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Are you being real 2x3x29x41 - do I take it you are from the States? The other book I have was printed in the US of A and you just utterly refuse to believe that the US did not badly behave over treatment of masses of Germans? The numbers of dead are huge whether you like to hear it or not. My stance on Eisenhower is also valid. Indeed I have seen pictures of mass numbers stuck out in no shelter and all those German troops who fled rather than be imprisoned by the Soviets got no better under American supervision. Often thumped by the files of guards, starvation and water shortage were all parts of the scandal that you just want to intellectually bodyswerve by wiping away the camps. Most Americans know nothing about how their military acted in 1945 in mistreatment. Obviously I do hope to find where I put that other book because it so vastly detailed in numbers and hard facts including some concern by more decent US officers who could do little. Once I get that book you should order a copy then damn well come back and offer an apology because you knew nothing about the thing so easy to try dismissing it.
No, don't waste your time getting a copy. This from Wikipedia on Bacque's "Other Losses". this is only part of it, the book was essentially trashed. The below is one of the more gracious dismissals of his work, other's weren't so forgiving:
" After the publication of Bacque's book, a panel of eight historians gathered for a symposium in the Eisenhower Center for American Studies[38] at the University of New Orleans from December 7–8, 1990 to review Bacque's work...
The New Orleans panel's book introduction concluded "[t]hat Bacque is wrong on nearly every major and nearly all his minor charges seem to us to be overwhelmingly obvious. To sum up: Eisenhower was not a Hitler, he did not run death camps, German prisoners did not die by the hundreds of thousands, there was indeed a severe world food shortage in 1945, there was nothing sinister or secret about DEF designation or about the Other Losses column. Bacque's "Missing Million" were old and young boys in the militia dismissed early from the American camps; they were escapees from camps and POWs/DEFs transferred from camp to camp in Germany and Europe for various reasons."[43]
Villa states that "James Bacque's Other Losses illustrates what happens when the context surrounding historical persons and important events is lost. The effect to give known facts a twist that seems dramatically new in important ways, but this is means the appearance of originality is a little deceptive. For the most part, Bacque's book is not very original at all. When it seems so, the price is purchased at the price of accuracy."[44] He further stated that "[t]hose parts of Other Losses that might rise above a failing grade in an undergraduate term paper are not new. It has long been known that German prisoners of war suffered terribly at the end of World War II, that they died by the thousands after hostilities ceased in the European theater, and that many were required to work as forced laborers for the victors."[44] The main lines of the story have long been known, written up for example in the extensive German "Maschke Commission" between 1962 and 1975.[44] Villa states that Bacque only adds two "novel" propositions: first, that the number that died was in the hundreds of thousands, and seconds, that these deaths were the result of deliberate extermination on the part of Eisenhower.[44] "The falsity of Bacque's charges can be easily demonstrated once the context, particularly the decision-making environment, is examined."[44]
Bischoff concludes that just the application of common sense alone refutes many of the most "fantastical charges" of Bacque, such as asking the question "How could a single man order one million men killed without being caught in the heinous act? How could the bodies disappear without one soldier's coming forward in nearly fifty years to relieve his conscience? How could the Americans (almost one-third of whom are by ethnic background German) conspire for so long to cover up such a vast crime?"
I have just read a book on events at the surrender of German soldiers in 1945. It is my second one and that publication was the second and brought up to date one. It was bad enough what happened to the defeated army captured by the Soviets and a horrible persecution and death. However I did not know or expect the same by the Western Allies. The Free French were involved but the large death rate in POW camps was by the USA. It ran into hundreds of thousands not only stuck uncovered but not getting the right level of food support and often virtually noting. General Eisenhower was responsible for these terrible horrors and restrictions and the deaths ran into not a few thousand but hundreds of thousands. He even issued orders that if any local people came up to the barbed wire fences they should be warned they would be shot!
The Free French were also involved but the US military was way ahead of them and the more I have dipped into this the more shocking and a disgrace on the West. Even if an occasional US officer was concerned at the state of health and the starving he was well warned and militarily threatened. It wasn't just SS troops but the ordinary German soldiers who suffered. These massive deaths also existed outwith camps when millions were forced to move but the military attitude for u here in the West supposed to be more principled. Even large numbers of the Wermacht who fled to surrender to the Western Allies rather than be treated horribly by the Soviets were to find they were to starve, become seriously ill and die in mass numbers. Yet all thathas been a quiet ignore thing.
I don't believe our soldiers (except for the rare wacko guy who exists everywhere) would have murdered a prisoner in cold blood.
Prisoners often die from diseases, cramped or unhealthy conditions, lack of food & water, and such, that are rampant in war time "prisons." Those conditions are often unavoidable and stem from forces beyond the control of the troops. This happened to a lot of prisoners during the Civil War. Thousands of union soldiers died in Confederate "prisons," because the Confederates were too poor to provide good conditions for the prisoners. The Confederate soldiers were also dying from lack of food, proper clothing and shoes, and such. Likewise, Confederate soldiers died in Union "prisons."
Some soldiers have been caught and tried for war crimes, like the recent soldier who will be tried for shooting innocent Iraqis apparently for fun (he allegedly shot a teenage girl walking by in the gut). Some soldiers were tried for such war crimes in the Vietnam War. But these soldiers were caught because other soldiers reported or confirmed it. War is hell, they say. It can drive people to do horrible things, I think. But soldiers are also U S citizens who aren't murderers and would not participate in rampant murder of people.
I can't speak to all the German prisoners held everywhere. However, there were German prisoners of war held here in Utah, near what used to be the old Defence Depot in Ogden. They were treated unusually well.
That is true. However, people in Utah did not have to fight the Germans. The soldiers who fought them, then had them as prisoners, would react differently.
How I love social media - anyone can create a video about anything.
Let's see, take the research of a panel of 8 esteemed historians or a neo-nazi propaganda blog (justice.for.germans.com) totally lacking any hard evidence except stock footage and voiceovers. What a difficult choice - I think after careful consideration I will take the word of the 8 esteemed historians over this video.
Thanks for the link. justice.for.germans I will bookmark right next to my justice.for.charleymansonfamily. By the way I like the 20 minute commercial for extreme right wing group RepublicBroadcastingNetwork in the middle. This is like PBS fundraising, but for skinheads.
That a good number of German military were executed or died from imprisonment is almost certain.
That the US or Allied powers "murdered hundreds of thousands of them after the war" is almost certainly nonsense. Even the Russians didn't engage in wholesale executions after the cessation of hostilities.
The Germans most certainly did, all through their rise and the war, even aside from the Holocaust victims.
This has always been amazing to me, given how the war went in Russia. I think the Russians showed incredible restraint.
I'm glad to hear this refutation of what is indeed nonsense.
I can't speak to all the German prisoners held everywhere. However, there were German prisoners of war held here in Utah, near what used to be the old Defense Depot in Ogden. They were treated unusually well. Many were given weekend passes from the camp to go into town on weekends. Several met American girls in this process and--after the war--married them and stayed in the United States. From the accounts I read in the newspaper they were treated well indeed.
When American troops were surrounded by the Germans in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans sent these troops a written message calling on them to surrender. One of the statements caught my attention. The German commander calling on them to surrender referred to the fact that it was well known by Germans that Americans treated POW's humanely.
Every time I see this sort of thing I suspect we are dealing with a Nazi sympathizer. I don't think there are a lot of these people, but they do come to the History Forum occasionally and try to post mis-information about World War II that is sympathetic to nazi Germany.
Yes. German POW’s in the US were generally treated well not necessarily out of sympathy but to try to ensure that American prisoners in Europe also had reasonable treatment. At the end of the war and with the release of our people in Europe treatment of Germans incarcerated in the US became much harsher with poorer quality food and less recreational activities. In one instance several German POW’s were executed by hanging for the murder of a fellow prisoner suspected of disloyalty.
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I'm really uncomfortable, reading the OP. I can't decide whether to be seething with anger or deep sadness that there are people who can be convinced of these lies.
I have to ask - not to start a big fight, but to clarify the intent of posting something like that - OP, are you a Holocaust Denier, or a sympathizer of the Third Reich? I'm honestly interested in your answer.
Interesting, I had an uncle who was in the American Army and was taken POW by the Germans, and although he nearly starved, he wasn't mistreated on purpose. The German guards themselves were eating the same rations they were giving the American POWs at the end of the war. The whole country was starving. So there is that.
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