On The Anniversary Of The Battle Of The Bulge, The Department Of Defense's Official Facebook Page Featured A Compassionate Story About… A Nazi?

Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the start of the infamous Battle of the Bulge against Hitler's Nazi forces, a battle that began on December 16, 1944 and extended into January, spanning the German border in Belgium and Luxembourg. Around 19,000 American soldiers died, with a broader 80,000 Allied casualties. But their efforts were successful: after the battle, Allied forces were able to move into Germany.

There are plenty of appropriate ways to honor such a significant anniversary. Unfortunately, a number of military social media pages, including the official Facebook page for the Department of Defense, chose exactly the wrong one (the post has now been deleted):

The man pictured is Joachim Peiper (or Jochen Peiper), a war criminal responsible for the deaths of 84 American prisoners of war during the very battle in question.

On top of this, one of these pages went out of their way to defend their choice even after they were called out for it. In response to someone pointing out that this post comes across pretty poorly, the page for XVIII Airborne Corps responded: "Sometimes in movies, the movie will create a sense of tension by introducing a bad guy. It is technique of effective storytelling."

The choice to lead the commemoration of this anniversary with a photo and story about Peiper struck people as deeply offensive, or at the very best incredibly insensitive. The XVIII Airborne page noted that this was just the first post in a series that would tell a story, but general sentiment was that a significant anniversary of such a bloody battle did not call for a thoughtful feature on a Nazi war criminal.

The man credited with colorizing this photo of Peiper, Tobias Kurtz, is another can of worms. Per the Washington Post:

Kurtz's Deviant Art and Flickr accounts say he is a Slovakia-based gamer who likes photography and graphic design. He has also shared an image of Hitler laughing as a group of German soldiers prepare to execute a kneeling man and 'favorited' an illustration Hitler punching an American soldier while Nazis cheer. "This photo have my 👍," Kurtz wrote in the comments of the drawing.

This whole thing comes as one in a series of extremely questionable moves on the part of the US Army, which include flying a flag printed with a slogan belonging to a white supremacist gang and flashing a hand signal that has been co-opted by the alt-right.

The saying goes that history repeats itself, but it would be really, really excellent if it didn't.