“The fate of his beloved nation rested on his ability to lead his men,” the XVIII Airborne Corps wrote on a Monday Facebook post featuring the striking photo. Instead, it seemingly celebrated the strategic mind-set of Nazi war criminal Joachim Peiper, an infamous German commander who ordered the massacre of 84 U.S. prisoners of war during the Battle of the Bulge. ADThe Army unit posted a glamorous, colorized photo of Peiper alongside an intimate narrative depicting the Nazi writing in his diary. I am dumbfounded by the decision to prominently display a Nazi on military social media on the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. But the origins of the image raise more questions about the thinking behind the controversial Facebook post.

Source: Washington Post December 17, 2019 12:11 UTC