Jungholzhausen massacre

Jungholzhausen massacre
Location	Braunsbach, Schwäbisch Hall
Date	15 April 1945
Attack type	Massacre
Deaths	13–30 Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht prisoners of war
Perpetrators	254th Infantry Regiment, 63rd Infantry Division (US Army)

The Jungholzhausen massacre was a war crime committed by the 63rd Infantry Division of the US Army on 15 April 1945 during the Western Allied invasion of Germany. Between 13 and 30 Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht prisoners of war were executed by the division's 254th Infantry Regiment after heavy fighting near the village of Jungholzhausen.

Massacre

In April 1945, the 254th Infantry Regiment suffered heavy casualties during the battle for the Hohenlohe district. Wehrmacht combat engineers and mostly 17-year old Waffen-SS soldiers from Leoben in Styria engaged the regiment in combat near the village of Jungholzhausen. After the battle, the villagers counted the bodies of 63 German soldiers, out of whom at least 13 and possibly up to 20 or 30 had been killed after surrendering. An eyewitness observed the US execution with submachine guns of four Waffen-SS troops during the night. U.S. massacres of German prisoners of war were commonplace in the district of Hohenlohe.

Legacy and 1996 US investigation

According to German historian Klaus-Dietmar Henke, the war crimes committed by the US in Germany in 1945 were largely shrouded in silence until the 1990s, when German local newspapers began reporting on them. In 1996, the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command investigated the massacre of 15 April 1945 in Braunsbach-Jungholzhausen but could not identify the perpetrators of the massacre.

References

• Henke, Klaus-Dietmar (1996). Die amerikanische Besetzung Deutschlands (in German). Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag. ISBN 3-486-56175-8.
• Zigan, Harald (16 April 2015). "Kriegsende 1945 (Teil 10): US-Soldaten nehmen blutige Rache in Jungholzhausen und Ilshofen". swp.de (in German). Archived from the original on 2019-03-06. Retrieved 29 September 2022.