The story takes place in the Ardennes Counterattack, the last large-scale counterattack of Nazi Germany on the Western Front, and its role was to awaken the unrealistic illusion that the Allies could break into Germany without bloodshed.
The protagonist of the story is Joachim Piper, who was appointed SS lieutenant colonel during the Ardennes counterattack as the supreme commander of the battle group named "Pipe" after him, and a few months later he was promoted to colonel, the youngest colonel in the German army, under the age of thirty.
Joachim Piper, who had a face that was no worse than any of the stars in Hollywood, was born as an aide-de-camp in Himmler, and later insisted on joining the battlefield, shuttling back and forth between the Eastern and Western Fronts, leading his SS units to withstand the cruel tests of war and gradually grow into senior commanders.
When fighting the Soviet army on the Eastern Front, the battalion he led was known as the "Spray Gun Battalion", the combat index was extremely high, there was little mercy to Soviet prisoners of war, and it was recognized as one of the more capable units in the German army.
On this point, when he was tried after the war, Piper also recalled the scene at that time, he believed that it was the "atrocities" of the Soviet army violating the rules of war first, killing the wounded soldiers of the German army, which triggered the revenge of the soldiers, at that time, the German soldiers were exhausted, many soldiers were fourteen or fifteen years old, their fathers often died in the battlefield, coupled with the "atrocities" of Soviet soldiers, so they "countered violence with violence", Piper has been repeating, in the Western Front battlefield against the Allied forces, his soldiers are more binding.
The problem lies in the battlefield on the Western Front, where it was Piper's soldiers who committed the Malmedy massacre that "shocked" the Allies.
Malmedy, a small town in Belgium, boldly interjected into American positions the day after the Ardennes counterattack began, and while the Americans were caught off guard, a small number of his tanks and some Panzergrenadiers captured more than a hundred Americans in a short engagement. 84 of them were later shot in a forest, and the bodies were found by the U.S. military the next day, known as the "Malmedy Massacre."
During the post-war interrogation, the US military tortured the officers and men of the Paipu Institute who caused the massacre, and later could not wait to announce Piper's death sentence. Piper took the initiative to take the blame on himself and tried to exonerate his subordinates.
However, under the rush of Colonel Everett, a U.S. military defense lawyer, the case was miraculously overturned after it entered the review stage. The U.S. military admitted that the Germans who were on fire duty at the scene of the incident had not been instructed by Piper, and that the situation at the scene of the incident was somewhat chaotic, with some witnesses testifying that the captured Americans tried to escape.
There are also testimonies that Piper protected the Jews in the war and helped the French.
Everett summed up Piper's final defense in court, saying this: "He who defends his freedom must also ensure that his enemies are not oppressed." If he refuses this responsibility, his future failures will be inevitable. ”
Piper has always stressed that he is a hardcore Nazi, but he never wears a Nazi armband, and whether he joined the Nazi Party is still doubtful.
During the long process of detention and interrogation, Piper constantly showed his heart to the REPRESENTATIVES, instigated the Americans to continue to attack Soviet Russia, did not hesitate to share his experience in armored warfare on the Eastern Front with the US Army, and even suggested the use of atomic bombs against Soviet Russia.
Piper was commuted to life in prison, but in 1956, parole was granted.
This hardcore Nazi believer first lived in West Germany, began his first civilian career as a car cleaner, and later became the manager of the Porsche department, but at that time West Germany was very discriminatory against the old SS, and at one point was accused of another war atrocity in the German court, although it was later withdrawn for lack of evidence, but the old Nazi Pep was discouraged and decided to live in France.
He took his wife to the north of France, where he bought a rural land with the help of a French friend during the war years, built a wooden house, and prepared to enjoy his old age with his wife.
But Piper still showed a tough attitude in an interview with a French reporter, and did not hesitate to show his Nazi stance, which was hated by the French left.
Before the French National Day in 1976, Pipe received an anonymous letter warning that he would burn down his house and prevent him from surviving the National Day, Pipe sent his wife to safety, and refused the kindness of two French neighbors to help, and on July 13 (France's National Day is July 14), he waited at home with a gun for that moment.
In the middle of the night, gunfire broke out and the house was set on fire, and by the time the French fire trucks arrived, the house had been burned to the ground, and the remains of the old Nazi Piper had been burned into a short piece of black charcoal.