Alright, I'm tagging in /u/commiespaceinvader right off the bat here, trusting that he will correct me if I make some mistake here because this topic is initimate tied into the Clean Wehrmacht-myth and the rather frequent idolization of Peiper prevalent in those circles.
So, I will divide this into three parts for clarity.
Well, there is to my knowledge no written evidence of Peiper's order to execute the prisoners at Malmedy and given the chaotic situation on the ground, there may never have been a written order in the first place, nor the need for one as Peiper was right there. In either case, there were multiple testimonies that Peiper ordered the massacre. In fact, US interrogators were frequently surprised by how talkative the SS prisoners who had little or no training in resisting interrogation were. While there have been subsequent questions surrounding how some of these confessions were obtained, it doesn't matter. Peiper accepted command responsibility at an early stage in the investigation meaning that even if he did not order it, he was responsible for the actions of his men under his command and let me make something abundantly clear here:
There is absolutely no question at all that men of Kampfgruppe Peiper executed both POWs and civilians on multiple occasions during the Battle of the Bulge.
It is also consistent with Peiper's character. The man was a die-hard nazi from a nazi family, a close asociate of Himmler himself and well aware of the ongoing genocide in the Third Reich from his position as Himmler's adjutant. Men under Peiper's command had a well documented history of murdering civilians and POWs on the Eastern Front and in Italy. If we are to believe that Peiper didn't order the Malmedy massacre, it would have been the first time in 4 years for him.
Yes. On multiple occasions at multiple trials but let's stick to the one he went to prison for 12 years for. Peiper was conviceted at the original Malmedy Trial in May of 1946 and sentenced to death by hanging.
The Everett review
During the reviews of this trial by Colonel Everett some questions arose regarding how some of the confessions were obtained. While many of these would later be proven false the Army found sufficient cause to launch a commission. Everett did not however exhonorate anyone, nor question the overall judgement of the court.
The Simpson commission
Due to the questions surrounding the case, Kenneth Royall, then secretary of the army decided to launch a commission chaired by Gordon A. Simpson, a judge from Texas. The commission supported Everetts claims that some confessions may have been improperly obtained. However, the commission did not commute the sentences against the accused or comment on the overall judgement of the court, it did however recommend that the death sentences not be carried out while doubts surrounding the confessions still existed.
The senate subcommittee
Eventually the case was examined by the Senators Raymond E. Baldwin, Lester Hunt and Estes Kefauver with Joseph McCarthy attending and occasionally taking a very active role in the hearings. The Subcommittee heard over 100 testimonies and in their report dismissed virtually all the serious allegations of torture and gros mismanagement of the pre-trial hearings. At this point Peiper's sentence had already been commuted to life in prison.
TL;DR - Yes.
He really really was. Peiper was a genocidal nazi with a deep ideological conviction and pretty fucking unrepentant (albeit discrete) about it to boot. He had a long prior record of pretty indiscriminate murder of POWs and civilians, including women and children. Now, Peiper frequently claimed that any civilians he murdered were actually partisans but I find that claim a little hard to believe. Particularly when you keep in mind that he and his men locked a few hundred russian civilians inside a church and proceded to burn them all alive and occasionally burned entire villages, killing virtually everyone.
So, we have a man who grew up in family with a deep nazi conviction, volunteered to join the SS before the SS was even independent of the SA, fraternized with some of the most notorious mass murderers the Reich ever produced like Franz Magill, Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler himself. He has a documented history of indiscriminate murder from both Russia and Italy and he's in charge of one of the most fanatical units the Reich ever produced. He stands accused of ordering a massacre, he personally and under no duress accepts command responsibility for Kampfgruppe Peiper and there are multiple eye witness testimonies from survivors. Added to this, when questioned and realizing that they're about to stand trial for their crimes, his men quickly point to Peiper as the man who ordered it. Is it possible that he didn't explicitly order the Malmedy massacre? Yes, but it would be out of character for him, strange given that it was a relatively large and organized massacre and even stranger given that he was there on the scene. Is it probable? Absolutely not. Everything about the Malmedy massacre has Joachim Peiper written all over it.
So yes. Peiper was really guilty as estrablished by the court. He was also guilty of numerous other massacres for which he was never convicted.
