Chenogne massacre The Chenogne massacre refers to a mass execution committed on New Year ' s Day , January 1 , 1945 , where at least 25 German prisoners of war were killed by American forces near the village of Chenogne ( also spelled " Chegnogne " ) , Belgium , thought to be in retaliation for the Malmedy massacre . Accounts of the massacre . On December 17 , 1944 , during the Battle of the Bulge , German Waffen - SS troops gunned down 80 American prisoners in the Malmedy massacre . Word of this spread rapidly among American forces , and aroused great anger . One American unit issued orders that , " No SS troops or paratroopers will be taken prisoners but will be shot on sight . " In this atmosphere American forces executed German prisoners as retribution . Author Martin Sorge writes , " It was in the wake of the Malmedy incident at Chegnogne that on New Year ' s Day 1945 some 60 German POWs were shot in cold blood by their American guards . The guilty went unpunished . It was felt that the basis for their action was orders that no prisoners were to be taken . " An eyewitness account by John Fague of B Company , 21st Armored Infantry Battalion ( of the 11th Armored Division ) , near Chenogne describes the killing of German prisoners by American soldiers . " Some of the boys had some prisoners line up . I knew they were going to shoot them , and I hated this business . . . They marched the prisoners back up the hill to murder them with the rest of the prisoners we had secured that morning . . . As we were going up the hill out of town , I know some of our boys were lining up German prisoners in the fields on both sides of the road . There must have been 25 or 30 German boys in each group . Machine guns were being set up . These boys were to be machine gunned and murdered . We were committing the same crimes we were now accusing the Japs and Germans of doing . " Another witness , Burnett Miller , expressed doubt that the number killed reached 60 . Miller writes : " I am not clear on the exact number of victims of this crime . It seems to me that twenty five seems reasonable and I do not recall as many as forty . . . On the day that the prisoners were shot , some were taken for interrogation as I remember several days later quite a few were turned over to intelligence who were desperate for information . " Joseph Cummins also relates the account by Fague regarding the killing of roughly 60 prisoners , but also notes that before the execution of the POWs took place , several Germans including medics waving red - cross flags , were machine - gunned when trying to surrender . Cummins further connects the massacre with the entry made by General Patton in his diary for January 4 , 1945 : " " The Eleventh Armored is very green and took unnecessary losses to no effect . There were also some unfortunate incidents in the shooting of prisoners . I hope we can conceal this . " " On the other hand , an official history published by the United States government states that while " it is probable that Germans who attempted to surrender in the days immediately after the 17th ran a greater risk " of being killed than earlier in the year , even so , " there is no evidence . . . that American troops took advantage of orders , implicit or explicit , to kill their SS prisoners . " However , according to George Henry Bennett and referring to the above statement ; " The caveat is a little disingenuous " , and he proceeds to note that it is likely that the orders to shoot prisoners ( given to the 328th Infantry regiment ) were carried out , and that other US regiments were likely also given similar orders .