwar trials are fading, blurred by fictionized Hollywood versions. Fatal Crossroads author Danny Parker interviewed American survivors, Belgium witnesses and German soldiers, and talked about his finding on Veterans Day 2012, joined by survivor Ted Paluch.
It's not embeddable, but here's a preview of the talk:
Photo: Bodies at Malmedy.
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