Eisenhowers guilt?

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Kaisertreue
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Re: Eisenhower's Crimes

#16

Post by Kaisertreue » 01 Nov 2002, 23:41

Charles Bunch wrote:
Der Alte wrote:Eisenhower's crimes have already been documented to death by James Bacque, in his excellent books: "Other Losses" and "Crimes and Mercies".
Eisenhower was under orders from Roosevelt, Morgenthau and other unnamed individuals in the US socio-political hierarchy to 'punish' the Germans for what they did to the Jews; a task he carried out with relish.
How many died is clearly unknown, but suffice it to say that there were 73 million Germans in 1939 (excluding Austrians) and around 60 million in 1950 - do the maths.
And Bacque's errors have been exposed by a group of scholars who examined his claims.

The percentage of German POWs who died under US supervision was nearly identical to the percentage of US troops who died under Nazi supervision.

This has all been covered exhaustively in this forum.

So what if other historians disagree. They would, wouldn't they? I'm not so sure. I feel Bacque's claims are entirely plausible, and they are backed up by evidence in his books.

And how do you explain the disappearence of 13 million people in ten odd years? Only around 8 million seem to have perished in the war - counting all military and all civilians, including those killed while expelled from the eastern territories. What happened to the missing 5-6 million?

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Re: Eisenhower's Crimes

#17

Post by Charles Bunch » 02 Nov 2002, 00:06

Der Alte wrote:
Charles Bunch wrote:
Der Alte wrote:Eisenhower's crimes have already been documented to death by James Bacque, in his excellent books: "Other Losses" and "Crimes and Mercies".
Eisenhower was under orders from Roosevelt, Morgenthau and other unnamed individuals in the US socio-political hierarchy to 'punish' the Germans for what they did to the Jews; a task he carried out with relish.
How many died is clearly unknown, but suffice it to say that there were 73 million Germans in 1939 (excluding Austrians) and around 60 million in 1950 - do the maths.
And Bacque's errors have been exposed by a group of scholars who examined his claims.

The percentage of German POWs who died under US supervision was nearly identical to the percentage of US troops who died under Nazi supervision.

This has all been covered exhaustively in this forum.

So what if other historians disagree. They would, wouldn't they? I'm not so sure. I feel Bacque's claims are entirely plausible, and they are backed up by evidence in his books.
What do you mean "other historians"? Bacque is not an historian.

And they would disagree because they know what they're talking about, and showed that Bacque's evidence was wrong.
And how do you explain the disappearence of 13 million people in ten odd years?
A war?
Only around 8 million seem to have perished in the war - counting all military and all civilians, including those killed while expelled from the eastern territories. What happened to the missing 5-6 million?
I don't accept your population statistics.

http://www.library.uu.nl/wesp/populstat ... rmanyc.htm

This source says 69.7 million in 1939 and 68.4 million in 1950


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#18

Post by Kaisertreue » 02 Nov 2002, 01:17

Mr Bunch,

James Bacque is a journalist and a very good researcher who has dug very deep into the matter, with clear evidence. He deserves as much respect as any qualified PhD in history.

You population figures are flawed. The 1939 figure is for Germany, but excludes the Sudetenland, where 3.5 million people lived. These were expelled after the war and therefore ARE included in the 1950 figure. And the 1950 figure also includes a few million who had been expelled from Poland and the Balkans. A clear example of how to lie with statistics!

"The compiler has chosen not to create a separate file for Germany as it existed prior to 1945; the figures are based on the area of the contemporary German Empire ("Deutsches Reich")."

This means that the 'compiler' is only looking at the population of Germany within its current borders only.

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#19

Post by Charles Bunch » 02 Nov 2002, 01:32

Der Alte wrote:Mr Bunch,

James Bacque is a journalist and a very good researcher who has dug very deep into the matter, with clear evidence. He deserves as much respect as any qualified PhD in history.
Bacque is a writer of fiction, and a terrible researcher who made egregious mistakes which he refused to correct even after they had been pointed out to him.
You population figures are flawed.
They are not my figures, until you present some they are the only sourced figures under discussion.
The 1939 figure is for Germany, but excludes the Sudetenland, where 3.5 million people lived. These were expelled after the war and therefore ARE included in the 1950 figure.


I'm afraid you have to provide some evidence for that.
And the 1950 figure also includes a few million who had been expelled from Poland and the Balkans. A clear example of how to lie with statistics
You'll also have to provide evidence for these "few million"! But if you've got your calculator handy you'll note that 3.5 million and a "few" million do not get you to the total you claimed.

If statistics from reputable sources lie, just imagine how little faith we should place in numbers asserted but not supported!

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#20

Post by POW » 02 Nov 2002, 02:20

Caldric wrote:Which provisions of the Hauge or Geneva convention were violated POW? Doubt you will answer but honestly want to know.

Where they lined up and shot? Was the starvation from lack of food, or was food withheld on purpose by the camp guards? Where they worked to death?
Ask your firend Xanthro. He knows as much about the conventions than you: nothing!

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#21

Post by Caldric » 02 Nov 2002, 02:39

POW wrote:
Caldric wrote:Which provisions of the Hauge or Geneva convention were violated POW? Doubt you will answer but honestly want to know.

Where they lined up and shot? Was the starvation from lack of food, or was food withheld on purpose by the camp guards? Where they worked to death?
Ask your firend Xanthro. He knows as much about the conventions than you: nothing!
Ah you should really grow up POW, I have never said anything to you personally, and sure we have a different opinion on most things, but that is no reason to act in such a way as this. Was an honest question, such things as letting injured soldiers and children die etc. is hardly an argument for why Ike should be guilty!

As far as the conventions go I have read them many times and used them in debates. Although sometimes vague on certain issues most people with a decent reading comprehension should be able to get the main point of the conventions. They were designed to be easy to understand by even the lowest of military personnel.

The problem with most people when it comes to the conventions is the fact they assume something is written in the text to support them and many times this just is not true.

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War Crimes and Mercies...

#22

Post by Scott Smith » 02 Nov 2002, 05:45

Caldric wrote:Which provisions of the Hauge or Geneva convention were violated POW? Doubt you will answer but honestly want to know.
Well, the POWs were arbitrarily reclassified by Eisenhower as "disarmed enemy forces," whatever the hell that means, instead of Prisoners-of-War. If you can arbitrarily do that, then the international conventions are not worth the paper they are written on (as I might easily argue). But if the shoe were on the other foot and we were talking about the enemy's actions...
8O

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#23

Post by Erik » 02 Nov 2002, 08:25

Now, what have we here?

Mindless denial?

Ideological bubbles?


..................
Der Alte wrote:
And how do you explain the disappearence of 13 million people in ten odd years?


Mr Bunch wrote:
A war?
...............
Der Alte wrote:
Only around 8 million seem to have perished in the war - counting all military and all civilians, including those killed while expelled from the eastern territories. What happened to the missing 5-6 million?
Mr Bunch wrote:
I don't accept your population statistics.
Mr Bunch also wrote:
You're just a denier who pretends different standards should be applied to evidence which support atrocity activity by the Nazis.

http://www.thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/v ... 6184#86184

……………………….
Der Alte wrote:

And the 1950 figure also includes a few million who had been expelled from Poland and the Balkans. A clear example of how to lie with statistics
Mr Bunch wrote:
You'll also have to provide evidence for these "few million"! But if you've got your calculator handy you'll note that 3.5 million and a "few" million do not get you to the total you claimed.

If statistics from reputable sources lie, just imagine how little faith we should place in numbers asserted but not supported!


Mr Bunch also wrote:
We've seen the evidence!!!

Asking for more is just a denier tactic.
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/v ... 6401#86401

Scott Smith wrote:

But if the shoe were on the other foot and we were talking about the enemy's actions...

There is psychological science going on the subject of whose feet are shoed, and whose shoes are shined also when it comes to Genocides and their denials:

There are categories and degrees of impudence, mind you.

There are :

…“mindless” (“unconscious”?) denial, “innocent” denial, “functionally equivalent” denial, and “complex dete..”, no, “decontextualized” denial. (at least)

Even if the process of denial is unconscious, we have every reason to understand that the denier in his inner being knows the facts of the genocide; and even if the statements of the denier are full of homilies of moral sincerity, there can be no acceptance of rationalizations or recontextualizing of the horrors of mass murders of human beings. The manipulative process through which such 'innocent deniers' bring about mitigation of the significance of a case of genocide and decontextualization of its reality, thus making the genocide itself as if not real enough for us to be sure that it occurred, is a dangerous sophisticated new form of revisionism. Thus, in Chomsky's case, by placing the emphasis on allowing and honoring free speech and the right to controversy by even the most extreme revisionists, the suffering and deaths of the victims are not mourned and in effect fade into insignificance while the rights of virulent antisemites and deniers of the Holocaust are being defended, and such behavior even by a great academic is insufferable.
………………………………….

Not only is there much more to say about scholars who become so involved in the pedantics of definitions of genocide and obsessive concern with details to a point where the very facts that are being analyzed are lost; but we also need to look at inadvertent denials of a given genocide which take place whenever representatives of a given people, however well meaning, are so involved in claiming the uniqueness and specialness and the 'true nature of the genocide' of their people, and in the process make odious and invidious comparisons to the genocides of other peoples, that the result is a diminution of the significance of the genocide of the other people that, in effect, constitutes a degree of denial of that genocide.
In the first case of excessive involvement with definitions, the involvement is with micro-aspects of information, and the experience of moral sensitivity to the tragedy and infamy of killing of masses of people is lost. While not intending to deny the genocide, these scholars, in my opinion, become functionally equivalent to deniers, for they knock out the experience of and the moral sensitivity to the terrible crime and tragedy that has taken place.

By complex decontextualization of historical events (-- there always were genocides so why get excited about a given one); by insidious questioning of established facts (-- we must wait for the research to give us further insights as to whether or not a genocidal event took place); by outright lies about references and sources; by contrived appeals to fairness and listening to the 'two sides' of academic 'controversy'; a new generation of revisionists is making new efforts to steal the truth and hold it captive from the eyes and decency of the human community.
…………………..

The professor continues:
We must create new means for fighting denials and deniers in academia, in the mainstream of public education, as well as in the mainstreams of the media. I have expressed the hope that we can establish a Commission to Combat Denials of the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide and All Known Genocides. I envision such a Commission as consisting of representatives from a variety of academic disciplines, and also including applied specialists in public opinion polling, media professionals, advertising executives, and indeed popular folk-culture heroes and political leaders, and also ecumenical religious leaders, all brought together to develop a broad-based approach to insisting on the integrity and rationality of the historical truths of the major genocides that civilization is obligated to remember in humility and repentance.
Most of all, we need to link the battles against denials to civilization's obligation to recommit itself to the cardinal principle, "Thou Shalt Not Kill," for that is the real issue underlying denials of genocide.
http://www.ideajournal.com/CharnyBio.html


The World of Denial is taking proportions from the World of Sin, it seems.

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#24

Post by POW » 02 Nov 2002, 09:54

Caldric wrote:Ah you should really grow up POW, I have never said anything to you personally, and sure we have a different opinion on most things, but that is no reason to act in such a way as this. Was an honest question, such things as letting injured soldiers and children die etc. is hardly an argument for why Ike should be guilty!

As far as the conventions go I have read them many times and used them in debates. Although sometimes vague on certain issues most people with a decent reading comprehension should be able to get the main point of the conventions. They were designed to be easy to understand by even the lowest of military personnel.

The problem with most people when it comes to the conventions is the fact they assume something is written in the text to support them and many times this just is not true.
You know nothing about this topic but you allways express your opinion. Your answer to my question was: "...is hardly an argument for why Ike should be guilty!" You should provide facts which support your statements instead of asking questions. Maybe my behavior toward you will turn to normal then.

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Re: Eisenhowers guilt?

#25

Post by Caldric » 02 Nov 2002, 11:56

POW wrote:Is it Eisenhower to blame for the bad circumstances in the US POW-camps in Europe? What do you think?

Further I like to hear your opinion about this:
I knew that I was a soldier of an Army, which was deeply involved in car crimes. I didn't expect they ask for guilt or non guild of the single soldier. I expected that we become part of reparations, that we become the object of revenge and anger of the victor.
But I never expected, that the American victor allow, to let children and cripples die agonizingly by hunger, cold and illnesses.
The end of the war is a long time ago. In the meantime the German Chancellor, the French and the Amerikan President shaked their hands over war-graves in the presence of Officers of the last war. War graves which don't remind on the stench and dirt of a POW camp."
This post above is your knowledge of it?
So did they have Children in POW camps? Could you be more specific as to what the US Command allowed? I know some of the camps were in a shape to be considered criminal, but in truth was it intentional or uncontrollable logistics nightmare... That would be the key to knowing how much guilt should lay on Ike, although his idiotic starvation order should bare enough guilt to last a lifetime. Fortunately most did not follow the order in the US command.
And this was my question. What Children? What were they doing in a POW camp? Or were they Hitlers Child Soldiers? Is it that I am incorrect in assuming the children in the POW's commentary were soldiers? I find it disgusting if it is true that American POW's camps allowed children to starve to death, instead of giving them a swift kick in the ass and sending them home to their mothers were they belong. They should have never been in the camps to start with. But all I get in return is your sarcastic remarks that degrade your post into dribble.

Am I wrong in the fact that Ike ordered the rations to be on borderline starvation? Is it not true that most US commanders refused to obey the order, most in the Southern Front.

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#26

Post by POW » 02 Nov 2002, 12:23

Ike ordered the rations to be on borderline starvation
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"...is hardly an argument for why Ike should be guilty
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guilt is with the Germans and Nazi leadership
:?
Where they lined up and shot?

Yes
Was the starvation from lack of food,
Yes
or was food withheld on purpose by the camp guards?
This happend also.
Where they worked to death?
With this you referring to the Haague Land War Convention and it's an evidence for me that you're not familiar with the content.
? I find it disgusting if it is true that American POW's camps allowed children to starve to death
Hey denier, no if here pls.
They should have never been in the camps to start with.
Fine. But unfortunately they were not just held in the camps along the Rhine but in labor camps for some more years also. Again, I'm sure we have to blame the Germans for it.
Is it not true that most US commanders refused to obey the order [small rations], most in the Southern Front
Where they got the food from? Why they burned supplies of the Wehrmacht? Why were the local people not allowed to give food to the POWs?

The time is on you to give answers.

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#27

Post by Roberto » 02 Nov 2002, 13:57

Der Alte wrote:Eisenhower's crimes have already been documented to death by James Bacque, in his excellent books: "Other Losses" and "Crimes and Mercies".
Eisenhower was under orders from Roosevelt, Morgenthau and other unnamed individuals in the US socio-political hierarchy to 'punish' the Germans for what they did to the Jews; a task he carried out with relish.
How many died is clearly unknown, but suffice it to say that there were 73 million Germans in 1939 (excluding Austrians) and around 60 million in 1950 - do the maths.
Looks like Bacque compared apples with oranges and failed to count the population of the former GDR.

I see we again have someone here who is uncritical enough to piously believe everything Mr. Bacque writes, without asking himself a few elementary questions such as why the monumental catastrophes dreamed up by the fellow would have left no traces

i) In German official records: the authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany, which tried to record wartime and postwar civilian casualties as best as they could in the 1950’s and 1960’s, concluded on ca. 500,000 civilians killed due to bombs and slightly over 2,000,000 who perished during wartime flight and postwar expulsion from the former Eastern territories and East European countries. The latter figure has recently been challenged by historians as well above the mark.

ii) In German written history: Although German historians have extensively written on the fate of prisoners of war, refugees and expellees, not one of them has concluded on a catastrophe of even remotely the magnitude alleged by Bacque. Were they all accomplices of the fantastic conspiracy that brought us this “long night of lies”?

iii) In German oral history: A famine of the dimensions alleged by Bacque would have led to scenes reminiscent of the Ukrainian man-made famine of the 1930s or the siege of Leningrad in 1941 and 1942: Walking skeletons everywhere, cemeteries no longer able to cope with the flow of corpses, mass graves dynamited into the earth to take the bodies of thousands upon thousands of people, city streets and yards littered with corpses often piled high on top of each other, people hiding the death of relatives in order to use their ration cards, some even resorting to cannibalism – why are there no elder Germans who lived through the war and postwar years on the present-day territory of Germany recalling such horrors?

I know several such Germans, and I know they are everything other than reluctant to talk about their wartime and postwar experiences. Yet none of them ever told me anything in this direction. My maternal grandmother, for instance, lived in Essen, one of the bombed-out cities of the Ruhr area where the food situation was most critical after the war. Yet her only recollection of famine related not to the post-World War II period but to the First World War, particularly the Kohlrübenwinter of 1916/17.

Regarding Bacque’s fantastic contentions in “Other Losses” and “Crimes and Mercies”, we also have the following assessment by a group of historians:
"Fact or Fiction? The Historical Profession and James Bacque"
Roundtable discussion at the Annual Meeting of the German Studies Association, Salt Lake City, October 8-11, 1998. Sponsored by the GHI. Participants: Günter Bischof (University of New Orleans), Dewey A. Browder (Austin Peay State University), Wilfried Mausbach (GHI), Hans-Jürgen Schröder (University of Giessen), Christof Strauß (University of Heidelberg), Richard D. Wiggers (Georgetown University).
The topic of discussion for this panel centered around James Bacque's allegation, made in his recent, controversial book Crimes and Mercies, that American authorities deliberately starved to death as many as nine million German civilians after World War II.
Wilfried Mausbach (GHI) challenged Bacque's contention that the infamous Morgenthau Plan informed American actions. He demonstrated first that the notion of turning Germany into a huge "farm" was never part of American postwar planning; second, that the United States's occupation directive (JCS 1067) was not cast in Morgenthau's mold; and third, that the negative elements of JCS 1067 were deliberately postponed, and thereby in effect dismissed, by Military Government officers in the field. [What does that remind me of?] Instead of evaluating the available evidence, James Bacque's dramaturgy pits villains against heroes and surrenders scholarly differentiation to populism.
Günter Bischof (University of New Orleans) viewed Bacque's thesis as part of the trend toward a "paranoid style" in writing recent history. This style is characterized by five elements: the image of a huge conspiracy, a self-bestowed duty to save civilization from apocalypse, a manichean worldview of absolute good versus absolute evil, the conviction that traitors make history, and the amassing of evidence to prove a preconceived thesis. Bischof found traces of all these elements in Bacque's writing, and he bemoaned the publishing industry's zest for "conspiracy history."
Christof Strauß (University of Heidelberg) examined Bacque's thesis that approximately one million German POWs perished in American and French camps by taking a close look at two Prisoner of War Temporary Enclosures (PWTEs) in Heilbronn. Strauß found that conditions in these camps indeed did not meet the requirements of the Geneva Convention of 1929. However, to interpret this as evidence of a centrally planned and implemented policy of starvation neglects overall conditions in Germany and Europe in the wake of the war and overestimates to a considerable extent the occupation authorities' scope of action. Strauß proved that, contrary to Bacque's assertion, the Americans did allow aid to be delivered to the inmates by representatives of the German churches, and the International Red Cross also was allowed to visit the camps. Moreover, between May and December 1945 some 300,000 POWs passed through the Heilbronn PWTEs, and death lists show that only 283 of them died. This seems to indicate not only that Bacque's research was poor but also that his overall estimates of deaths are way too high.
Dewey A. Browder (Austin Peay State University) corroborated this information. He showed that Bacque manipulated statistics by adding expellees and repatriated POWs to an early 1946 census that actually already included more than 1.5 million expellees and repatriates in addition to the unrepatriated POWs. In counting these people twice, Bacque finds that there should have been nearly 74 million people in Germany in 1950 and cries mass murder when that year's census falls short by 6 million. Professor Browder explained that he personally pointed out this mistake to Bacque while the Canadian author was revising his manuscript for publication in English. Bacque, however, failed to correct his information.
Finally, Richard D. Wiggers (Georgetown University) provided an analysis of eyewitness accounts by authors who were neither Germans nor U.S. Military Government employees. He found that these third-party observers reported and often criticized a stern allied policy toward the German people. Thus, if there was, as Bacque alleges, a conspiracy to hide the truth, it must have failed miserably. Moreover, a close, comprehensive, and unbiased reading of independent eyewitness accounts suggests that a mass death of millions of Germans by starvation did not occur in postwar Germany.
The lively discussion, moderated by Hans-Jürgen Schröder (University of Giessen), addressed James Bacque's motivation for writing fiction disguised as fact. It was pointed out that Bacque obviously really believes he has discovered something real and is encouraged by people in Germany who suffered after 1945 and who feel that their experience of victimization has gotten short shrift in the history of this period. However, his neglect of evidence suggests either that he is unable to acknowledge criticism or that he willfully ignores information in an effort to cash in on a sensationalist thesis. The latter supposition led participants to discuss the quixotic nature of efforts by professional historians to challenge populist histories promoted by a sensation-driven publishing industry. Some also wondered whether even the most ludicrous claims merit consideration. There seemed to be an overall agreement, however, that historians have a duty to correct gross distortions and refute wild allegations.
Wilfried Mausbach
Source of quote:

http://www.ghi-dc.org/bulletinF98/bulletin_f98#Fact

Emphases are mine.

I would further like to point out the following paragraph, which is symptomatic of Bacque’s intellectual dishonesty and the shoddiness of his research:
Bacque wrote:In the same book so admired by Keegan is a gross error made by Rudiger Overmanns, who does not even know the number of prisoners taken by the Americans. This was not 3.8 million as he says, but over 6 million, according to US Army records in Suitland, Maryland. Of course, this error, conveniently for Ambrose and Keegan, apparently diminishes the number of lives for which the Americans were responsible.
Source of quote:

http://www.corax.org/revisionism/misc/b ... etter.html

(A “Revisionist” side, by the way. Bacque’s criterion as to where he voices his opinions leaves much to be desired.)

The US Army records invoked by Bacque can only refer to the total number of prisoners of war held by Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) at a given time and therefore have nothing to do with Overmans’ figure, which refers solely to POWs in the custody of the US Army (including such that were later handed over to the French, the Soviets and others).

On the extinct Codoh discussion forum, one of Bacque’s admirers once wrote the following:
Dubhghall wrote: Continuing my earlier comments, Overmans, the preferred authority for the critic of my posting, is an employee of the German government, a government which fines and imprisons people for thinking wrong thoughts about "the Holocaust". On principle, I prefer Bacque, thank you.
Overmans is wildly inaccurate in his claims and simply scanning the many lines posted quoting him reveals that they have little to do with my points and Bacque's. Just as a starter, Overmans claims that the Americans took only 3.8 million German prisoners when Eisenhower's own official reports showed millions more, mostly German, in northwest Europe alone. The historical division of the U.S. Army in Europe reported that "on VE day, 7,005,732 German PW's were held by SHAEF". Quite a difference from Overmans and Co. All Volksturm? Lots more on this in Bacque's book which I again urge objective readers to view, particularly the 1999 edition which contains new evidence.
As to why Overmans, Ambrose and the German government continue in this kind of denial one can only speculate. It's pretty sick, IMO.
To which I replied:
Cortagravatas wrote: 1. The contention that Overmans is not reliable because he works for the German government (does he?) is a rather silly one. Even if the German government were the Great Satan, that would not affect the fact that Overmans is an internationally acknowledged, meticulous and objective military historian. I can see no possible – let alone a proven – connection between the German government’s misguided policy of implementing hate speech laws and Overmans’ work about German military casualties in World War II.
2. If the poster calls Overmans “wildly inaccurate”, I dare say that he hasn’t even looked at the translation from Overmans’ book that I provided but instead blindly relied on another of Bacque’s attempts to fool his readers. Actually the figure provided by the historical division of the US Army in Europe for VE day is by no means in contradiction with Overmans’ figures because it refers to German POW’s “held by SHAEF”. SHAEF was the abbreviation of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, the supreme command of all Allied forces – American, British and French - in Europe. This means that the figure refers to the total of prisoners held by all Allied forces, not only to those held by the US Army. Overmans’ figures for POW’s held by the three Allied nations:

France 940,000
Great Britain 3,640,000
USA 3,100,000

add up to 7,680,000 and are thus quite in line with the report of the historical division of the U.S. Army in Europe.
3. As I sold Bacque’s screed to a second hand bookstore shortly after reading it and don’t intend to acquire a replacement copy of his nonsense, I would suggest that the poster provide Bacque’s transcription of Adenauer’s statements so that we may see in what terms Adenauer assessed the issue of prisoners of war in American captivity.
4. The poster’s unsubstantiated assertions that there is a conspiracy among Stephen Ambrose and German historians to deny the suffering and dying of hundreds of thousands of German prisoners of war – in striking contrast to the efforts of the same German historians to thoroughly document the plight of German prisoners in Soviet captivity – defies all experience, logic and common sense. So does his equally implicit assertion that the German survivors of Bacque’s alleged death camps chose to keep their story to themselves – again in striking contrast to those who managed to return from the Soviet Gulag -, that the German public witnessed none of the dying that supposedly occurred on German soil after the war or didn’t give a damn about it – again in striking contrast to the interest manifested in the fate of German soldiers missing in action in the East or in Soviet captivity – and that all German organizations from the Red Cross over institutions of the churches to the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, who invested a lot of time, money and effort into establishing the fate of German soldiers reported missing at the end of World War II, simply failed to notice or glossed over the monumental catastrophe that Bacque pretends occurred.
The whole discussion can be read under the link

http://www.codoh.org/dcforum/DCForumID9/164.html

Another German source gives the following breakdown of German soldiers who became prisoners of war in World War II:
Ingesamt gerieten im Zweiten Weltkrieg 11 094 000 Wehrmachtsangehörige in Kriegsgefangenschaft, von diesen 3 349 000 im Osten, 7 745 000 im Westen. Im Gewahrsam der Sowjetunion waren 3 155 000 (davon
25 000 an die Tschechoslowakei, 70 000 an Polen übergeben), in Jugoslawien 194 000, in Gewahrsam der USA: 3 800 000 (davon 667 000 an Frankreich, 135 000 an Rußland, 31 000 an Belgien, 5 000 an Luxemburg übergeben. 379 000 lebten in den USA, die anderen in amerikanischen Lagern in Europa), im Gewahrsam von Großbritannien 3 700 000 (davon 25 000 an Frankreich, 33 000 an Belgien, 7000 an die Niederlande übergeben. 385 000 lebten auf den britischen Inseln, 103 000 im Nahen Osten, 1 600 in Australien, 34 000 in Kanada,
46 000 in Nordafrika, die übrigen auf dem europäischen Kontinent) und schließlich in Frankreich einschließlich Nordafrika 245 000 selbst eingebrachte und 692 000 Übernommene, zusammen 937 000 Mann.
Die deutschen Kriegsgefangenen insgesamt haben über fünf Milliarden Gefangenschaftstage erlebt, davon 43,7 % im Osten, 56,3 % im Westen. Zwischen 1941 und 1956 wurden von ihnen rund 2 Milliarden Arbeitstage geleistet. Im Westen gab es nach amtlichen Unterlagen mindestens 178 000 Fluchtversuche, die meisten waren erfolglos. Entsprechende Angaben für den Osten liegen nicht vor. Mindestens 1,2 Millionen deutsche Soldaten starben in der Gefangenschaft.
Source of quote:

Heribert Schwan/Rolf Steininger, Besiegt, besetzt, geteilt. 1979 Stalling Verlag GmbH, Oldenburg - München - Hamburg, S. 116/117.

My translation:
A total of 11 094 000 members of the Wehrmacht went into captivity in World War II, thereof 3, 349,000 in the East and 7 745 000 in the West. In Soviet custody there were 3 155 000 (thereof 25 000 handed over to Czechoslovakia and 70 000 handed over to Polan), in Yugoslavia 194 000, in the custody of the USA: 3 800 000 (thereof 667 000 handed over to France, 135 000 to Russia, 31 000 to Belgum and 5 000 to Luxembourg;
379 000 lived in the USA, the others in American camps in Europe), in the custody of Great Britain 3 700 000 (thereof 25 000 handed over to France, 33 000 to Belgium and 7000 to the Netherlands. 385 000 lived on the British Isles, 103 000 in the Near East, 1 600 in Australia, 34 000 in Canada, 46 000 in North Africa, the rest on the European continent) and in France including North -Africa 245 000 prisoners taken and 692 000 taken over, together 937 000 men.
German prisoners of war lived through a total of 5 billion days of captivity, thereof 43,7 % in the East, 56,3 % in the West. Between 1941 and 1956 they provided about 2 million working days. In the West there were at least 178 000 escape attempts according to official documents, most of which were without success. There are no corresponding data for the East. At least 1.2 million German soldiers died in captivity.
How Bacque marries this breakdown with his contention that there were 6 million German prisoners of war (or even more) in the hands of the US Army at any given time remains his mystery.

Schwan/Steininger’s figures on the death toll are based on the data of the Maschke Commission, an entity that investigated the fate of German prisoners of war for over a decade and submitted its report in 1974. Its results, according to Overmans’ Deutsche Militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg, were the following:

Deaths in captivity according to Maschke Commission
France 25,000
Great Britain 1,300
USA 5,000
Yugoslavia 80,000
Other States 13.000
USSR 1,090,000
Sum 1,214,300

The results of Overmans’ study are somewhat different:

Deaths in captivity according to present study
France 34,000
Great Britain 21,000
USA 22,000
Yugoslavia 11,000
Other States 8.000
USSR 363,000
Sum 459,000

Overmans explains the difference as follows (my translation from chapter 4.2.5.3 of his a.m. book):
When comparing the data about deaths related to the various custodian states, hardly a case of coincidence can be observed. The figures do, however, show a similar trend – custodian states with high death rates according to the data of the Maschke Commission also show an above average death rate in the present study. The same goes for states with low death rates. The question how the nevertheless existing differences in the absolute values can be explained will be examined in the following.

First it should be pointed out that – except in case of the Soviet Union – the losses in captivity in all custodian states are but fractions of percentages of the total losses and are thus in an order of magnitude that cannot be evaluated accurately even with the present, relatively large sample. Furthermore the methods of establishing the figures vary. The data of the Maschke Kommission are based on files of the custodian state and numerous testimonials of German prisoners of war. In matters of content they refer, in what concerns to the Western Allies, to those who died in Allied custody in a narrower sense. The compilation techniques of the present study, however, mandate the inclusion in the category “captivity” also of such cases that formally fall under that category but for which the respective custodian state was not responsible in material terms. This applies especially to the differences in the data related to Great Britain, the USA and the “other countries”.

Things are different in the case of France, where the numbers of the Maschke Commission are based on the official French data and there are substantial indications for the assumption that, of the ca. 180,000 missing in the West, a great number died indeed in French custody – or as mercenaries in Indochina. Even more difficult is the situation regarding deaths in Yugoslavian custody – apart from rather contradictory German testimonials on the one hand and the documented cases underlying the present study on the other there is no examination that could contribute to the clarification of the question.

Given this unsatisfactory state of research the question arises how reliable data about the deaths in captivity could be obtained. Not by means of an empiric compilation analogous to the present one, given that the information deficits pointed out are not caused by methodological deficiencies of the study – the study only demonstrates the fact that the information available to the German authorities is insufficient. Only the evaluation of reports presently coming in from the former Soviet Union, the recovery of unburied dead presently under way both in the former USSR and in Eastern Germany as well as the registration of graves in the Soviet Union by the VDK will lead to an improvement of the state of information in the next years or decades.

But independently of what the number of deaths in captivity actually is, the differences – at least in what concerns the Western Allies – are so small that they cannot significantly affect the results of this study so far.

This does not apply in regard to Yugoslavia let alone for the Soviet Union –here the difference between 300,000 or a million deaths is so huge that it influences the distribution of the variables. It will thus be attempted in the following to localize the differences more closely.

Table 66: Deaths in Soviet custody by years

Deaths in Soviet captivity according to present study
1941/42 5,000
1943 21,000
1944 41,000
1945 178,000
1946 and after 118,000
Sum 363,000

Missing according to present study*
1941/42 134,000
1943 283,000
1944 719,000
1945 ca. 400,000
1946 and after -
Sum 1,536,000

* The number of missing in 1945 was estimated for the present study on the basis of the established fact that about two thirds of deaths during the Final Battles occurred in the East of Germany.

Deaths in Soviet captivity according to Maschke Commission
1941/42 166,000
1945 154,000
1946 224,000
1945 550,000
1946 and after included in 1945
Sum 1,094,000

Table 66, which differentiates the number of deaths by years, shows first the number of prisoners of war in Soviet custody and the missing on the Eastern Front, followed by the data of the Maschke Commission. According to the present study a total of ca. 363,000 German soldiers died in Soviet captivity – the sum of individually documented deaths. The approach of the Maschke Commission was another: they established, on the basis of various sources, the number of soldiers taken prisoner as well as the percentage of those who died every year. Although it is an estimate, it can be considered as well founded. When comparing the number of the missing established in the present study, ca. 1.5 million, with the difference in deaths considered by the present study on the one hand and the Maschke Commission on the other, it becomes visible that the difference, ca. 700,000 deaths, corresponds to about half of the number of missing. And it seems altogether plausible, although it cannot be proven, that half of those missing were killed in battle and the other half actually died in Soviet custody . Parting from this consideration the question arises how these ca. 700,000 cases are distributed temporarily. For this it is necessary to recall the conduction of military operations. In the first year, i.e. until ca. the middle of 1943, when the German armies were attacking, they were usually in conditions to recover their own dead in the conquered areas. This means that, at the beginning, the overwhelming majority of missing were taken prisoner and died in Soviet custody – out of the Germans taken prisoner at Stalingrad alone ca. 90,000 died rather soon in captivity. The more the initiative went over to the Soviet side and the more often large units were destroyed and taken prisoner, the greater the number of men killed in battle among those missing is likely to have been.

In relation to the above data this plausible if not provable consideration has the consequence that the results of the present study should be modified. Presumably the number of missing in the years 1941/42 must be almost wholly added to the deaths in captivity, whereas in the following years an ever growing part must be added to those killed on the German side. If the numbers of the present study are nevertheless used for the further assessment, this is only because the above considerations, while plausible, are not based on documented individual fates like the remaining results of the present study. As already mentioned, it must be left to a complementary study to evaluate the information arriving from the former Soviet Union at present and in the future, in order to obtain more accurate results in what concerns captivity.
It’s a shame that a thread related to POW’s excellent work in documenting the experiences of German prisoners of war must necessarily bring Mr. Bacque’s fathomless nonsense to the fore.

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Roberto
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Re: War Crimes and Mercies...

#28

Post by Roberto » 02 Nov 2002, 14:04

Scott Smith wrote:
Caldric wrote:Which provisions of the Hauge or Geneva convention were violated POW? Doubt you will answer but honestly want to know.
Well, the POWs were arbitrarily reclassified by Eisenhower as "disarmed enemy forces," whatever the hell that means, instead of Prisoners-of-War. If you can arbitrarily do that, then the international conventions are not worth the paper they are written on (as I might easily argue).
As you have tried to argue without much success, Mr. Smith. You seem to have a rather short memory.

But I agree with you against Caldric's contentions:

If the custodian power were free to decide which of its captives it considers as prisoners of war and which it does not, then the international conventions and customary rules protecting prisoners of war could be thereby circumvented, and this would make them worthless.

Homer martin
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Hi,

#29

Post by Homer martin » 02 Nov 2002, 14:43

Another very good post Roberto.


The numbers prove the case that the Western Allies didn't mistreat their pow's. Food was very short after the war and the Allies did the best they could under very difficult conditions. Trying to judge what happened in WWII by todays rules of war and laws is illogical.

This is another case of the dog barking up the wrong tree.

/hgm

POW
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Re: Hi,

#30

Post by POW » 02 Nov 2002, 14:58

Homer martin wrote:The numbers prove the case that the Western Allies didn't mistreat their pow's. Food was very short after the war and the Allies did the best they could under very difficult conditions/hgm
Only one point I agree with: Food was very short. The rest is incorrect.

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