Hi thorwald,thorwald77 wrote:My reply is a bit late, but I can't resist posting it now
Re James Bacque's Crimes & Mercies
The book is a big lie
1-He cites a document showing 5.9 million expelled in 1946- The 1946 figure of 5.9 million is for the western zones only, it does not include 4 million in the Soviet Zone. Bacque should have included the 4 million in his 1946 figure. In 1950 he includes the GDR in his figure of 12 million expelled.
2-His figure of POW's released from 1946-1950 of 2.5 million is not correct because it includes 450,000 POW from outside of the prewar German borders, some would have returned to homes outside of Germany(Austria, East Europe) and others counted with the 1950 expelled in Germany (a double count). In addition 384,000 POW are included in the 1946 census figures because they were held in Germany. Bacque should have counted 1.7 million not 2.6 million POW in 1946.
3- Bacque's figure for 1946 includes 900,000 in the Saar, the 1950 figure does not.
The math is simple 4.0 million in Sov Zone +800,000 miscounted POW + 900,000 folks in the Saar= Bacques 5.7 million flimflam
Bacque is able to pull the wool over the eyes over most readers because the sources for the German census of 1946 and 1950 are in German and are hard to track down. In any case Bacque is wrong, 5.7 million Germans did not die from famine from Oct 1946 to Sept 1950.
Thanks for this reply (didn't see it until today)
