The NJ Police Chief Magazine Volume 26, Number 1 | Page 16

The New Jersey Police Chief Magazine | September 2019
Continued from previous page
Later, when the American army arrived at Wereth, the family relayed what they have seen.
It is at that point that the following was discovered: not only are there 11 young African American soldiers laying in the snow,
they had been murdered in cold blood. After all, they were prisoners offering no resistance to their captors. Their execution
was a war crime.
Not only that, but each and every one of those soldiers had their faces smashed, the wounds
the butt of a rifle, broken cheekbones, broken noses, smashed foreheads. Some of their
bayonets. Every one of them had broken legs, and some of them had had their fingers cut
were evidenced in a post-mortem autopsy to have been caused pre-death. One of these
in-situ, applying a bandage to another wounded soldier.
inflicted resembled being hit with
eyes had been gouged out with
off. These signs of brutal torture
American heroes had even died
When the American Army arrived, there followed a short 4-day investigation, photographs were taken, at the conclusion of
which the file was marked ‘Top Secret’ and sent back to Washington. This report was buried in the files of the National
Archives. Nobody in the German Army was brought to trial or justice for this atrocity. Nobody.
Trials did follow, however, for the other massacres in Malmedy, and certain
German and American soldiers were brought to trial for those massacres,
convicted and sentenced to death as we later learned when we visited
Malmedy.
But the real travesty for these brave young African American soldiers, whilst
the massacres at Malmedy were part of a Congressional investigation, the
massacre of the Wereth 11 was omitted from the Congressional War Crimes
report in 1949 which recorded the deaths of all American soldiers and
civilians that were killed in this area during the Battle of the Bulge. Their
relatives were simply told that their loved ones had died in battle.
And that is all they knew.
And that would have been all they knew forever had it not been for the determined work that the young farmer, Mathias
Langer, who was living there at the time, and his wife Maria, and their 12 year old son Hermann who, on the 50th anniversary,
decided to erect a small stone cross (borrowed from his father-in-law’s grave) on a piece of farmland as a commemoration to
the 11 massacre victims, on 11th September 1994.
News soon spread around Belgium that there was this new small monument that no-one had heard about before. A US
historian who had closely studied the Battle of the Bulge, Doctor Norman Lichtenfeld, and a handful of local Belgians, found out
about this travesty and they decided they wanted to make something more permanent, so they purchased a piece of land here
for the Americans, and created the monument that you can see at Wereth to this day.
It was through their determination and courage that the 1949 report was revisited,
and it now includes all the names of the Wereth 11. (Congressional Resolution 68
— Appendix to the Congressional Records, Volume 92 - Part 9 January 14th 1945
to March 1946)
A sign at the monument states that ‘This memorial, a symbol of our gratitude, is
(to this day and to the best of our knowledge) the only monument dedicated to
Afro-Americans who fought in Europe during World War 2 - May 2004.’
It is now fortunate that we can remember these brave young American soldiers at
the U.S. Memorial Wereth, a memorial that marks the spot that these 11 U.S
soldiers were shot by the S.S.
Professor Pat Schuber, who accompanied the group to the memorial, said during
our visit ‘Our organizations are made up often of men and women from all walks of
life and from all places and there is an important aspect in terms of collaboration
for the common good of what we aim to do, be it the military, police work,
partnerships, whatever…. Diversity is important as it builds strength, whereas
hatred should have no place at the dinner table, as seen in the Langer household.
The story of the Wereth 11 must never be forgotten.’
More about this story and the people involved, including a video history, can be
found at wereth.org.
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