Seventy-nine years ago today, on July 16, 1946 (June 18, 1946), the perpetrators of the Malmedy massacre, the SS members, were sentenced. On July 16, 1946, more than 70 SS members involved in the Malmedy massacre were sentenced by the American War Criminals Court in Dachau. The court sentenced 43 Germans to death, including the SS commander, Colonel Joachim Pepper. In December 1944, during a desperate German counterattack in the Ardennes, Pepper and his men massacred 750 American soldiers and 150 Belgian civilians. Most of them died in the Belgian town of Malmedy. The SS were ordered to "slaughter mercilessly."