MASSACRE OF 71 Prisoners

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24882, 23 May 1946, Page 5

MASSACRE OF 71 Prisoners

FORMER U.S. OFFICER’S EVIDENCE

GERMANS ON TRIAL AT DACHAU

(Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, May 21. “A former United States Army lieutenant, Virgil Lary, in the War Crimes Court at Dachau, grimly confronted 74 members of the S.S., of whom he identified George Fleps, member of an S.S. panzer unit, as the man who started the Malmedy massacre of 71 unarmed American prisoners on December 17, 1944, by firing a pistol wantonly at them,” says the Associated Press correspondent at Dachau. “Lary is one of six survivors of the massacre. “Lary said he was leading a small detachment of artillery observers on the road to Bastpgne when they were caught by heavy, fire. They left their vehicles and sought cover in ditches. The firing continued furiously. He realised that they were being attacked by a large force and decided to surrender. “A German tank signalled them to the rear, where the Germans took their watches and cigarettes and motioned them to a field where 160 prisoners were grouped, including members of the Medical Corps with ted crosses on their helmets and brassards. “They were all standing with “hands clasped over their heads when three vehicles drove up. A German in one of the vehicles took out a pistol, aimed at the Americans, and fired twice from 15 yards. The first shot felled an American whose hands were still over his head. Lary identified Fleps as the man who fired the two shots. “Lary said that before the massacre started he heard sharp commands m German and then bursts of machinegun fire were directed against his group. ‘I fell to the ground with my face in the mud/ he said. ‘Men fell dead all round me. The firing lasted about three minutes.’”