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Joachim Peiper

Joachim Peiper (30 January 1915 – 14 July 1976) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and war criminal. During the Second World War in Europe, Peiper served as personal adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, and as a tank commander in the Waffen-SS. German historian Jens Westemeier writes that Peiper personified Nazi ideology, as a purportedly ruthless glory-hound commander who was indifferent to the combat casualties of Battle Group Peiper, and who tolerated, expected, and indeed encouraged war crimes by his Waffen-SS soldiers.

As adjutant to Himmler, Peiper witnessed the SS implement the Holocaust with ethnic cleansing and genocide of Jews in Eastern Europe; facts that he obfuscated and denied in the post-War period. As a tank commander, Peiper served in the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) in the Eastern Front and in the Western Front, first as a battalion commander and then as a regimental commander. Peiper fought in the Third Battle of Kharkov and in the Battle of the Bulge, from which battles his eponymous battle group – Kampfgruppe Peiper – became notorious for committing war crimes against civilians and PoWs.

Upon release from prison, Peiper worked for the Porsche and Volkswagen automobile companies and later moved to France, where he worked as a freelance translator. Throughout his post-war life, Peiper was very active in the social network of ex-SS men centred upon the right-wing organisation HIAG (Mutual Aid Association of Former Members of the Waffen-SS). In 1976, Peiper died from asphyxiation after communist arsonists discovered his identity and set his house on fire.

Early life
Joachim Peiper was born in Berlin on 30 January 1915. He was the third son of a middle-class family from German Silesia. His father, Woldemar Peiper, had served as an officer in the Imperial German Army and fought in the 1904 campaign in German South West Africa. He later contracted malaria and received a severe wound which demobilised him from active duty in German Africa. In 1907 Woldemar resumed active duty in the Prussian army. He rejoined the colours in the First World War and was for a time deployed to Ottoman Turkey, where he suffered chronic cardiac problems consequent to the previous malarial infection. Poor health then demobilised Woldemar from active duty in Asia Minor.

During the European interwar period, Woldemar joined a company of mercenary soldiers within the paramilitary Freikorps and actively participated in suppressing the Polish Silesian Uprisings (August 1919–July 1921) which aimed to annex German Silesia to the Second Polish Republic. In the Weimar Germany of the 1920s, the antisemitic canards of Nazi ideology – the Stab-in-the-back myth, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, The International Jew, et cetera – had much appeal to the political conservatives and to the political reactionaries such as the Freikorps mercenary soldier Woldemar Peiper who were angry that Imperial Germany had lost the Great War.

Two of Woldemar's sons, Horst and Joachim, followed the same life-path of nationalist ideology and military service to Germany. In 1926, the eleven-year-old Joachim followed his middle brother, fourteen-year-old Horst Peiper, to become a boy scout; eventually, Joachim became interested in becoming a military officer.

Horst joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) and served in the SS-Totenkopfverbände as a guard in a Nazi concentration camp. Transferred to active duty as a Waffen-SS soldier, Horst fought in the Battle of France (1940) as part of the 3rd SS Panzer Division, and died in Poland in June 1941 in a never-fully-explained accident; rumour said that his fellow SS-men drove Horst to commit suicide because of his homosexuality.

Peiper's eldest brother, Hans-Hasso (b. 1910) was mentally ill, and his suicide attempt resulted in cerebral damage that reduced him to a persistent vegetative state. Interned to a hospital in 1931, Hans died of tuberculosis in 1942.

SS career
Joachim Peiper was eighteen years old when he joined the Hitler Youth in the company of Horst, his middle brother. In October 1933, Peiper volunteered for the Schutzstaffel (SS) and joined the Cavalry SS, where his first superior officer was Gustav Lombard, a zealous Nazi, and later a regimental commander in the SS Cavalry Brigade, who were notoriously efficient at the mass murder of Jews in occupied Soviet Union, notably in punitive operations such as the Pripyat Marshes massacres (July–August 1941) in Byelorussia.

On 23 January 1934, he was promoted to SS-Mann (SS Identity Card Nr. 132.496), which made Peiper an "SS Man" before the Schutzstaffel was independent of the Sturmabteilung (SA) within the Nazi Party. Later that year, Peiper was promoted to SS-Sturmmann at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally, where his reputation attracted the notice of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, for whom Peiper personified Aryanism, the master-race concept promoted by the Nazism taught at the SS officer school. Despite not being as tall, blond, and muscular as the Nordic recruits to the SS, Peiper compensated by being a handsome, personable, and self-confident SS officer.

The SS formally employed Peiper in January 1935, and later sent him to a military leadership course. As an SS leadership-student Peiper received favourable and approving reviews from the SS instructors, yet received only conditional approval from the military psychologists, who noted Peiper's egocentricity, negative attitude, and continual attempts to impress them with his personal connection to Reichsführer-SS Himmler. The military psychologists concluded that Peiper might become either a "difficult subordinate" or an "arrogant superior" in the course of his career in the SS.

In the April 1935 – March 1936 period, Peiper trained as a military officer in the SS-Junker School, from which institution the director, Paul Hausser, graduated ideologically complicit Nazi leaders for the Waffen-SS. Besides military fieldcraft, the SS-Junker School taught the Nazi worldview that centred upon anti-Semitism.

The Nazi Party issued Peiper his NSDAP Identity Card Nr. 5.508.134 on 1 March 1938, two years after he became an SS man. In the post-War period Peiper continually denied having been a member of the Nazi Party, because that fact contradicted his self-promoted image of a common man who was "merely a soldier" in the Second World War.

Himmler's Adjutant
In June 1938, Peiper became an adjutant to Reichsführer-SS Himmler, which tour of duty Himmler considered necessary administrative training for a promotable SS leader. In that time, the officers working within the Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS were under the command of SS functionary Karl Wolff. As a staff officer, Peiper worked in the anteroom of the SS Main Office in Berlin and became a favourite adjutant of Himmler. Peiper returned the admiration and by 1939, Peiper always was the adjutant of the Reichsführer-SS at every official function.

Invasion of Poland, 1939
On 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland started the Second World War in Europe. Adjutant Peiper travelled in the personal train of Reichsführer-SS Himmler. Peiper occasionally was the liaison officer to Hitler, when the Führer travelled by train with Erwin Rommel, and when the Führer met with Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS generals near the front lines of the Eastern Front.

On 20 September, in the northern Polish city of Bydgoszcz, Himmler and Peiper witnessed the public executions of twenty Polish social leaders who might lead partisan resistance to Nazi occupation. That demonstration of the mechanics of the Holocaust – of ethnic cleansing – was realised by the paramilitary Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz an ethnic-German, self-defence militia commanded by Ludolf von Alvensleben, the local SS and Police leader. In later conversation with the explorer Ernst Schäfer, Peiper rationalised the actions of the SS to hunt and kill the Polish intelligentsia by ascribing sole command responsibility to Hitler and his superior orders to Himmler.

As a participant in the Nazi conquest of Poland for German Lebensraum, Peiper witnessed the administrative refinement of SS policies for more effective methods of killing during ethnic cleansing, designed to depopulate Polish lands for German colonists. On 13 December 1939, in west central Poland, at the village of Owińska, near Poznań, Himmler and Peiper witnessed the Aktion T4 poison-gas mass killing of mentally ill patients in a psychiatric hospital. In post-war interrogations by U.S. Army JAG and military intelligence interrogators, Peiper was factual and emotionally detached in describing his eye-witness experience of mass murder:

"The [gassing] action was done before a circle of invited guests ... The insane were led into a prepared casemate, the door of which had a Plexiglas window. After the door was closed, one could see how, in the beginning, the insane still laughed and talked to each other. But, soon they sat down on the straw, obviously under the influence of the gas ... Very soon, they no longer moved."

Throughout 1940, Himmler and Peiper made an inspection tour of the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, including the Neuengamme concentration camp in the north, and the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in the north-east of the country. In Occupied Poland, Himmler met with Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, the Higher SS and Police Leader, and his subordinate, Odilo Globocnik, the SS bureaucrat responsible for deporting the Jews from the cities of Warsaw and Lublin and from the Polish territories already annexed as Lebensraum for Germany.

In April 1940, Himmler and Peiper continued their camp-inspection tour at the Buchenwald concentration camp and the Flossenbürg concentration camp. The SS and Police Leader Wilhelm Rediess and the SS official Otto Rasch strove to develop quicker methods for killing civilians in order to depopulate Poland for German colonisation. In May 1940, Globocnik demonstrated for Himmler and Peiper the efficacy of the Aktion T4 programme for the involuntary euthanasia of disabled and crippled people and also discussed Globocnik's work in the Lublin Reservation programme for the control and confinement of the Jewish populations of the Greater Germanic Reich.

Battle of France, 1940

In May 1940, Himmler and Peiper followed the Waffen-SS throughout the Battle of France. On 18 May, Peiper became a platoon leader in a unit of the LSSAH motorised regiment. For audacious soldiering in his platoon's capture of a French artillery battery atop the hills of Wattenberg, south of Valenciennes, Peiper was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class, and promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain). On 19 June 1940, Peiper was awarded the Iron Cross 1st class for audacious soldiering. As further reward and remuneration, Peiper took back to Germany a French sports car for his personal use; Himmler ordered the car be included in the motor-pool inventory of his personal staff. On 21 June 1940, Peiper returned to his role of personal adjutant to Himmler.

On 7 September 1940, Himmler thanked the commanders of the LSSAH motorised regiment: "We had to have the toughness – this should be said and soon forgotten – to shoot thousands of leading Poles", and stressed the psychological problems suffered by Waffen-SS soldiers when they are "carrying out executions", "hauling away people", and "evicting crying and hysterical women" in order to clear the lands of Poland for German colonisation. After an official visit to Francoist Spain to meet Generalíssimo Francisco Franco in October 1940, Peiper was promoted to First Adjutant on 1 November 1940.

Operation Barbarossa, 1941
In February 1941, Reichsführer-SS Himmler informed adjutant Peiper about the upcoming Operation Barbarossa (22 June – 5 December 1941), for the invasion, conquest, and German colonisation of the U.S.S.R: Red Army. Moreover, Himmler and his staff travelled to occupied Poland, occupied Norway, Nazi Austria, and occupied Greece to see the progress of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS operations there, including the depopulation of Poland for German colonisation.

About his visit to the Łódź ghetto, Peiper wrote that "it was a macabre image: we saw how the Jewish Ghetto police, who wore hats without rims, and were armed with wooden clubs, inconsiderately made room for us." The episode in the Łódź ghetto indicates Peiper's awareness of the criminality of the Nazi occupations, yet the anecdotes he wrote – about the Jewish Ghetto Police abusing the Jews – were meant to lessen the degree of his complicity in the war crimes of the Waffen-SS and of the Wehrmacht.

In the 11–15 June 1941 period, adjutant Peiper participated in the SS conference wherein Himmler presented plans for killing of 30 million Slavs in eastern Europe, especially Russia; present were Kurt Wolff; Kurt Daluege (head of the Order Police), Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (SS and Police Leader in Byelorussia); and Reinhard Heydrich (head of the Reich Security Main Office). When Nazi Germany invaded the U.S.S.R., on 22 June 1941, Himmler used a headquarters-train to tour the conquered Russian lands; Himmler and Peiper inspected the work of the Einsatzkommando units who were depopulating the conquered lands. In Augustów, Poland, the Einsatzkommando Tilsit killed approximately 200 people; and in Grodno, Byelorussia, before Himmler and Peiper, Heydrich berated the leader of the local death squad for having shot only 96 Jews in a day.

In July 1941, Himmler and Peiper were in Białystok to witness the progress of the depopulation of that city and of Poland by the Order Police battalions, and met with Bach-Zalewski to discuss the deployment of units of the Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS ("Command Staff Reichsführer-SS"), which comprised 25,000 Waffen-SS soldiers tasked to execute racial and ideological war against the peoples of Russia. The Kommandostab units were under authority of the local Higher SS and Police Leaders, who identified the local populations of Jews and "undesirables" to be killed.

As the first and second adjutants, Peiper and Werner Grothmann were aware of and handled all of Himmler's orders and communications. Peiper delivered the Kommandostab 's daily body-count reports to Himmler. The 30 July 1941 report from Gustav Lombard's SS cavalry indicated that they had shot 800 Jews; the 11 August 1941 report from Lombard indicated that they had shot 6,526 looters (Jews). Peiper likewise delivered to Himmler the daily Einsatzgruppen murder statistics that compared the numbers of people killed against the pre-war projections of the timetable for depopulating the U.S.S.R.

Peiper's adjutancy to Himmler ended in summer of 1941, and Peiper was reassigned to the LSSAH motorised regiment in October 1941. Peiper rejoined the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) whilst they fought in the Eastern Front, in the vicinity of the Black Sea. As the replacement for an injured company commander, Peiper assumed command of the 11th Company and fought the Red Army at Mariupol and Rostov-on-Don. Noted for his fighting spirit and aggressive leadership in battle, tank commander Peiper's victories came at the cost of many German tanks and casualties among Waffen-SS infantry.

The division was followed by Einsatzgruppe D, who were responsible for killing the local Jews, other civilians, Commissars, Red Army soldiers, and partisans. To facilitate the depopulation of the lands of Russia, SS-General Sepp Dietrich, commander of the LSSAH, volunteered his Waffen-SS infantry to assist the Einsatzgruppe in the massacre of 1,800 people at the Gully of Petrushino. In May 1942, the LSSAH was sent to Vichy France for rest, recuperation, and refitting, and were subsequently reorganized into a Panzergrenadier division. Peiper was promoted to commander of the 3rd Battalion.

Blowtorch Battalion
Peiper's battalion left France in January 1943 for the Eastern Front, where the Wehrmacht had begun to lose the initiative, especially in the Battle of Stalingrad. During the Third Battle of Kharkov, the battalion became known for an audacious rescue of the encircled 320th Infantry Division. In a letter home, Peiper described hand-to-hand fighting with a Soviet ski battalion in an effort to lead the division, including its sick and wounded, to safety.

The rescue culminated with a fierce battle with the Soviet forces at the village of Krasnaya Polyana. Upon entering the village, Peiper's troops made a terrible discovery. All the men in his small rearguard medical detachment who had been left there had been killed and then mutilated. An SS sergeant in Peiper's ration supply company later stated that Peiper responded in kind: "In the village, the two petrol trucks were burnt and 25 Germans killed by partisans and Soviet soldiers. As a revenge, Peiper ordered the burning down of the whole village and the shooting of its inhabitants". (The testimony was obtained in November 1944 by the Western Allies.)

On 6 May 1943, Peiper was awarded the German Cross in Gold for his achievements in February 1943 around Kharkov, where his unit gained the nickname the "Blowtorch Battalion". Reportedly, the nickname derived from the torching and slaughter of two Soviet villages where their inhabitants were either shot or burned.

Ukrainian sources, including surviving witness Ivan Kiselev, who was 14 at the time of the massacre, described the killings at the villages of Yefremovka and Semyonovka on 17 February 1943. On 12 February troops of the LSSAH occupied the two villages, where retreating Soviet forces had wounded two SS officers. In retaliation, five days later, LSSAH troops killed 872 men, women and children. Some 240 of these were burned alive in the church of Yefremovka.

In August 1944, when an SS commander, formerly of LSSAH, was captured south of Falaise in France and interrogated by the Allies, he stated that Peiper was "particularly eager to execute the order to burn villages". Peiper wrote to Potthast in March 1943: "Our reputation precedes us as a wave of terror and is one of our best weapons. Even old Genghis Khan would gladly have hired us as assistants."

On 9 March 1943, Peiper was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, the most prestigious military decoration of the Third Reich, for which Reichsführer-SS Himmler congratulated him in a live radio broadcast: "Heartfelt congratulations for the Knight's Cross, my dear Jochen! I am proud of you!" In that stage of the Second World War, Nazi propaganda portrayed tank commander Peiper as an exemplary military leader. The official SS newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps (The Black Corps) reported that Peiper's actions in Kharkov demonstrated that he is a Waffen-SS tank commander who always is "the master of the situation, in all its phases", that Peiper's "quick decision-making" assured victory in the field through his "bold and unorthodox orders" and that he is "a born leader, one filled with the highest sense of responsibility for the life of every one of his men, but who [was] also able to be hard, if necessary" to complete the mission.

In the post-War period, such hyperbolic descriptions of the tactical prowess of the tank commander Peiper glamourised the Waffen-SS man into a war hero of Germany. In the SS hierarchy, Peiper was an SS man and military officer who received, obeyed, and executed orders with minimal discussion, and expected that his soldiers receive, obey, and execute his orders without question.

In July 1943, the LSSAH tank division participated in Operation Citadel in the area of Kursk, in which Kampfgruppe Peiper fought well against the Red Army. After Operation Citadel failed, the LSSAH tank division was redeployed from the Eastern Front in Russia to the north of Fascist Italy.

Italy, 1943
In August 1943, Kampfgruppe Peiper was stationed in the Italian city of Cuneo, six kilometres north of the village of Boves, in the commune of Boves. Fascist Italy ceased being a belligerent power of the Rome-Berlin Axis on 3 September 1943 with the signing of the Armistice of Cassibile between the Kingdom of Italy and the Allied Powers. Consequently, Nazi Germany responded on 8 September with Operation Achse, wherein Wehrmacht forces, including the LSSAH, invaded and occupied the north of Italy, in order to forcibly disarm the Italian army in situ.

Massacre at Boves
On 19 September 1943, in a firefight with the Waffen-SS occupiers, partisan guerrillas of the Italian Resistance Movement killed one soldier and captured two others in the vicinity of Boves, in the Piedmont region of north-west Italy. In a later firefight with the partisans, a Waffen-SS infantry company failed to rescue their comrades from the partisans. After this, the armoured units of Kampfgruppe Peiper assumed strategic control of the streets and the roads into and out of the village of Boves, and Peiper then threatened to destroy the village if the partisans did not release their Waffen-SS prisoners.

In an effort to avoid the Nazis' destruction of the Boves village, the local spokesmen of the Boves commune, the parish priest Giuseppe Bernardi and the businessman Alessandro Vasallo, successfully negotiated the partisans' release of their Waffen-SS prisoners and of the body of the SS soldier killed earlier. Despite the successfully negotiated release of the body and prisoners, Peiper ordered the soldiers of Kampfgruppe Peiper to summarily kill 24 men of the Boves village in retaliation for the resistance of the villagers. They also killed a woman when they looted and burned her house.

In the after action report to the LSSAH headquarters, Kampfgruppe Peiper described the Boves massacre as Peiper's heroic defence against anti-German attacks by Communist partisans in which Waffen-SS soldiers battled, defeated, and killed 17 bandits and partisans, and that "during the fights [with partisans] the villages of Boves and Costellar were burned down. [That] in nearly all [the] burning houses [stores of] ammunition exploded. Some bandits were shot."

Ukraine, 1943
In November 1943, the LSSAH fought in battles at Zhytomyr, in Ukraine. In the course of battle, although he lacked experience in leading tanks Peiper replaced the regiment's dead commander and so assumed command of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment. In early December, Peiper was nominated for a medal for the successes of the 1st Regiment: the destruction of some Red Army artillery batteries and a division headquarters, having killed 2,280 Red Army soldiers in just two days of action (5-6 December), and delivering only three Red Army Prisoners of War (PoWs) to military intelligence. The recommendation for awarding the medal to Peiper described the scorched-earth attacks of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment, wherein tank commander Peiper "attacked with all weapons and flame-throwers from his SPW" armoured fighting vehicle to defeat the Red Army defenders, and then "completely destroyed" the village of Pekartchina.

Peiper's over-aggressive style of leadership caused him to disregard tactical common sense in deploying the tanks and infantry forces of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment in battle against the Red Army. Peiper's battlefield victories cost more Waffen-SS casualties (soldiers killed and soldiers wounded) than would have been lost with textbook tactics to achieve the same victory. Attacking without the benefit of prior reconnaissance by scout units, Peiper's tank-and-infantry frontal assaults against entrenched Red Army units killed too many infantry and cost too much lost matériel for an essentially Pyrrhic victory; thus, after a month of Peiper's command, the 1st SS Panzer Regiment had only twelve working tanks.

In December 1943, because of his destructive leadership of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment in Russia, the division command of the LSSAH relieved Peiper of combat duty and transferred him to staff-officer duty at the division headquarters. Despite his uneven battlefield performance in Russia, his political value for Nazi propaganda was greater than his shortcomings as a military officer; thus, on 27 January 1944, Hitler presented the Oak Leaves to Peiper.

Western Front, 1944
In March 1944, the LSSAH was withdrawn from the Eastern Front and sent to be reformed in Nazi-occupied Belgium. New and replacement soldiers were integrated to their ranks; most were adolescent boys, unlike the Nazi ideologue, fanatical soldiers from the 1930s. The difficult training and the brutal hazing-and-initiation rituals to which the new soldiers were subjected resulted in five soldiers being executed for not meeting the standards of Kampfgruppe Peiper; SS-Obersturmbannführer Peiper then ordered the new soldiers to look at the corpses of the failed soldiers. In 1956, the judicial authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany opened a war-crime case to investigate the accusation that Peiper deliberately killed some of his own Waffen-SS soldiers as a point of unit discipline. In 1966, Peiper claimed he knew nothing of it, and the lack of contradictory evidence and witnesses closed the case.

As the Allied invasion (Operation Overlord, 6 June 1944) began, the LSSAH were deployed to the coast of the English Channel to confront the expected Allied invasion at Pas de Calais in northern France; transport to the frontlines was limited, and the Allied air forces controlled the skies. From 18 July 1944, the Kampfgruppe Peiper regiment saw action, but Peiper rarely was at the frontlines, because of the uneven terrain and the requisite radio silence. As with the other Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht units in the area, Kampfgruppe Peiper fought defensively until Operation Cobra (25–31 July 1944) collapsed the German front when the U.S. Army destroyed every tank of the LSSAH and killed 25 per cent of their force of 19,618 soldiers. After suffering a nervous breakdown during the fighting around Caen, Peiper was relieved of command on 2 August 1944. In September–October 1944 he was hospitalized; initial in Paris, and then to Tegernsee Reserve Hospital in Bavaria near his wife Sigi and children.

So Peiper was not in command of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment during Operation Luttich (7–13 August 1944), the series of failed counter-attacks at Avranches.

He rejoined his regiment in October 1944. In November the 1st SS Panzer Corps was moved to the Cologne area to assist cleanup after Allied bombing. The new recruits were appalled by having to retrieve mashed and mangled bodies. Peiper remarked "Their hatred for the enemy was such ... I swear it. I could not always keep it under control". After going to Duren after a raid he confessed that he "wanted to castrate the swine who did this with a broken glass bottle" Peiper and his men wanted revenge.

Battle of the Bulge
In autumn of 1944, the Wehrmacht continually repelled Allied assaults to breach, penetrate, and cross the Siegfried Line, whilst Hitler sought opportunity to seize the initiative on the Western Front. The result was Nazi Germany's Ardennes Offensive, a desperate, strategic gambit whereby the German armies were intended to break through the U.S. lines in the Ardennes forest, cross the River Meuse, and then seize the city of Antwerp in order to break and divide the Allied front.

The 6th Panzer Army was to penetrate the American lines between Aachen and the Schnee Eifel, in order to seize the bridges over the Meuse, on both sides of the city of Liège. The 6th Panzer Army designated the LSSAH as the mobile-strike force, under the command of SS-Oberführer Wilhelm Mohnke. Four combined-arms battle groups composed the 6th Panzer Division; Peiper commanded Kampfgruppe Peiper, the best-equipped battle group, which included the 501st Heavy Panzer Battalion equipped with seventy-ton Tiger II tanks. Kampfgruppe Peiper was to seize the bridges on the Meuse river between the cities of Liège and Huy. To address the shortage of fuel, headquarters provided Peiper with a map indicating the locations of U.S. Army fuel depots, where he was intended to seize the fuel stores from the few U.S. Army soldiers manning those fuel dumps.

The 6th Panzer Army assigned Kampfgruppe Peiper to routes that included narrow and single-lane roads, which compelled the infantry, armoured vehicles, and tanks to travel as a convoy approximately 25 km long. Peiper complained that the roads assigned were suitable for bicycles, but not for tanks; yet the chief of staff Fritz Krämer told Peiper: "I don't care how and what you do. Just make it to the Meuse. Even if you've only one tank left when you get there."

Peiper's vehicles reached the point of departure at midnight, which delayed the attack by Kampfgruppe Peiper by almost twenty-four hours. The plan was to advance through Losheimergraben, but the two infantry divisions tasked to open the route for Kampfgruppe Peiper had failed to do so on the first day of battle. In the morning of 17 December, Kampfgruppe Peiper captured Honsfeld and the U.S. Army's stores of fuel. Peiper continued west until the road became impassable, a short distance from the town of Ligneuville; that detour compelled Peiper's units towards the Baugnez crossroads, near the city of Malmedy, Belgium.

War crimes

During Peiper's advance on 17 December 1944, his armoured units and half-tracks confronted a lightly armed convoy of about thirty American vehicles at the Baugnez crossroads near Malmedy. The troops, mainly elements of the American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, were quickly overcome and captured. Along with other American prisoners of war captured earlier, they were ordered to stand in a meadow before the Germans opened fire on them with machine guns, killing 84 soldiers, and leaving their bodies in the snow. The survivors were able to reach American lines later that day, and their story spread rapidly throughout the American front lines.

In Honsfeld, Peiper's men murdered several other American prisoners. Other murders of POWs and civilians were reported in Büllingen, Ligneuville and Stavelot, Cheneux, La Gleize, and Stoumont on 17, 18, 19 and 20, 21 December. On 19 December, in the area between Stavelot and Trois-Ponts, while the Germans were trying to regain control of the bridge over the Amblève River (crucial for allowing reinforcements and supplies to reach them), men from Kampfgruppe Peiper killed and raped a number of Belgian civilians. The battle group was eventually declared responsible for the deaths of 362 prisoners of war and 111 civilians.

Defeat and retreat
Peiper crossed Ligneuville and reached the heights of Stavelot on the left bank of the Amblève River at nightfall of the second day of the operation. The battle group paused for the night, allowing the Americans to reorganize. After heavy fighting, Peiper's armour crossed the bridge on the Amblève. The spearhead continued on, without having fully secured Stavelot. By then, the surprise factor had been lost. The U.S. forces regrouped and blew up several bridges ahead of Peiper's advance, trapping the battle group in the deep valley of the Amblève, downstream from Trois-Ponts. The weather also improved, permitting the Allied air forces to operate. Airstrikes destroyed or heavily damaged numerous German vehicles. Peiper's command was in disarray: some units had lost their way among difficult terrain or in the dark, while company commanders preferred to stay with Peiper at the head of the column and thus were unable to provide guidance to their own units.

Peiper attacked Stoumont on 19 December and took the town amid heavy fighting. He was unable to protect his rear, which enabled American troops to cut him off from the only possible supply road for ammunition and fuel at Stavelot. Without supplies, and with no contact with other German units behind him, Peiper could advance no further. American attacks on Stoumont forced the remnants of the battle group to retreat to La Gleize. On 24 December, Peiper abandoned his vehicles and retreated with the remaining men. German wounded and American prisoners were also left behind. According to Peiper, 717 men returned to the German lines out of 3,000 at the beginning of the operation.

Despite the failure of Peiper's battle group and the loss of all tanks, Mohnke recommended Peiper for a further award. The events at the Baugnez crossroads were described in glowing terms: "Without regard for threats from the flanks and only inspired by the thought of a deep breakthrough, the Kampfgruppe proceeded ... to Ligneuville and destroyed at Baugnez an enemy supply column and after annihilation of the units blocking their advance, succeeded in causing the staff of the 49th Anti-Aircraft Brigade to flee." Rather than a stain on Peiper's honour, the killing of POWs was celebrated in official records. In January 1945, the Swords were added to his Knight's Cross. The great fame of Peiper as a Waffen-SS commander during the Battle of the Bulge was born.

Hungary, 1945
In early 1945, in Hungary, Kampfgruppe Peiper fought in Operation Southwind (17–24 February 1945) and in Operation Spring Awakening (6–15 March 1945) in the battles of which, despite killing many enemy soldiers, Peiper's aggressive style of command cost many more wounded and dead Waffen-SS soldiers than were necessary to win the battle. On 1 May 1945, as the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler was forced into Austria, Peiper's men learned of the death of the Führer the previous day. On 8 May, the German high command ordered the units of the Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler to surrender to the U.S. Army that was across the River Enns.

Capture and arrest
Flouting the high command's order to surrender, Col. Peiper trekked home to Germany where American forces captured him on 22 May 1945. In late June 1945, U.S. Army war-crime investigators began the forensic investigation of the Malmedy massacre that the Waffen-SS committed on 17 December 1944. The war crimes committed during the Battle of the Bulge were attributed to Battle Group Peiper, so the U.S. Army searched PoW camps for the Waffen-SS soldiers assigned to Peiper's command. Moreover, as the battle-group commander, Peiper headed the list of war criminals sought by the U.S. Army from among four million prisoners of war. On 21 August 1945, Waffen-SS Standartenführer Peiper was found and identified as the suspected author of the war-crime massacre of 84 U.S. soldiers in a farmer's field near the city of Malmédy, Belgium.

In July 1945, during his interrogations by JAG and military intelligence officers, Peiper revealed his commitment to Nazism; when the Army interrogators asked his opinion about the plight of the Poles and the Jews, Peiper agitatedly replied that: "All Jews are bad and all Poles are bad. We have just cleansed our society and moved these people into camps, and you let them loose!" Moreover, as a Waffen-SS officer, Peiper also lamented to the Army interrogators that the U.S. government was wrong in having refused to incorporate the Waffen-SS into the U.S. Army to "prepare to fight the Russians" in defence of Western civilisation.

In Upper Bavaria, at the U.S. military jail in Freising, the judicial and military intelligence interrogators soon learned that, although Peiper and his Waffen-SS troops were hardened soldiers, they had not been trained to withstand interrogation as prisoners of war. Being psychologically unsophisticated men, some SS PoWs readily answered the questions asked of them by the interrogators; other SS PoWs claimed they only spoke to interrogators after having endured threats, beatings, and mock trials.

In the course of his interrogations, Peiper assumed command responsibility for the actions of his soldiers. In December 1945, the Army transferred him to the prison at Schwäbisch Hall, and there integrated Peiper to a group of approximately 1,000 Waffen-SS soldiers and officers of the LSSAH who also awaited judicial processing for their war crimes. On 16 April 1946, the prison transferred 300 Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS POWs to the Dachau Concentration Camp, where a military tribunal would hear their war-crime cases.

War crimes trial
In the 16 May – 16 July 1946 period, at the Dachau Concentration Camp, a military tribunal heard the Malmedy Massacre Trial of 74 defendants, which featured Waffen-SS Lt. Col. Joachim Peiper (Cmdr. 1st SS Panzer Regiment) who committed the war crimes; Sepp Dietrich (Cmdr. 6th SS Panzer Army); Fritz Krämer (Dietrich's chief of staff); and Hermann Prieß (Cmdr. I SS Panzer Corps). The U.S. Army's war-crime bill of charges was based upon the facts reported in the sworn statements given by the Party, Wehrmacht, and Waffen-SS PoWs in the Schwäbisch Hall prison.

To counter the evidence in the sworn statements of the Nazi defendants and the prosecution witnesses, the lead defence attorney, Lt. Col. Willis M. Everett, tried to show that the sworn statements had been obtained by inappropriate interrogation. Defence counsel Everett then called Lt. Col. Hal D. McCown, commander 2nd Battalion, 119th Infantry Regiment, to give testimony about his captivity – as a prisoner of war – of the Waffen-SS who captured him and his unit on 21 December 1944, in the vicinity of La Gleize, Belgium. In his trial testimony, Lt. Col. McCown said that he had not witnessed Col. Peiper's Waffen-SS soldiers mistreating their American prisoners of war.

The prosecutor countered that, by the time Lt. Col. McCown and his soldiers had been captured on 21 December, battle group commander Peiper already was aware that the tactical situation of being out-numbered, out-gunned, and out-manoeuvred placed Kampfgruppe Peiper in danger of imminent capture by the U.S. Army. While on 17 December 1944, the units of the Battle Group Peiper at Malmédy, Belgium were advancing to their objectives, by 21 December 1944, continual firefights with the U.S. Army had divided and dispersed scattered Battle Group Peiper, and thus almost trapped Peiper's unit, and Peiper, at La Gleize. By that point Peiper's vehicles had little fuel and his soldiers had suffered 80 percent casualty rates.

Defence counsel Everett called only Peiper to testify. In his testimony, Peiper communicated only calculation about the usefulness of his American prisoners of war, testifying that when the Peiper Battle Group fled afoot from the town of La Gleize, Col. Peiper made hostages of Lt. Col. McCown and some of his soldiers in order to protect his Waffen-SS soldiers from capture by the U.S. Army.

Despite the damning and incriminating facts that Peiper testified to the military tribunal, the other defendant SS-men, supported by their German lawyers, unwisely asked for the opportunity to testify. The prosecutor's cross-examinations compelled the SS men to behave like "a bunch of drowning rats ... turning on each other" to survive; thus did the Nazi PoW testimonies – of soldiers and officers – about the Malmedy war crimes provide the military tribunal with reasons to condemn to death several of the Waffen-SS defendants.

The military tribunal were unconvinced by Peiper's testimony that, as the commanding officer of the Battle Group Peiper, he, Col. Peiper, had no command responsibility for the summary execution of American PoWs by his Waffen-SS soldiers. When asked about having ordered his soldiers to summarily murder Belgian civilians, Peiper said that the dead people were partisan guerrillas – not civilians.

Two witnesses testified to having heard Peiper on two occasions order the summary execution of U.S. PoWs; yet, when the prosecutor asked whether or not he gave the orders for the summary executions, Peiper denied the veracity of the eyewitness testimony, claiming that the testimony had been coerced from men under mental duress and physical torture.

Commuted death sentence
On 16 July 1946, the military tribunal for the Malmedy Massacre Trial convicted Joachim Peiper of the war crimes of which he was accused, and sentenced him to be hanged. In the judicial system of the U.S. Army, a sentence of death is automatically reviewed by the U.S. Army Review Board, and, in October 1947, death-sentence reviewers commuted some verdicts into long imprisonment for Nazi war criminals. In March 1948, Gen. Lucius D. Clay, the U.S. military governor of Occupied Germany, reviewed 43 death sentences, and confirmed the legality of only 12 death sentences, including the death sentence of Waffen-SS Col. Peiper.

In 1951, about politicking for the political rehabilitation of Waffen-SS Colonel Joachim Peiper, ex-general Heinz Guderian said to a correspondent:

At the moment, I'm negotiating with General Handy [in Heidelberg], because [he] wants to hang the unfortunate Peiper. McCloy is powerless, because the Malmedy trial is being handled by Eucom, and is not subordinate to McCloy. As a result, I have decided to cable President Truman and ask him if he is familiar with this idiocy.

In 1948, the judicial reviewers of the trial verdicts of the military tribunal commuted the war-crime death sentences of some Waffen-SS defendants in the Malmedy massacre trial to life imprisonment. In 1951, Peiper's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In 1954, it was further commuted to 35 years imprisonment. He was released on parole on 22 December 1956. When Peiper was told he was being released by two U.S. soldiers, he was so shocked that he stared at them silently. The political lobbying of the network of SS men arranged and realised Peiper's early release from prison and his finding employment; the Mutual Aid Community of Former Members of the Waffen SS (HIAG) already had found employment for Frau Peiper near the Landsberg Prison wherein her husband resided. Thanks to the political influence of Albert Prinzing, an ex-functionary in the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) security service, Peiper was employed at the Porsche automobile company.

Post-war revisionist
On release from Landsberg Prison, Joachim Peiper acted discreetly and did not associate with known Nazis in public, especially with ex-Waffen-SS soldiers and the Mutual Aid Association of Former Waffen-SS Members (HIAG); privately, Peiper remained a true-believer Nazi and member of the secret community of Waffen-SS in the Federal Republic of Germany.

In 1959, Peiper attended the national meeting of the Association of Knight's Cross Recipients. He travelled with Walter Harzer, the HIAG historian, and reunited with Sepp Dietrich and Heinz Lammerding, who had also been formally identified as Nazi war criminals. His active social life in the Waffen-SS community included Peiper's public participation in the funerals of dead Nazis such as those of Kurt Meyer, Paul Hausser, and Dietrich. Collaborating with the HIAG, Peiper secretly worked for the political rehabilitation of Waffen-SS soldiers and officers, by suppressing their war-crime records and misrepresenting them as war veterans of the Wehrmacht. Nevertheless, self-awareness of his legalistic chicanery allowed Peiper to tell a friend: "I, personally, think that every attempt at rehabilitation during our lifetime is unrealistic, but one can still collect material."

On 17 January 1957, the Porsche automobile company employed Peiper in Stuttgart. In the course of his employment, Italian trade union workers formally complained that Peiper was unacceptable as a co-worker because he remained a Nazi and because of the wartime Boves massacre committed by his command, the Kampfgruppe Peiper, in Italy. An owner of the car company, Ferry Porsche, personally intervened to promote Peiper into a management job, but the trade unions legally refused to work with Peiper; despite the friendship with Porsche, and because of lost sales of cars in the U.S. – for employing a Nazi war criminal – the Porsche automobile company dismissed Peiper from his employment.

On 30 December 1960, Peiper filed a lawsuit against the Porsche car company, wherein the attorney claimed that Joachim Peiper was not a Nazi war criminal, because the Allies had used the Malmedy massacre trial (1946) as propaganda to defame the German people; likewise the Nuremberg trials (20 November 1945 – 1 October 1946) and the Malmedy massacre trial were anti-German propaganda. Peiper's attorney cited documents by Freda Utley, a Holocaust denier academic, which said that the U.S. Army had tortured the Waffen-SS defendants in the Malmedy massacre trial.

The court ordered that Porsche void the employment contract and indemnify Peiper for the dismissal. Morever, that lost job allowed Der Freiwillige, the official newspaper of the HIAG, to misrepresent Peiper as having been "unfairly sentenced" for war crimes committed by other Nazis. The HIAG then found Peiper employment as a trainer of car salesmen at the Volkswagen automobile company.

Further prosecutions
In the early 1960s, Cold War geopolitics in western Europe required transforming Germany from enemy (Nazi Germany) to ally (Federal Republic of Germany) for consequent integration into NATO. Consequent to the relative de-Nazification of German society, the economy of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) disallowed ex-Nazis to hide among the educated staff of a business company in post-War Germany; a Nazi diploma was unacceptable for employment. The Adolf Eichmann trial (1961) and the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials (1963–1965) informed the world of the true, racist nature of Nazi Germany and their politics of official antisemitism and the Final Solution in order to realise the Holocaust – the purpose of Nazism.

Unlike in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939–1945) in Europe, when the Allies prosecuted war crimes under a limited remit (1945–1947), the Federal Republic of Germany continually extended the statute of limitations for the prosecution of war crimes in order to successfully hunt, capture, and prosecute the war criminals of the Nazi party, the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS, and the Gestapo. In their testimonies at the war-crime trials in the FRG, the Nazi war criminals repeatedly named SS-Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper as an active participant in the massacres of civilians and PoWs at the Eastern front and at the Western front of the War; among the fellow Nazis who betrayed Peiper in court were Karl Wolff (senior adjutant to Himmler) and Werner Grothmann (Peiper's successor as adjutant to Himmler). At trial, the court heard Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (Bandenbekämpfung chief for occupied Europe) speak of Himmler's plans to "rid Russia of thirty million Slavic people" and Himmler's pronouncements, at Minsk, that he was "determined to eliminate the Jews".

In 1964, the village of Boves, Italy erected a monument commemorating the victims of the Boves Massacre committed by the Kampfgruppe Peiper on 13 September 1943. Offended by that explicit, public identification as a war criminal, Peiper asked the Mutual Aid Association of Former Members of the Waffen-SS (HIAG) to legally defend him against that war-criminal label. Peiper's defence attorney said that Italian Communists had fabricated evidence to substantiate false Nazi war-crime accusations; Peiper again repeated that Battle Group Peiper had to destroy the village of Boves in the course of the Waffen-SS defence against Communist partisans.

On 23 June 1964, the Central Office of the State Justice Administration for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes formally accused Peiper of perpetrating the Boves Massacre in 1943. The formal accusation was based upon statements of two ex-partisans who recognized SS Lt. Col. Joachim Peiper from two published photographs in a picture-book about the Battle of the Bulge and from a photograph of SS-Obersturmbannführer Peiper observing the incineration of the village of Boves. In 1968, the German District Court in Stuttgart determined that Battle Group Peiper had set houses afire and that "a portion of the victims killed was from rioting that was committed by [the Waffen-SS soldiers]". Nevertheless, despite the battle group's collective culpability for the war-crime at Boves, there was no evidence of the individual command responsibility that SS-Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper, himself, had directly ordered the massacre of villagers at Boves, Italy.

Personal life
In 1938, Peiper met and courted Sigurd Hinrichsen, a secretary who was a friend of Lina Heydrich (wife of Reinhard Heydrich) and a friend of Hedwig Potthast, secretary and mistress to Himmler. On 26 June 1939, Peiper married Sigurd in an SS ceremony; Himmler was the guest of honour. The Peipers lived in Berlin until its bombing in 1940; Sigurd Peiper then went to live in Rottach-Egern, Upper Bavaria, near Himmler's second residence. They had three children.

Final years
In 1972, Joachim and Sigurd Peiper moved to Traves, Haute-Saône, in eastern France, where he owned a house. Under the pseudonym "Rainer Buschmann", Peiper worked as a self-employed English-to-German translator for the German publisher Stuttgarter MotorBuch Verlag, translating books of military history. Despite his biography and working pseudonymously, they lived under his true, German name, "Joachim Peiper", and soon attracted the notice of anti-fascists.

In 1974, a member of the French Resistance recognised Peiper and reported his presence in metropolitan France to the French Communist Party. In 1976, the historian of the French Communist Party searched the Gestapo files for the personnel file of SS-Oberststurmbannführer Joachim Peiper to determine his whereabouts. On 21 June 1976, anti-Nazi political activists distributed informational flyers to the Traves community informing them that Peiper was a Nazi war criminal residing among them. On 22 June 1976, an article in the L'Humanité newspaper confirmed that Peiper was living in the village.

The confirmation of Peiper's Nazi identity and presence in France attracted journalists to whom Peiper readily gave interviews, wherein he claimed that he was a victim of Communist harassment due to his role in the war. In an interview (J'ai payé "I Already Have Paid"), Peiper said he was an innocent man who had paid for his war crimes (referring to the Malmedy massacre) with twelve years of prison. He said he was innocent of the earlier Boves massacre war crime in Italy. He also said "In 1940, French people weren't brave, that's why I'm here." These insulting remarks angered the press and residents. It was reported that he and his wife left France and moved to West Germany due to ongoing death threats.

Death
On Bastille Day, 14 July 1976, French communist assailants attacked and torched Peiper's house in Traves. When the fire was extinguished, firefighters found the charred remains of a man holding a pistol and a .22 calibre rifle, as if defending himself. The arson investigators determined that person had died from smoke inhalation. The anti-Nazi political group The Avengers claimed responsibility for the arson that killed Peiper; nonetheless, because of the destruction caused by the arson some French police authorities remained unconvinced that Joachim Peiper was the person found.

Neo-Nazi legacy
In the United States, Joachim Peiper is an idol of neo-Nazi Americans who romanticise the Waffen-SS as German war heroes, rather than as Nazi war criminals. In the post-War period of the late 1940s and early 1950s, the cultural context – xenophobic Russo-American Cold War and reactionary McCarthyism – allowed historical, factual, and personal misrepresentations of Peiper to coalesce into the cult of personality practised by certain right-wing organisations, such as the HIAG (Mutual Aid Association of Former Members of the Waffen-SS) who sought his early release from war-crime imprisonment in West Germany. In American popular culture, Lt. Col. Peiper's military bearing, good looks, commanding presence, and chestful of Nazi medals earned him many right-wing admirers in civilian society and in military society.

In the U.S. military, the idolatry of Peiper penetrated the official publications of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). In 2019, the DoD Facebook account included a colourised military photograph of Peiper in Waffen-SS uniform into an audiovisual commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the U.S. Army fighting Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS soldiers at the Battle of the Bulge – which included the Malmedy Massacre (1944) committed by Kampfgruppe Peiper. Peiper's Waffen-SS photograph provoked "widespread backlash on social media" because the DoD publication appeared to celebrate a Nazi war criminal as a German war hero; the DoD apologised and deleted the photograph. Despite that political mis-step, the Pentagon used Peiper's Waffen-SS photograph to represent the German enemy fighting the U.S. Army airborne corps in the Battle of the Bulge. Moreover, the Facebook page of the Army's 10th Mountain Division also featured Peiper's colourised Waffen-SS military photograph to represent the German enemy they fought in the Second World War.

The Washington Post and The New York Times newspapers quoted Facebook commentators who said that the DoD's positive military biography of the war criminal Joachim Peiper was a "vile and disturbing" exercise in historical negationism, which had the tone of "a 'fanboy-flavoured' piece" of right-wing propaganda. Moreover, the researchers of The Washington Post traced the source of Peiper's colourised photograph to the Twitter account of a pro-Nazi artist who publishes photographs of Nazis, with captions of supportive praise for Nazism and Hitler, and concluded that:

"It remains unclear how Pentagon and Army officials cleared an image, apparently created by an artist who celebrates Nazi propaganda online, to be published alongside a tribute to the American soldiers who fought and died to defeat a fascist regime 75 years ago. But the mis-step is just the latest in a month of embarrassing incidents for the U.S. Army, which has been recently slammed with multiple allegations of white supremacist activity."

title: Joachim Peiper


text:
"King" Bennie Nawahi

"King" Bennie Nawahi (July 3, 1899 – January 29, 1985) was an American steel guitarist from Hawaii who was popular in the U.S. during the 1920s and 1930s.

Biography
Benjamin Keakahiawa Nawahi was born in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, one of 12 children. While not of royal descent, he was eventually nicknamed "King" as many show business personalities are for their particular genre.

Nawahi learned to play guitar in the parks of Honolulu for pennies, often teaming with Sol Hoopii, who would later become his rival for the title "King of the Hawaiian Guitar", along with Sam Ku West. He was also known as "King of the Ukulele".

In 1919 Nawahi played with his brother Joe's band, the Hawaiian Novelty Five, on the Matsonia passenger liner that sailed between Honolulu and San Francisco. The group eventually became a staple on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit's North America tour.

Bennie Nawahi separated from the group and embarked on a solo career as a singing ukulele player. Master showman Sid Grauman proclaimed him "King of the Ukulele" and the nickname stuck.

In 1920 an act of the United States Congress established "Hawaii National Park" (later split into Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and Haleakalā National Park), shining a spotlight on the islands. The 1920s became a heyday for all things Hawaiian, including novelty acts of the vaudeville genre. Among Nawahi's novelty stunts was playing Turkey in the Straw on Hawaiian guitar with his feet. Tin Pan Alley went with the Hawaii craze and between 1915 and 1929 produced such ditties as Hello Hawaii How Are You? (1915) (when many pronounced the state's name as How-Wah-Yah), Oh How She Could Yacki Hacki Wiki Wacki Woo (1916), Hula Hula Dream Girl (1924) and That Aloha Waltz (1928).

There is some evidence Bennie Nawahi also used the name "J. Nawahi", as the Victor Library lists the tune Hula Blues by "J. Nawahi (instrumentalist : steel guitar)".

By 1928 Nawahi had begun recording for multiple record labels, including Columbia, Victor, Q.R.S. and Grey Gull, under multiple names (including Red Devils, Q.R.S. Boys, Slim Smith, Hawaiian Beach Combers, Georgia Jumpers, Four Hawaiian Guitars and King Nawahi & the International Cowboys), with bandmates that included soon to be Sons of the Pioneers, Tim Spencer (singer) and Leonard Slye (later to become cowboy star Roy Rogers).

Blindness and later life
One night in 1935 while driving home from a performance, Nawahi was suddenly struck blind. No medical cause was ever identified. The loss of vision was permanent, but he never allowed it to impede his life, as he continued performing and touring until the 1970s, when he was partially paralyzed by a stroke.

Nawahi set a remarkable swimming record for blind people in 1946. He swam the 22 miles of choppy Pacific Ocean waters from San Pedro, California to Santa Catalina Island in just over 22 hours, guided only by coach John Sonnichson and a bell on a lead boat.

He appeared briefly in the 1985 Academy Award-nominated documentary film on Roy Smeck, Wizard of the Strings.

He died in Long Beach, California on January 29, 1985.

Discography

 * From Honolulu To Hollywood: Jazz, Blues & Popular Specialties Performed Hawaiian Style (2008) CD (The Old Masters)
 * Hawaiian String Virtuoso: Steel Guitar Rec 1920's (2000) CD 2055 (Yazoo)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: "King" Bennie Nawahi


text:
Talk:Administrative units of Pakistan

February 2004
List numbering doesn't work for me (I am using Konqueror 3.1) - instead of numbering 1-8 I get 1-4, 1-2 and 1-2. Is anybody else having this problem as well? --Peterlin 09:03, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * It works fine here with Mozilla 1.5. The numbering is done with a simple

which should be a standard HTML command to do a numbered list with an offset. So this must be a bug in your browser that it ignores the "start" command. andy 09:08, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Proposed merger
The entire content of the article on Provinces and territories of Pakistan can be found on the Subdivisions of Pakistan article. I propose the two be merged with a redirect at the Provinces and territories page. Green Giant 13:38, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Kashmir POV
Argh, an anonymous IP keeps reverting the opening, which I think this pretty carefully neutrally worded, into a sentence that doesn't even make sense ("In addition, the portion of Kashmir is divided into two separate administrative units."). I don't want to get into a 3rv block with him, but can someone else jump in here? He's arguing that this page can't acknowledge the fact that Kashmir is disputed unless the corresponding India page does (though he seems so far to not have taken up my suggestion to edit the India page). --Jfruh (talk) 01:24, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Why this article was moved from Administrative divisions
There seems to have been little common agreement between editors on what to call this article. Some of the titles make a lot of sense but there are good reasons not adopt them:
 * Administrative divisions of Pakistan and Political divisions of Pakistan have the potential to cause confusion with the tier of government called Divisions of Pakistan which existed between the provincial and district level and were only abolished in 2000 but now seem to be restored. One also has to bear in mind that the federal and provincial governments insist on using the word "division" to describe the components of their ministries e.g. Railways division etc.
 * Provinces of Pakistan and Pakistani province are only suitable for half of the top tier i.e. we need to include the four less autonomous units (ICT, FATA, Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Kashmir).
 * Provinces and territories of Pakistan does not work because only the Islamabad Capital Territory is officially a territory.
 * Subdivisions of Pakistan and Regions of Pakistan imply it is a unitary state but officially Pakistan is a federation.
 * Provinces and federally administered areas of Pakistan does not work because the "federally administered areas" is too close to "Federally Administered Tribal Areas" but not close enough to the other three smaller units.

As a result I believe it is better to use the term that the government of Pakistan uses in the official census - Administrative Units, with a small "u" for the word "units". Green Giant (talk) 15:50, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

population of Pakistan
Unless I have made a mistake, the population of Pakistan differs from the sum of the population of each of the units by exactly 4,773,000. Is there a reason for this? July 06, 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.194.65.197 (talk) 20:10, 6 July 2011 (UTC) Wht isn't it a exact number? Why is it a percent? That's very vague. Do you expect people to find it themselves?$200inaire (talk) 03:37, 30 January 2012 (UTC)$200inaire

Tagged for update ...
... because it still talks about the 4-tier system with divisions, which Districts of Pakistan says were abolished in August 2000. At least one of them needs updating. --Stfg (talk) 13:32, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

email addresses of all heads of departments should be given.
Assalam-o-alaikum:-For instance, I want to send emails to the District Accounts' Officer 1,FAISALABAD; BUT HIS EMAIL ADDRESS IS NOT AVAILABLE;email addresses of all heads of departments should be given.I have an earnest piece of work with the said officer; I am an heart patient aged about 71; a pensioner.I want to send an email to him.I need not hide any thing. Sincerely Yours,'Muhammad Ayyub Son of Hafiz Muhammad Hussain,Retired Associate Professor of Zoology,Government College ,Dhobighat/Government College University,FAISALABAD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.186.177.237 (talk) 21:45, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090720052328/http://www.fata.gov.pk/ to http://www.fata.gov.pk/

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:07, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Flag of Balochistan.svg

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 08:07, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Balochistan in Pakistan (claims hatched).svg

Provinces and territories of Pakistan
Someone should include both the provinces and the territories in the table Flags200 (talk) 18:09, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

The following sources describe Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan as "dependent territories":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Azad_Kashmir

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunza_District

50.111.110.138 (talk) 23:35, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Conflicting information
In the table, the info-bubble for "Sindh" describes is as "one of the four provences of Pakistan."

The map and the table, however, show seven provences of Pakistan.

Which is it: four, or seven? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.253 (talk) 20:50, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Four provinces, three regions which are not provinces. DS (talk) 16:31, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 15 July 2021
Add Template:Pakistan Administrative Units Image Map to administrative divisons section in article for easy navigation as well. The Story of Marjaan (talk) 10:24, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Where should this be added? Does it really add anything to the article as it stands? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:29, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 July 2021
EditWiki45 (talk) 16:35, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

The current map is not suitable under the guidelines and is not valid in UN also as well as the territory shown is not contolled by pakistan plz look into it and talk to me if you have any questions EditWiki45 (talk) 16:36, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:27, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:54, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Flag of Gilgit-Baltistan.svg
 * Gilgit Baltistan Government Logo.svg

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 14 January 2023
Multan is in punjab region so count it as once. Lahore is capital of punjab Leoheroofficial (talk) 18:51, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Lightoil (talk) 08:46, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Geo graphy for grade 6
What type of work do the people do in all province and territories of Pakistan

103.137.24.211 (talk) 11:27, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Baluchi and Brahvi Language
Baluchi is a widely spoken language in Pakistan's province of Balochistan as well as Iran's Balochistan. Similarly Brahvi is also spoken by millions of people in Balochistan. Unfortunately both languages have no place in Wikipedia. So it is necessary that both languages should be placed on Wikipedia menu. Abunara (talk) 15:53, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Administrative units of Pakistan


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Vajiravudh

Vajiravudh (1 January 1881 –26 November 1925) was the sixth king of Siam from the Chakri dynasty, titled Rama VI. He reigned from 1910 until his death in 1925. King Vajiravudh is best known for his efforts to create and promote Siamese nationalism. His reign was characterized by Siam's movement further towards democracy and minimal participation in World War I. He had keen interests in Siamese history, archaeology, and literature, as well as economics, politics and world affairs, and founded the country's first university, Chulalongkorn University.

Education

Vajiravudh was born on 1 January 1881 to Chulalongkorn and one of his four queens and half sister Saovabha Phongsri. In 1888, upon coming of age, Vajiravudh received the title Krom Khun Thep Dvaravati (Prince of Ayutthaya). Also in 1888, Vajiravudh began suffering from a severe illness and was brought to Ko Sichang by his father to recover.

Prince Vajiravudh was first educated in the royal palace in Thai and English. His full siblings were Bahurada Manimaya, Tribejrutama Dhamrong, Chakrabongse Bhuvanath, Siriraj Kakudhabhand, Asdang Dejavudh, Chudadhuj Dharadilok and Prajadhipok, who succeeded him as King Rama VII. In 1895, his half-brother Crown Prince Vajirunhis died and Vajiravudh was appointed the new Crown Prince of Siam. In 1898, he continued his education in Britain at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned as a captain in the Durham Light Infantry, which he served with for three months of exercises in the south of England upon graduation. He studied law and history at Christ Church, Oxford in 1899, where, coming from a royal household, he was a member of the exclusive Bullingdon Club. However, he suffered from appendicitis, which barred him from graduating in 1901. He visited other European countries while he lived in England, including Belgium where he inspected Blegny fort. He went to Berlin in May 1902 and Copenhagen in September 1902. He attended the 15 May 1902 enthronement ceremonies for King Alfonso XIII of Spain in Madrid. On behalf of his father, King Chulalongkorn, he attended the coronation of King Edward VII on 9 August 1902.

Crown Prince Vajiravudh left England in October 1902 and returned to Siam in January 1903, traveling via US and Japan. In 1904 became a temporary monk, in accordance with Siamese tradition. In 1907, his father Chulalongkorn travelled to Europe to seek treatment for his lung disease, and Chulalongkorn made Vajiravudh Regent of Siam. One of Crown Prince Vajiravudh's accomplishments during this regency was his supervision of the construction of the equestrian statue of King Chulalongkorn.

Chulalongkorn died on 23 October 1910, and Vajiravudh succeeded his father as king of Siam.

Accession and early reforms
Even before his coronation, Vajiravudh initiated several reforms. He organized Siam's defence and established military academies. He created the rank of "general" for the first time in Siam, with his uncle, Prince Bhanurangsi Savangwongse as the first Siamese Field Marshal. On 11 November 1910, Vajiravudh underwent a provisional coronation ceremony, with a more lavish one planned for after the funerary rites of his father were complete.

His first act following his accession to the throne was to build the Royal Pages College, subsequently renamed Vajiravudh College by King Prajadhipok to honour his brother. It was built as an all-boy's boarding school in the same tradition as English public schools such as Eton and Harrow. The school was built instead of a royal monastery, formerly a custom of Thai kings, as King Vajiravudh deemed that there were already too many temples in Bangkok. In his own hand written letter, King Vajiravudh wrote that "In the Royal Pages College, what I want is not so much to turn out model boys, all of the same standard, all brilliant scholars with thousands of marks each, as to turn out efficient young men— young men who will be physically and morally clean, and who will be looking forward keenly to take up whatever burden the future of our state may lay upon them". Later he also raised the Civil Servant School to "Chulalongkorn Academy for Civil Officials", then Chulalongkorn University. Both Vajiravudh College and Chulalongkorn University still benefit from the funds that King Vajiravudh set aside for the use of the two elite institutions. He also improved Siamese healthcare systems and set up some of the earliest public hospitals in Siam, Vajira Hospital in 1912 and Chulalongkorn Hospital in 1914. In 1911, he established the Wild Tiger Corps [เสือป่า]) a para-military corp outside of the established military hierarchy. Initially a ceremonial guard, it became a military force of 4,000 within its first year and consumed much of the King's time and energy. It became the source of deep dissatisfaction between the army and the King. A branch for children was also established known as (ลูกเสือ Tiger Cubs) which became the Boy Scouts.

On 28 November 1911 Vajiravudh's second and formal coronation was held with visiting royals from Europe and Japan as guests, a first for Siam, which festivities took 13 days. Later that year, the first airplane was flown in Siam.

The early years of Vajiravudh's administration were largely dominated by his two uncles, Prince Damrong and Prince Devawongse, both of them Chulalongkorn's right-hand men. However, the king disagreed with Prince Damrong, Minister of Interior, over Damrong's negotiation of the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 that ceded four sultanates to the British Empire.

Vajiravudh reformed his father's monthon system by creating the "paks" (ภาค) or "regions" over the administrative monthons. Each pak was governed by an Uparaja (viceroy) directly responsible to the king. The Uparaja presided over the intendants of monthons in the region—thus concentrating local administrative powers in his hands—much to the dismay of Prince Damrong.

Attempted coup
Radicals expected a new constitution upon the coronation of Vajiravudh. However, no constitution was forthcoming. In 1911, the Wuchang Uprising that led to the fall of Qing dynasty prompted Siamese radicals to act. So, for the first time in Siam, an attempt was made to overthrow the monarchy and establish democracy.

The immediate cause, however, occurred even before Vajiravudh's coronation. In 1909, Crown Prince Vajiravudh ordered a Thai Royal Military Academy student who had had an argument with one of Vajiravudh's pages to be caned. Academy alumni were further provoked by Vajiravudh's creation of the Wild Tiger Corps, seen by the army as a threat to their prerogatives.

The plotters were relatively young army and naval officers, students during the 1909 incident. The coup was planned for 1 April—the traditional Siamese New Year's Day. They planned to elevate one of Vajiravudh's half brothers, Prince Raphi Phatthanasak, to be the first president of Siam. They believed that, if the absolute monarchy were removed, Siam would achieve modernization as in Japan under Emperor Taishō. The coup leaders accused the king of devoting his time to writing and acting in theatrical plays with his companions. They also accused him of living a luxurious Western-style life, building Sanam Chan Palace and Lumphini Park, and owning expensive horses from Australia, while preaching austerity and nationalism to his subjects. The counter-argument is that the assertions were political and his developments were for the good of the state, in terms of impressing visiting dignitaries, or developing assets for the nation. Rama VI donated Lumphini Park, originally an exhibition ground on royal land, to the public in 1925 at his expense.

The coup plan was leaked. Captain Yut Kongyu, who was selected as the assassin by lottery, told Mom Chao Prawatpan, and then Prince Chakrabongse, of the intended coup. Prince Chakrabongse arrested all the conspirators. Their sentences were severe, ranging from execution to long-term imprisonment. However, Vajiravudh rescinded the punishments and released the plotters, saying that what they did was for the sake of the kingdom.

Administration, economy, infrastructure
Rama VI inherited his father's plan of building a modern nation although he was more skeptical of outside methods. Disagreements occurred incessantly with "old aristocrats", many of whom were his relatives such as the celebrated Prince Damrong, his uncle, who took charge of the Ministry of Interior. As more and more corruption in the newly created provinces was reported, Rama VI created a viceroy system. Viceroys, appointed directly by the king, were sent to supervise provincial governors and local officials.

In 1912, Vajiravudh announced the change in the solar calendar era from the Rattanakosin Era (R.S.) designated by Chulalongkorn to the Buddhist Era with the year beginning 1 April 2455 BE (1912 CE).

In 1913, Siam faced a financial crisis as the Chinese-Siamese Bank went bankrupt.

In 1914, Vajiravudh, having determined that the act providing for the invocation of martial law, first promulgated by his father in 1907, was not consistent with modern laws of war nor convenient for the preservation of the external or internal security of the state, changed to the modern form that, with minor amendments, continues in force.

Also in 1914, the construction of Don Mueang Airport began. In the same year the Siamese government borrowed from the Federated Malay States to extend railways to the south. In 1915, Vajiravudh himself visited the southern provinces to oversee railway construction. The Bangkok railway station at Hua Lamphong was then established as a center of Siamese railroads. Prince Damrong eventually left the Ministry of Interior in 1915. In 1916, Vajiravudh appointed his half-brother, Prince of Kamphang Phet, as the Head of the Railway Department.

The king continued his father's rice varieties competition. He also continued the overall royal encouragement of development of rice varieties, founding the Rangsit Rice Experiment Station in 1916 (now called Pathum Thani Rice Research Center and run by the Ministry of Agriculture).

In 1917, Vajiravudh established the Nakorn Sri Thammarat Regiment as his personal guard. In the same year Vajiravudh founded Chulalongkorn University, the first university in Siam, named in honor of his father. In 1918, Vajiravudh founded the Dusit Thani near Dusit Palace as an experimental site for democracy. The democratic institutions were imitated including elections, parliament, and the press. Vajiravudh himself acted as one of the citizens of Dusit Thani, yet the city was criticized by others as another of Vajiravudh's theatrical conceits.

During 1918–1919 the price of rice soared. The government faced public criticism due to its tepid response. The major cause of the problem was the hoarding of rice. Chinese millers and rice merchants bought huge amounts of rice from farmers for export to Singapore, the largest rice market in the region. Price speculation was rampant. The government imposed a ban on rice exports. At the same time, public servants asked for higher wages due to the rising cost of living. The public, mainly the urban "middle-class", and Chinese traders became more and more unhappy with the government.

World War I and Siamese nationalism
On 22 July 1917 Vajiravudh declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. He aligned Siam with the Allied Powers and expelled German and Austrian officials from the Railway Department and Siam Commercial Bank. He also put the properties of the Central Powers under a Siamese government protectorate. Vajiravudh saw the war as an opportunity to create and promote Siamese nationalism. He changed the Flag of Siam from the elephant banner to the tricolor banner. King Vajiravudh is considered by some writers to be the father of Thai nationalism, which was later built upon by Field Marshal Phibunsongkhram and Sarit Dhanarajata. The alternative view is that the idea of nationalism by Rama VI was a later political construct. Prince Chula Chakrabongse classified him as a liberal.

Vajiravudh wrote a letter (held in the Gloucestershire Archives, England) to his friend Maynard Colchester Wemyss setting out his reasons for going to war, dated 18 September 1917. Wemyss was guardian to King Bhumipol's father and two of his brothers. Vajiravudh described the presence of Imperial German spy activity in Bangkok, allying with business groups for economic arrangements after a German take-over of Siam. Wemyss and the King also corresponded about Kaiser Wilhelm II's Asian aggression, on atrocities involving the Kaiser's army in Belgium (the Rape of Belgium) and the killing of British civilians by naval bombardment during the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby. In 1921, Rama VI wrote to Wemyss that in avoiding the "German militaristic spirit . . . Thai people had been protected as free minds". Vajiravudh introduced the practice of using the name Rama for the Chakri kings in deference to the dynasty and following western practice, being then himself Rama VI.

Other than 140,000 Vietnamese colonial troops and workers drafted by the French, Siamese troops were the only Southeast Asians in the European theatre of World War I. However, the Siamese troops did not see much action, as they arrived in Europe towards the end of the war. Participation in the war allowed Siam to later negotiate with the Western powers as a partner, albeit a junior one. Although the Siamese pilots who trained in France did not see combat because the war ended, Siam's participation in the First World war led to the founding of the Royal Thai Airforce and the airborne postal service. The Royal Siamese Transport Corps (Ror Yor) and Medical Corps did see front line action, but not in combat. Nineteen soldiers died, some in accidents, but mainly from the Spanish Flu.

Financial crisis
In 1917, the price of silver rose and exceeded the face value of silver coins. The coins were then melted down and sold. The government solved this by changing the pure silver coin to alloy. Vajiravudh eventually forbade exports of Siamese coins. In 1918, the usage of 1-baht coins was nullified and 1-baht banknotes were introduced. Coins were recalled and kept as a national reserve. In 1919, Vajuravudh imposed a military-exemptation tax (เงินรัชชูปการ) nationwide including on the royal members. As the need for huge capital increased, a new bank, later known as the "Government Savings Bank", was founded in 1923.

Though the Siamese forces that joined the march at Versailles returned triumphant in 1919, the worldwide economic problems caused by World War I were serious. In the same year, drought hit Siam and rice shortages ensued. The government forbade the export of rice, the main Siamese export since the Bowring Treaty. Queen Mother Saovabha, Vajiravudh's mother, died in 1919. Siamese participation in World War I opened the way to reconciliation, first with the United States in 1920, then to redress the unequal treaties imposed by Western powers in the 19th century.

In spite of the financial crisis, railway constructions continued. The railway reached Narathiwat and was expanded north and east. The construction of the Rama VI Bridge carrying the railway over the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok began in 1922 and the same year the railway reached Chiang Mai. However, the treasury was in such straits that a large loan from Britain was negotiated. Also in 1922, an insurgency occurred in Pattani over new taxation policies. It was readily suppressed by the Nakorn Sri Thammarat Regiment. In 1923, Vajiravudh announced his six principles in the governance of Pattani Province, emphasizing local freedom and tax measures.

Vajiravudh as a writer

King Vajiravudh was one of Thailand's most highly renowned artists, writing modern novels, short stories, newspaper articles, poems, plays, and journals. He translated many of English literature and French literature into Thai, Among his works were translations of three Shakespeare plays: The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Romeo and Juliet. He wrote many other pieces promoting Thai nationalism, one of his nationalistic works is "The Honour of Tiger Soldier" (เกียรติศักดิ์ทหารเสือ) based on ancient French chivalric rhyme "Mon âme à Dieu, Ma vie au Roi, Mon cœur aux Dames, L'honneur pour moi", and might also be influenced by Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers. King Vajiravudh also composed nonfiction such as “The War of Polish Succession”, which he wrote while he was Crown Prince (see also external links below).

The king was among those writers who introduced mysteries and detective stories to the Thai reading public. He translated Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novels into Thai, and created the character "Nai Thong-In" (นักสืบนายทองอิน) as a Siamese consulting detective, using Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin as an archetypes. He translated Sax Rohmer's The Golden Scorpion.

The king was well-versed in Sanskrit and Hindu literature, including the Ramayana and the Mahabharata epics. He translated many stories from the two epics into Thai and also wrote plays inspired by Hindu literature. He was influenced by Rama, the incarnation of Lord Vishnu and hero of the Ramayana epic, to the extent that he systemized and promoted the use of the name Rama as the (English) reign names of all Thai kings of the Bangkok (Rattanakosin) era. His own reign was dubbed as "Rama VI". (See Rama (Kings of Thailand))

As a homage to his great, great, great-grandfather, Tao Sên-pom, King Vajiravudh published a fictional play in Thai, based on the Prince and designed for performance with musical accompaniment in 1913. Prince Sên-pom was the father of Chao Praya Chakri, Rama I. The drama centres on a tale of Siamese courtly romance. It is absorbing fun and well-written. A copy of the play was given as a present to the Armstrong family in Cragside House, Rothbury, where it remains in the library. On a trip to the English Lake District, Vajiravudh directed the performance of a play at the Stonehenge-like setting of Castlerigg Stone Circle, in the mountains near Keswick.

In 1914 King Vajiravudh published in a Thai newspaper an article titled "Jews of the Orient" (ยิวแห่งบูรพาทิศ).Vajiravudh explicitly adopted Western antisemitic tropes and applied them to Chinese in Siam. The essay was written in the context of a recent strike by Chinese merchants and workers which had paralyzed Bangkok, and may also have been the product of Vajiravudh's exposure to European anti-Semitism. The article described Chinese immigrants in Thailand as having excessive "racial loyalty and astuteness in financial matters." The king wrote, "Money is their God. Life itself is of little value compared with the leanest bank account."

Marriages
Vajiravudh had been a king without a queen for about ten years. In 1920, he met Her Serene Highness Princess Varnvimol at his theatre at Phayathai Palace. They were engaged and Princess Vanbimol was elevated to Princess Vallabhadevi. However, four months later in 1921, Vajiravudh nullified the engagement and pursued Princess Vallabha's sister, Princess Lakshamilavan, whom he engaged. However, the marriage was never held and the couple then separated. Princess Vallabha Devi was house-arrested in the Grand Palace from then on.

In 1921, Vajiravudh married Prueang Sucharitakul, who was a daughter of Lord Suthammamontri and elevated her to Lady Sucharitsuda. He then married Sucharitsuda's sister, Prabai Sucharitakul, with the title of Lady Indrani. In 1922, Lady Indrani was elevated to Princess and Queen Indrasakdisachi. However, the queen suffered two miscarriages. In 1924, Vajiravudh married Krueakaew Abhaiwongse, later renamed Suvadhana, a daughter of Lord Aphaiphubet. Queen Indrasakdisachi was then demoted to Princess Consort in 1925.

Vajiravudh had only one child, a daughter with Suvadhana, Princess Bejaratana Rajasuda (เพชรรัตนราชสุดา; 1925–2011). In his influential book Imagined Communities, Anglo-Irish political scientist and historian Benedict Anderson speculated that the king was homosexual and that this would have prevented him from accession if the law of succession had not been reformed. Anderson was the first modern scholar to break the taboo and write about king's personal preferences.

Succession law
In 1924, Vajiravudh promulgated his Law of Succession, which has since become the code for Chakri dynasty successions. According to the law, the throne would be passed to the king's sons and grandsons. However, in the case of Vajiravudh who had no sons, the throne would pass to his eldest "true" or full brother, that is, a brother who shared both the same father and mother, Queen Saovabha Phongsri. The law gave priority to the descendants of princes born to Queen Saovabha, then to Queen Savang Vadhana, and then to Queen Sukhumala Marasri. The law also forbade princes whose mother was foreign from the throne. This referred to his brother, Prince Chakrabongse, who had married a Russian woman. His son, Prince Chula Chakrabongse, was therefore barred from the throne.

Financial problems and death
In 1924, King Vajiravudh, accompanied by Suvadhana, visited the Federated Malay States. The reconciliation with European powers on unequal treaties progressed gradually, while the financial crisis was taking a great toll on Siam as another loan was taken from Britain and the firing of numerous government officials occurred. In 1925 Vajiravudh had to dissolve his Nakorn Sri Thammarat Regiment and merged provinces into larger units to lower maintenance costs.

In November 1925, it was announced that Vajiravudh fell ill. Princess Consort Suvadhana was then pregnant. Vajiravudh then announced his succession instructions: if Princess Suvadhana gave birth to a son, the throne would go to him. If not, the throne would pass to his surviving brother, Prince Prajadhipok of Sukhothai. He barred Princess Inthrasaksachi from being interred with him in the future and instead granted that right to Princess Suvadhana. Vajiravudh also barred his uncle, Prince Damrong, from the government.

On the night of 25 November, Princess Suvadhana gave birth to a princess only two hours before Vajiravudh's death. Vajiravudh glimpsed his sole daughter for the first and only time before his demise on the 26 November 1925. The throne passed to his brother, Prajadhipok, who named Vajiravudh's daughter as Princess Bejaratana.

Tributes to King Vajiravudh

The 1930 poem "Elegia do rei de Sião" ("Elegy to the King of Siam") by Brazilian modernist poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade is dedicated to Vajiravudh.

Military rank

 * Field Marshal, Admiral of the Fleet and Captain General of the Wild Tiger Corps
 * Honorary General, British Army

National honours

 * Thailand:
 * Order of the Royal House of Chakri (Thailand) ribbon.svg Knight (and Sovereign) of the Most Illustrious Order of the Royal House of Chakri
 * Order of the Nine Gems (Thailand) ribbon.svg Knight (and Sovereign) of the Ancient and Auspicious Order of the Nine Gems
 * Order of Chula Chom Klao - Special Class (Thailand) ribbon.svg Knight Grand Cordon (and Sovereign) of the Most Illustrious Order of Chula Chom Klao
 * Ratana Varabhorn Order of Merit ribbon.svg Knight of the Ratana Varabhorn Order of Merit
 * Order of Rama 1st Class ribbon.svg Knight Grand Commander (and Sovereign) of the Honourable Order of Rama
 * Order of the White Elephant - Special Class (Thailand) ribbon.svg Knight Grand Cordon (and Sovereign) of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant
 * Order of the Crown of Thailand - Special Class (Thailand) ribbon.svg Knight Grand Cordon of the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand
 * Vallabhabhorn Order ribbon.svg Member of the Vallabhabhorn Order
 * Vajira Mala Order ribbon.svg Member of the Vajira Mala Order
 * Rajaniyom Medal (Thailand) ribbon.png Rajaniyom Medal
 * War Medal of BE2461 (Thailand) ribbon.png War Medal of B.E. 2461 (WW1)
 * Ribbon bar of Dushdi Mala - Military, Service to the Nation (Thailand).svg Dushdi Mala Medal Pin of Service to the Nation (Military)
 * Dushdi Mala - Civilian (Thailand).svg Dushdi Mala Medal Pin of arts and sciences (Civilian)
 * Chakra Mala Medal (Thailand) ribbon.svg Chakra Mala Medal
 * King Rama V Royal Cypher Medal (Thailand) ribbon.svg King Rama V Royal Cypher Medal, First Class
 * King Rama VI Royal Cypher Medal (Thailand) ribbon.svg King Rama VI Royal Cypher Medal, First Class
 * King Rama VI Rajaruchi Medal (Thailand) ribbon.png King Rama VI Court Medal, Gold Medal
 * King Rama VI Coronation Medal (Thailand) ribbon.svg King Rama VI Coronation Medal
 * World War I Victory Medal ribbon.svg Chai Medal

Foreign honours

 * Sweden:
 * Order of the Seraphim - Ribbon bar.svg Knight of the Order of the Seraphim (RSerafO), 14 July 1897
 * Denmark:
 * Order of the Elephant Ribbon bar.svg Knight of the Order of the Elephant (RE), 27 July 1897
 * Spain:
 * Order of the Golden Fleece ribbon bar.svg Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, 15 May 1902 -
 * ESP Charles III Order GC.svg Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III, with Collar, 16 October 1897
 * Kingdom of Italy:
 * Order of the Most Holy Annunciation BAR.svg Knight of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation, 1 April 1901
 * Austria-Hungary:
 * Ord.S.Stef.Ungh..png Grand Cross of the Royal Hungarian Order of St. Stephen, 1902
 * 🇬🇧 United Kingdom:
 * Order of the Bath UK ribbon.svg Honorary Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB)
 * ImperialOrderCrownIndiaRibbon.svg Honorary Knight Grand Commander of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India (GCSI), 26 April 1918
 * UK Royal Victorian Order honorary member ribbon.svg Honorary Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO), 21 April 1902
 * German Empire:
 * Order of Merit of the Prussian Crown - ribbon bar.png Knight of the Order of Merit of the Prussian Crown, 30 May 1902
 * Baden:
 * BAD Order of Fidelity ribbon.svg Knight of the House Order of Fidelity, 1902
 * Empire of Japan:
 * JPN Daikun'i kikkasho BAR.svg Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, 9 December 1902
 * France:
 * Legion Honneur GC ribbon.svg Grand Cross of the National Order of the Legion of Honour, 1903
 * Netherlands:
 * Order of the Netherlands Lion ribbon - Knight Grand Cross.svg Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion, 1917

title: Vajiravudh


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Pato Banton

Pato Banton (born Patrick Murray; 28 January 1961) is a reggae singer and toaster from Birmingham, England. He received the nickname Pato Banton from his stepfather: its first name derives from the sound of a Jamaican owl calling "patoo, patoo", while its second comes from the disc jockey slang word "banton", meaning heavyweight lyricist or storyteller. In 1994, he achieved a number 1 on the UK Singles Chart with a cover of The Equals' "Baby, Come Back", featuring Robin and Ali Campbell of UB40.

Biography
Banton first came to public attention in the early 1980s when he worked with The Beat. He recorded "Pato and Roger a Go Talk" with Ranking Roger, included on the 1982 album Special Beat Service. He went on to record a series of singles for Fashion Records and Don Christie Records. He was one of the guest artists that appeared on the UB40 album Baggariddim in 1985. Banton's debut album was the 1985, Mad Professor-produced Mad Professor Captures Pato Banton, followed in 1987 by Never Give In, which included a collaboration with Paul Shaffer and a follow-up to his earlier collaboration with Ranking Roger with "Pato and Roger Come Again". After an EP in 1988, Banton released a more pop-oriented LP, Visions of the World, followed by 1990's ''Wize Up! (No Compromise), which included a college radio hit in Spirits in the Material World'' (The Police cover) and another collaboration, "Wize Up!", this time with David Hinds of Steel Pulse.

Banton then worked on a live album with Mad Professor, and then released 1992's Universal Love. The album featured a song covered by Banton called "United We Stand", which was written by fellow Birmingham musician Ray Watts, of the group Beshara. After a 1994 British number one hit with "Baby Come Back" (originally by Eddy Grant performing with The Equals) with Robin and Ali Campbell of UB40, a best-of album was released, and Banton was invited by Sting to join him on his "This Cowboy Song" single. His collaboration with Reggae Revolution on a reinterpolation of the Young Rascals single "Groovin'" reached number 14 on the UK Singles Chart in July and became a major hit in New Zealand, reaching number four on the RIANZ Singles Chart and staying in the top 20 for nine weeks. It was the country's 47th best-selling single of the year, received a Gold sales certification for selling over 5,000 copies, and was featured on the soundtrack of the 1996 film Kazaam and 1998 hit Disney remake The Parent Trap. 1996's Stay Positive, credited to Pato Banton & The Reggae Revolution, was followed by Life Is a Miracle in 2000. Life Is a Miracle received a Grammy nomination for Best Reggae Album in the 2001 Grammy Awards.

Discography

 * Mad Professor Captures Pato Banton (1985)
 * Never Give In (1987)
 * Visions of the World (1989)
 * Mad Professor Recaptures Pato Banton (1990)
 * Wize Up! (No Compromize) (1990)
 * Live & Kickin All Over America (1991)
 * Universal Love (1992)
 * Collections (1994)
 * Stay Positive (1996)
 * Time Come (1999)
 * Tudo De Bom - Live in Brazil (2000)
 * Life Is a Miracle (2000)
 * Live at the Maritime - San Francisco (2001)
 * The Best of Pato Banton (2002)
 * Positive Vibrations (2007)
 * Pato Banton and Friends (2008)
 * Destination Paradise (2008)

Filmography

 * Lycanthropy (2006)

title: Pato Banton


text:
Patrick Murray (actor)

Patrick Murray (born 1956 or 1957) is an English actor who had roles in ITV Playhouse (1977), Scum and Quadrophenia (1979), Breaking Glass (1980), Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), Bergerac (1983), Dempsey and Makepeace (1986), The Firm (1989). He was most notable for his role as Mickey Pearce in 20 episodes of Only Fools and Horses from 1983 to 2003.

Early life and career
In 1977, Murray appeared in television play Scum, and again In the 1979 film of the same name Scum, both times alongside Ray Winstone. He also starred in the 1979 film Quadrophenia, in a cast which included Sting, Toyah Willcox, Michael Elphick and Timothy Spall. In 1989, he starred in the film The Firm alongside Gary Oldman.

Murray's longest role was as Mickey Pearce in 20 episodes of Only Fools and Horses between 1983–2003, starring alongside David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst.

Personal life
In 2018, Murray was supposed to take part in a bus trip that would raise money for Demelza, a children's hospice. However, the trip was called off last minute as Murray revealed he is receiving treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The trip would have included him entertaining 70 fans while travelling from Leysdown-on-Sea in Kent to Margate. Murray wanted to complete the trip at a later date.

Murray had retired from acting and became a cab driver, in order to comply with minimum income rules for non-European spouses to bring his wife, Anongg, and daughter, Josie, over from Thailand, under a rule introduced by Theresa May in 2012, when she was Home Secretary. Since that time, Murray and Anong have managed to obtain a work visa.

He announced he had lung cancer in January 2021. In May 2022, Murray announced that he had been given the all-clear on his lung cancer and treatment had been successful. He had had the medical procedure Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE). In April 2023 he revealed the lung cancer had returned and spread.

title: Patrick Murray (actor)