Escape from the Malmedy Massacre
The story of Ted Flechsig.
A few weeks ago, my friend and colleague David Martin from Whitecross Battlefield Tours contacted me with a strange request. There was a family coming over from the U.S., and they had two wishes:
1. They wanted to see the bicycle on which their (grand)father escaped immediately after the Malmedy Massacre (17 December 1944).
2. They wanted to meet the family who helped their father escape on that bike.
The family was talking about the bike that used to be on display in the Baugnez museum. Unfortunately, the museum closed its doors in January 2023, and it is said the whole collection was sold. So where did the bike go?
We set up a plan and started emailing several people. First, I sent a message to the owner of the La Gleize museum, Bernard Treinen. There was a good chance he knew where the bike went.
Within a few hours, Bernard responded: The bike was in Malmedy. The Malmundarium museum had bought it and was going to build a new museum about the Malmedy Massacre and the bombing of Malmedy.
In the meantime, my wife Eveline had contacted the museum and town hall of Malmedy, and they reacted enthusiastically to the idea that the family was going to visit the area. And yes, the bike was in the museum and would play a major role in the future museum!
The town hall also helped us in trying to find the family of the two brothers: Franz and Clement Xhurdebise.
A few days later, the town hall got back to us and said it was difficult to find the family because they were very busy with other things.
We placed a message in the Facebook group of Stavelot that we were looking for the descendants of Franz and Clement. Three hours later, my phone rang, and I was talking to Louis Xhurdebise, the son of Clement. With this, we reached the goals for the family of Ted Flechsig.
Meanwhile, I was trying to gather as many details about the story as possible.
Baugnez, 17 december 1944.
Theodore George (Ted) Flechsig (1924) was part of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion/7th Armored Division. On 17 December 1944, his unit left Malmedy. Although they were warned it was better to take the road via Stavelot, Trois-Ponts, and then head for Vielsalm to join the 7th AD in that area, First Lt. Virgil Lary ignored this.
Around 12:45 PM, they arrived at the crossroads of Baugnez, where Military Policeman Homer Ford directed the trucks in the direction of Sankt Vith. Next to him stood T/5 John O’Connell of the 7th Armored Division’s B Battery as a road marker.
Ted Flechsig, who was fifth in the row of vehicles, was already in the curb at the end of the road when, all of a sudden, a firefight broke out. With him were Pfc Donald L. Bower and T4 Wilson M. Jones. In the first few seconds, Ted thought they were under attack from German fighter planes.
But it turned out they had run straight into the troops of the Kampfgruppe of Joachim Peiper. The front part of the column came under fire from Sternebeck’s advance party, and the men in Ted’s jeep got out of their vehicle and tried to hide in a ditch. Ted considered the possibility of running through the field to the west. When he saw others try to do the same and get shot, he abandoned that plan. Germans approached him, and he was directed to the field.
Around 2:15 PM, the shooting started. “One of our men had a wound, and one of our medics started to treat him. The German soldiers allowed him to do it, but then a German Lieutenant looked over the boys, drew his pistol, shot one boy between the eyes, and then swung around to another boy and shot him… That was the signal for the machine guns to open up on us. Then they killed the medic, intending to kill everyone in the field. They continued to spray us back and forth for about five minutes,” Ted recalled in Danny Parker’s book Fatal Crossroads. As soon as the firing started, Ted fell to the ground. A fatally wounded soldier fell on Ted.
After this, several SS soldiers entered the field and shot everyone who showed a sign of life. Ted was wounded in the right leg, right arm, and right hand. An enemy stood over him and kicked him. Ted held his breath, and the SS man moved on.
Around 3:30 PM, an attempt was made to escape the massacre site. Ted got up and started to run, following another soldier. This turned out to be Corporal George Fox. As fast as they could, they ran to a wooded crest, overlooking the village of Hedomont. While descending the road, Ted and George saw two men on bicycles—the brothers Franz and Clement Xhurdebise. After attending Mass in Malmedy, they were alerted by artillery fire in the area and headed to their home in Bellevaux.
According to Franz, they first saw the soldiers at their house:
“I saw this man coming from the wood and thought, ‘Who is this guy?!’ I went from behind to open the door, thinking he was coming to our house. But he was already further and jumped the hedge—through the hedge. It was in the direction of Bellevaux where we found them when I left with my brother. I saw one, but there were actually two. In Bellevaux, we found two.”
The two brothers decided to help Ted and George. “They had nothing on their heads. You could not tell if they were white or black. Their eyes…like those who are about to be killed. We told them we were running away from the Germans and took them with us. They told us that all the Americans had been parked there (at Baugnez) and that the Germans had machine-gunned them. He fell and then escaped. And by running away from this massacre, it was in the direction of our house. So we took them with us, on the bike as best we could. He walked like this (stumbling). He had to hold on to the bike and walk beside it.”
From Bellevaux, the four men moved to the area of Stavelot, a walk that took them at least 1.5 hours. What they did not know was that Peiper’s troops were following them closely.
Going through La Vaux Richard, the men overlooked the village of Stavelot.
Thanks to Louis Xhurdebise (son of Clement), we could locate the exact position where Ted and George ended their miraculous escape. At the road junction of Route du Somange and Chemin du Château, they ran into a roadblock of the 291st Engineers Battalion. The brothers Clément & Franz spent the night nearby before going into hiding for a few days a little further on, before coming back to Hedomont on 15 January 1945. Ted and George were brought to an aid station in Liège.
Their lives had changed forever.
In 1981, George was contacted by author Gerd Cuppens, who was investigating the Malmedy Massacre. George and Gerd got along at first, but eventually, Cuppens wrote that the massacre did not happen. Fox felt betrayed and did not want to talk about the massacre with anyone. He did reestablish contact with Ted Flechsig, and in 1990 they returned to Malmedy and met with the two brothers.
Craigs visit to Belgium:
Now we were contacted by the son of Ted, who wanted to see the bike and meet the families of Franz and Clement.
For me, it was evident: Thanks to the brothers, Ted and George had escaped certain death on 17 December 1944. We understood the enormous importance of this visit.
The date was set: Friday, 18 October 2024.
At 8:45 hrs, we met David and the family at the former Baugnez museum. Craig brought his wife and three sons. It was the first time he stood on the exact spot where his father stood, about 80 years ago. It was an emotional moment for all of us. Because of Ted’s heroic escape from certain death, Craig could stand here. Ted had never told about his experiences, but Craig was sure: This place had haunted him for many years, and he had many nightmares. He never drank, never smoked but died of heartfailure.
At 10:00 hrs, we were welcomed by the staff of the Malmundarium museum and we met the Xhurdebise families. The bike was there too, placed against an old beam.
It was as if both families had known each other for years. They immediately sat together, sharing pictures from 1990 when Ted and George visited the area for the first time.
To my surprise, the bike had a nice detail: the bell had Mickey Mouse on it. One of the family members, Marie Therese Xhurdebise (daughter of Franz), told several stories she remembered from that time and Craig listened to all of them, speechless that she was there when his father fled the area.
In the afternoon, we drove, as closely as possible, the route the four men took on their way to Stavelot. According to Louis Xhurdebise, it is most likely that they followed small roads, through fields and woods, until they arrived at the Bellevaux-Stavelot road. At the crossing of the Route de Soumagne and Chemin du Château, they finally ran into the roadblock of the 291st Engineers and were taken to the hospital.
We realized how close the men were to Kampfgruppe Peiper’s troops and the enormous risks the brothers had taken by helping these two brave soldiers on their bikes.
It created a bond between them that would be everlasting and now even touched the next generations.
The last few hours of our meeting were spent at the U.S. cemetery of Henri-Chapelle. We visited the graves of three men who were killed in that field in Baugnez: Tec 5 Paul R. Carr, Cpl. Joseph A. Brosowski, and Tec 5 Alexander Lengyel Jr.
Craig cleaned the grave of Brosowski, and his eldest son cleaned the grave of Lengyel.
An emotional day ended with the lowering of the U.S. flag.
Used sources:
– Fatal Crossroads – Danny Parker
– The Devil’s Adjutant – Michael Reynolds
– Video of Ardennes Then and Now (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioacYntc44w)
– Ancestry
– Fold3
– Conversations with civilians
Many thanks to the staff of the Malmundarium museum, Malmedy Town hall, Family Flechsig, Louis Xhurdebise, the Xhurdebise family, Tom Konings (translations), Mike Smeets (providing the picture from 1990), and the staff of the U.S. cemetery Henri-Chapelle.
Newspaper articles: