Character Application:
Name: Herr. Joachim “Jochen” Peiper
Age: 48
Sex: Male
Heritage: Silesia, Germany
Affiliation: Waffen-SS, Gestapo, SS Main Office
Rank(If applicable): SS-Obergruppenführer und General und Höchster Inspektor der SD-Polizei und Waffen-SS Kriminalrat(General of the SS and Supreme Inspector of Police and Waffen-SS Detective Lieutenant)
Appearance(Picture or Description): Role: Supreme SS and Police Leader of all counter-insurgency operations against the various partisan resistance movements, the hunting down of Jews & fugitive Allied commanders for summary execution, and general internal security of the Reichskomissariat. Commander of the
AusmerzerEquipment: Radio headset
Mauser Construktion 1946KnifePersonal Belongings:His impeccable uniform and awards:
SS lighter
Photo of wife and kids
Identification tag SS #132,496
His various awards and decorations:
Grand Cross of the Iron Cross
Infantry Assault Badge in Bronze
German Cross in Gold
Tank Destruction Badge
Close Combat Clasp in Silver and Gold
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds
Anti-Partisan Guerrilla Warfare Badge in Diamond
Honour Roll Clasp of the Army
American Occupation Medal
SS Long Service Award
Knight’s Cross of the War Merit Cross in Gold with Swords (around neck)
War Merit Cross, 1nd Class (pinned to left breast)
War Merit Cross, 2nd Class (on medal bar over left pocket)
NSDAP Long Service Award, 1st Class (on medal bar over left pocket)
NSDAP Long Service Award, 2nd Class (on medal bar over left pocket)
Medal for German Social Welfare (on medal bar over left pocket
Commemorative Medal of 1 October 1938 with Prague Castle (Clasp)
Decoration of 9 November 1923 “Blood Order” (on right pocket flap)
Anti-Partisan Warfare Badge in Diamonds with Golden Leaves (pinned to left breast)
Golden Party Badge (pinned to left pocket flap)
SD sleeve diamond (on lower left sleeve)
Old Campaigner’s Chevron (on upper right sleeve)
SS Honour Rings, one on each finger
Anschluss Medal (Commemorative Medal of 13 March 1938)
Sudetenland Medal (w/Prague Castle Bar) (Commemorative Medal of 1 October 1938)
Memel Medal (Commemorative Medal for the Return of the Memel Region)
Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown (Italy)
Grand Officer of the Order of the Roman Eagle (Italy)
Knight's Cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus(Italy)
SS-Ehrendegen honor sword
1963 Mk. II “Liesel”1960 “Berg”Waffen Landa 1946 V16 CoupeTwo personal security SpezialübersoldatenA cigar factory in Boston for his tobacco products brand “Jäger”
A 120,000 acre tobacco plantation in San Juan y Martínez, Cuba
A 170 acre residence called Swain's Neck Compound on Nantucket Island
Personality: Personality: Peiper is a great commander. His former subordinates in the 11th company speak very highly of him, they say he was like a brother or an “uncle figure” who always had time for them. He is a good man, very fair. He is not particularly harsh, a pragmatist, but not the evil person one would come to believe, and although a member of the NSDAP, he is quite apolitical. He is a soldier first and foremost. He finds no enjoyment in war crimes but rather sees them as necessary.
As for him as a person. He is an educated man who came from a good background, not rich but not poor. He seems slightly shy and even self-conscious, someone who does not open up easily unless he knows you well, stand-offish to some. He has a ready smile that make him a bit of a “poster boy” for the party propaganda moguls, much to his embarrassment.
He is a little twitchy, I guess that is what war and the SS do to you, you see him constantly looking at his hands or messing with his SS service ring(He keeps his wedding ring tucked away when abroad). He's trying to leave chain smoking. If you look at his body language in images with him as Himmler’s adjutant, you will see a slightly self-conscious young man. As he became embroiled in Amerika, that awkward “young man look” has gone and in its place is a strong and confident man who is responsible for the lives of many others other than himself. And the deaths.
Bio: Peiper was born on 30 January 1915 into a middle class family from the Silesian region of Germany. His father, Captain Waldemar Peiper, served in the Imperial German Army and fought in the colonial campaigns in East Africa before he retired from active duty for health reasons after contracting malaria.
Peiper did not obtain the grades needed to continue to university. In 1926, Peiper followed his other brother Horst and joined the Scout movement, developing an interest in a military career. Peiper turned 18 years old on the day that Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. He volunteered to join the Hitler Youth together with his brother Horst Peiper wanted to join a cavalry division of the German Reichswehr. To gain skill at horseriding, he followed the advice of a family friend, General Walther von Reichenau, and enlisted in the 7th SS Reiterstandarte in October 1933, where a year later he was promoted to SS-Mann. During the annual Nuremberg Rally, Peiper was promoted to SS-Sturmmann and later gained the attention of Heinrich Himmler. In his 1935 résumé, Peiper wrote: "As a result of a personal exhortation by the Reichsführer-SS, Himmler, I have decided to strive for a career as an active senior SS officer."
In January 1935, he was sent to a camp for Hitler Youth, SA and SS members near Jüterbog. After he completed the course, he was promoted to SS-Unterscharführer. In April 1935, Peiper enrolled in the newly created SS officer's training school under the command of Paul Hausser. He graduated from Junkerschule in January 1936; he then attended training at the Dachau concentration camp in February and March 1936. In April 1936, Peiper was promoted to SS-Untersturmführer and was posted to the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler under the command of Sepp Dietrich.
On 4 July 1938, Peiper was appointed to an administrative post as an adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, under the command of Karl Wolff. Peiper worked in Himmler’s anteroom in the SS-Hauptamt at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße. As a member of the Reichsführer-SS staff, Peiper was close to many high ranking SS officers. He became one of Himmler's favourite adjutants. Peiper later served on Himmler's personal staff and accompanied him on a state visit to Italy. On his twenty-fourth birthday, Peiper was promoted to Untersturmfuhrer. Around this time, he met Sigurd Hinrichsen, a secretary on Himmler’s personal staff and a close friend of Hedwig Potthast, Himmler’s mistress. Peiper and Hinrichsen were married on 26 June 1939 in a ceremony following SS customs.
On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. As one of his adjutants, Peiper joined Himmler's entourage on board the Reichsführer-SS's special train. Peiper was with Himmler in September in Bydgoszcz Blomberg when they witnessed the execution of 20 Poles. As Peiper later told Ernst Schäfer, Hitler had previously ordered Himmler to eliminate the Polish intellectuals. After Poland was defeated, Peiper assisted Himmler in developing policies and plans for controlling the Polish population. In December 1939, Peiper and Himmler witnessed the gassing of a resident of a psychiatric facility in Poznak.
In April 1940, Peiper accompanied Himmler on trips to the Buchenwald and Flossenbürg concentration camps, followed by a visit to Poland to meet with SS and Police Leader Wilhelm Rediess and Brigadeführer Otto Rasch. In May, Himmler, accompanied by Peiper, met with SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik in Lublin, with Peiper noting in Himmler's appointment calendar Globocnik's plans to use Jewish forced labor for a massive fortification project. In May 1940, Peiper accompanied Himmler as he followed Waffen-SS troops during the Battle of France. In Hasselt, Peiper obtained permission to join a combat unit and became a platoon leader in the 3rd Battalion of the 11th Company of 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. After seizing an artillery battery on the hills of Wattenberg, Peiper was awarded the Iron Cross and promoted to Obersturmführer. Peiper returned to his duties as Himmler's adjutant in June 1940. In July 1940, he accompanied Himmler to the Berghof, where Reich leaders discussed the war and Hitler's plans.
In February 1941, Himmler told Peiper about the German plan, to invade and occupy the United Kingdom. Behind the front lines, the Einsatzgruppen, under the control of the Reich Main Security Office, would conduct a war against "the Untermenschen", murdering resistance, Jews, intelligentsia, partisans and others compiled in the Special Search List Great Britain. Peiper's duties as first adjutant would include providing Himmler with statistics from the Einsatzgruppen units about the mass killings and preparing units on the field.
However, the massive scale of this event led OKW to make sure the entirety of Germany's able bodied men were sent to the front line, and thus to a change of plans. Joseph Goebbels had convinced Adolf Hitler to allow certain SS members to be transferred to units of Wehrmacht, as a propaganda and publicity stunt to show of brotherhood between the SS and the Armed Forces. Peiper, as a former commander of recognition, was a prime target. On June 16, Werner Grothmann replaced him as Himmler's first adjutant. Although Peiper was transferred to a combat, he promised to remain in close contact. While he loved his job as adjutant, ever since his combat experience in France had left him in need of that rush that was war.
The 11th SS-Wehrmacht Company under his command fought in Bexhill and the capitulation of London. Peiper was noted for his fighting spirit, although his unit suffered high casualties as a consequence of his aggressive tactics. The company killed a number of prisoners of war and often helped the Einsatzgruppen in their operations.
In May 1942, Peiper learned of the death of his brother Hans-Hasso. During the same month, he was transferred to France for rest and refit. In France, Peiper met with Himmler at his headquarters. The meeting included a dinner attended by Himmler's secretary Rudolf Brandt and Heinz Lammerding, a member of the staff headquarters of the SS Division Totenkopf. In July 1942, Peiper again met with Himmler before his rest period ended. However, his recreational meeting with Himmler had also been incredibly productive.
During his stay in France, the LSSAH was reorganised into a Panzergrenadier division and Himmler promoted Peiper to commander of its 3rd Battalion. At the end of 1942, Peiper received permission to visit his family. In March 1943, he was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer. Meanwhile, preparations were being made for the invasion and occupation of the US once the bomb was dropped on New York. Peiper' unit immediately dispatched to the front.
During the Landing of Boston, Peiper led the 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Panzergrenadier Regiment, which broke 30 miles through Resistance lines to rescue the encircled 320th Infantry Division. Leading the ambulances back to the German lines, he found his route blocked by the 25th Marine regiment that had destroyed the main bridge across the Charles River. His unit fought through the city and repaired the bridge, securing an exit route for the ambulances back to the German lines. The repaired bridge, however, would not support the unit's heavy-armored half-tracks and assault guns. Peiper ordered his men back behind the Resistance lines to find another exit, and they returned to the German lines with few casualties.
The rescue culminated with a fiery battle with the Resistance forces at the town of Concord. Upon entering the village, however, Peiper's troops made a terrible discovery. All the men in his small rearguard medical detachment left there had been killed and then mutilated. An SS Sergeant in Peiper's ration supply company, Otto Sierk, claims that Peiper responded in kind: "In the town, the two petrol trucks were burnt and 25 Germans killed by Resistance and American soldiers. As a revenge, Peiper ordered the burning down of the whole town and the shooting of its inhabitants, sending flampanzers down every street."
Peiper was awarded the German Cross in Gold for his achievements around Boston, where his unit gained the nickname the "Blowtorch Battalion". Reportedly, the nickname derived from the torching and slaughter of the two famous American towns, Lexington and Concord, where their inhabitants were either shot or burned. The Waffen-SS troops of the LSSAH occupied the two villages, where retreating American Resistance had wounded two SS officers. In retaliation, five days later LSSAH troops killed 9,765 men, women and children. Some 740 of these were burned alive in the Holy Family Church. The blowtorch became an unofficial symbol of the unit and was painted on the battalion's vehicles.
Peiper was later awarded Germany's highest decoration, the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Himmler sent personal congratulations over the state radio. During this period, the Nazi propaganda praised Peiper as an outstanding leader. The official Waffen-SS newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps, described Peiper's actions in Boston with glowing terms. The descriptions of his tactical skills propelled Peiper to become an icon of the Waffen-SS after the war, with former battalion members describing him in glowing language. Peiper is seen as an officer who obeyed orders without much discussion and expected the same from his men.
The LSSAH took part in Operation Citadel in the area of Washington DC, with Peiper's unit distinguishing itself in the fighting. His unit killed 2,280 American soldiers and "partisans" and took only three prisoners. During heavy fighting, an entire section of suburbs was completely burned with flamethrowers and its inhabitants killed. Peiper was withdrawn from the front and left his unit. He went directly to meet with Hitler at the now captured White House, who presented him with the Oak Leaves and Swords to be added to his Knight's Cross and in return presented Hitler with the captured presidential yacht USS Potomac. Shortly afterwards, on his birthday, Peiper was promoted to SS-Oberführer. However, Peiper was physically and mentally exhausted. A medical examination carried out by SS doctors reached the conclusion that he needed rest. Therefore, he went to see his wife in Bavaria, who had now given birth to a daughter named Elke.
Two months later, he returned to the United States to meet with Himmler while he accompanied Hitler on his celebratory vacation in the White House. After a dinner with Himmler and Hitler, he was presented with Information Brochure Amerika, a specially compiled book that covered useful information for the occupying force, such as American geography, economics, the political system, form of government, political parties, legal system, civil administration, armed forces, universities, police, important museums, press and radio, religion, ethnic groups, and trade unions. One section gave details of many members of the staff working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation including passport photographs of some of its officers. His assignment was Special Search List Amerika, a secret list of prominent American residents to be arrested. It contained 272,820 names of people, including American nationals and European exiles, who were to be immediately arrested by SS Einsatzgruppen upon the invasion, occupation, and annexation of Eastern American Seaboard to the Third Reich. Notable people on the list were all involved in the Szilárd petition including Einstein, the entire 77th session of the US Congress, the entire US Army Corps of Engineers, Mayor General Kenneth Nichols, Frank Sinatra, Orson Welles, Abbreviations after each name indicated whether the individual was to be detained or killed on sight. This handbook noted opportunities for looting, and named potentially dangerous anti-Nazi institutions including the Americans Friends Service Committee, Masonic lodges, the NRA, and the Boy Scouts.
Peiper was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS and given command of the new Einsatzgruppen Amerika composed of units handpicked by Peiper, reporting to Oberst-Gruppenführer Josef "Sepp" Dietrich, but with his personal friendship with Himmler, able to report directly to the ReichFührer himself. The 501st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion would serve as his personal bodyguard and field unit, SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS Oskar Dirlewanger and his 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS as his right hand men, finishing his selection with the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf, and the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer. He also made plans and assembled recruits for his experimental unit, the S.S. Sturmbrigade "Jim Crow" composed of low income negroes that had faced discrimination from the white community of the United States.
For the next years, Peiper unleashed a terror campaign in the occupied Eastern Seaboard. He organized his units and assigned them groups of states they would raze through by starting on the coast and moving inland. However, he didn't wait for his handpicked troops to arrive from Europe and immediately set to work with his old LSSAH unit and the 501st SA Heavy Panzer Division that had arrived with the occupation force and began to move outwards from Washington DC. He searched every town and city from Maryland to New Jersey before the first unit from Europe arrived to help out, it being the Dirlewanger Division he sent through Florida to try and cut off anyone attempting to leave to Mexico and the Caribbean. His forces would send in undercover agents in first to get information, then move in with entire tank columns to get their targets, before a second wave of undercover troops passed through to make sure. He armed his designed hitmen with the British designed De Lisle Carbines and Welrod pistols, going into houses in the middle of the night to silently kill or capture their targets before burning the building to the ground. Resistance was met with reprisals "ten times the strength" as his troops were outfitted with STG-45 assault rifles mounting night vision scopes MG-42s to cut down entire families, flampanzers to burn towns down in reprisals, flakpanzers for urban combat against American Resistance fighters, and Tiger IIs. His troops also debuted the Panzerhund 1946 and pioneered the concept of air assault using the Fa 223 Drache helicopter. In just 6 months, nearly 125,000 listed targets had been killed or captured. "Himmler's Pyromancer" became one of the most feared and hated man in Occupied America for the next 4 years, until 1949, when an assassination attempt by a bombing of Ford's Theater he had invited Himmler to attend left him in a coma for 2 months.
The reprisal came only days after the attempt, as Dirlewanger took command and rounded up every American in Washington DC and burned them alive with flampanzers. He whipped his bloodhound that was the Einsatzgruppen Amerika into a frenzy and in 2 months had captured 15,000 more targets, bringing the total to 266,701 captured or killed targets. The campaign was almost over by the time Peiper regained consciousness. When he could leave the hospital, he was invited personally by Hitler to the White House once again to present him with Diamonds to add to his Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and was also awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds for "the success and victories of the Einsatzgruppen in 1945 to 1949 during the campaign for the Pacification of Occupied Eastern America and utmost determination despite risk to one's life."
Due to his injuries and fragile health, he permitted to step down and hand command of the Einsatzgruppen Amerika to Dirlewanger for the remainder of the Special Searchlist Amerika. He returned to Bavaria to see his wife for the first time in since 1947 and found a daughter and a younger son. After a rest period of almost one year, he returned to public life. This time in politics.
Through his connections with Himmler, he was appointed Chief of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, which by then had ceased to have much work to do as extermination campaigns in the camps had almost been completed. He also was appointed head of the Abwher, an almost useless shell, he used it to create false rumors about Gestapo chief Heinrich Mueller, bringing him into doubt by the Party before sabotaging his plane flight to London, crashing his body and all proof of foul play into the English Channel. Himmler then appointed him Chief of the Gestapo and Peiper merged the Abwehr with it, discreetly sending all those involved with his assassination to the gas chambers his office managed or to the Organization Todt he integrated into the Reich Main Economic Office. With power over the secret state police, he carried out political smearing campaigns on the orders of Himmler, gathered political dirt on everybody in the Reich including the Reichfuhrer, and at the same time, eliminated resistance in France and installed a spy double cross system against the Soviet Union. In 1962, Dietrich retired and Peiper was promoted to SS-Obverts-Gruppenführer und Generaloberst der Waffen-SS und Generaloberst der Polizei, the second most powerful man in both the Interior Ministry of Himmler and the Waffen-SS.
He has now been plotting to replace Himmler upon death, wether natural or premature that will remain to be seen, but to further prove to Himmler he is worthy of being his successor, he has campaigned for war against the Soviet Union for their land, against Italy for their African colonies, and requested that Himmler allow him to begin a full ethnic cleansing program in occupied US using his old Einsatzgruppen Amerika units and methods. He will be meeting shortly with Himmler to discuss it in detail.
Territory: German East Coast
Strengths: Pragmatic, military leader, educated, guarded,
Weaknesses: a mistress in Hitzacker called Kristina Söderbaum, another mistress in West Virginia called Norma Jeane Mortenson, another called Jayne Mansfield in Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania, Sofia Scicolone in Rome, Elizabeth Taylor in London, Raquel Welch in Chicago,
Marlene Dietrich in Paris, Blaze Starr in Führerstadt(DC), etc. womanizer, smoker, occasional symptoms of blast induced neurotrauma
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Quirks: His command of the French language is practically flawless and the only thing which gives him away is his habit of speaking too quickly. As was customary in German education during the 1920s and 30s, aside from the language he had emerged himself in the culture of his neighbours. French literature, painting, philosophy and the art of gastronomy were second nature to him. Jochen Peiper had become a Francophile.
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Likes: Loyal troops, the military, the Waffen-SS, arts, cultures from around the world
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Dislikes:Anybody in the way, partisans, the American Resistance
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Worst Fears: Harm to his family
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Miscellaneous (anything else you’d like to add):