James Bacque: "1 million POW's murdered by the US"

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#76

Post by David Thompson » 21 Dec 2004, 08:37

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#77

Post by David Thompson » 21 Dec 2004, 08:40

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#78

Post by David Thompson » 21 Dec 2004, 08:42

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#79

Post by David Thompson » 21 Dec 2004, 08:45

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#80

Post by David Thompson » 21 Dec 2004, 08:46

TheKurgan -- On the basis of the foregoing 20 newspaper articles from the New York Times in the period 1950-1952, documenting the official protests of the West German, French, Italian, Japanese, UK and US governments, as well as the UN, I put it to you that M. Bacque is a dupe.

just anotherguy
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#81

Post by just anotherguy » 11 Aug 2005, 19:19

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
I will not argue about right numbers, but i will ask those, who are denying highest numbers of 1000000 dead german POWsas stupid, as west allies were not barbaric , as that their bones were not found. But in results of those commisions there is one big question. , number of dead drop from 1214300 to 459000.
Anyone knows what happen to those who came alive .

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iwh
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#82

Post by iwh » 15 Aug 2005, 14:38

Just returned from a holiday in france and bought a Historical magazine there which focused on the years just at the end of the war. There is an interesting article on German POWs used to work in France in 1945/46. According to the article, written by Francois Cochet, History Prof at the University of metz, 750,000 German POWs went under French control. 17,773, died in 1945, mainly due to a illnesses related to a lack of food. 5,112 died in 1946. Total deaths 22,885 deaths. Certainly not in the hundreds of thousands as certain Canadian authors claim.

It must be noted that there was a food shortage throughout the whole of Europe at the time, and food was short for everyone. The issue of the treatment of german POWs was at the fore in France at that time, with French newspapers such as Le Monde, Le Figaro, La Nation...all stating that Prisonners should be treated with respect. In August 1945, daily rations for german soldiers was 1600 calories (compared with 1,100 calories in the British occupation Zone in germany) and in October 1945 it rose to 1,835.

German POWs had very different lives according to where they stayed. Those in the big cities favoured less well than those living in the countryside, where food was more readily available.

At the end of the day, 3.05 % of German captives died in France, whereas 3.7 % of French prisonners did in German captivity up to 1945.

In my opinion there was no deliberate starvation policy in France.
Last edited by iwh on 15 Aug 2005, 15:58, edited 1 time in total.

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iwh
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Re: One Million German POWs killed by US/UK?

#83

Post by iwh » 15 Aug 2005, 15:34

Whisper wrote:
i allready mentioned above, and that POW´s died while working for the french, they had to disarm mines, bombs and so on.
This is not strictly true..

30,000 Germans were used in mine clearance, of which 1,000 died. 3,000 Frenchmen were also involved in mine clearance as well, of which one third died or were badly injured. German troops were only used to detect mines and for transportation, only French specialists were allowed to actually clear them.

source..

Daniele Voldman, "Images, discours et enjeux de la reconstruction des villes francaises apres 1945"

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#84

Post by David Thompson » 19 Aug 2005, 05:41

Two unsourced and inflammatory opinion posts from Reviewer were deleted by the moderator pursuant to the section rules.

Reviewer -- Please read the forum and section rules carefully before posting here again. The rules are available for all to see at:

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#85

Post by Reviewer » 19 Aug 2005, 05:54

Indeed, after the fall of the Berlin wall, soviets archives where opened, including those about how many German prisonniers didn`t survive the soviet camps...
It`ll take a time to found back the source(s) but i`ll give it if you wish.

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#86

Post by David Thompson » 19 Aug 2005, 06:00

Reviewer -- You said:
It`ll take a time to found back the source(s) but i`ll give it if you wish.
It's not a wish. It's a requirement.
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Re: One Million German POWs killed by US/UK?

#87

Post by Bergveen » 23 Aug 2008, 17:34

Hello guys,

I came just back from the Normandy cemeteries and burial sites.

To start with is that about 77.960 Germans which were killed in the Departements around Normandy are burried on 6 large sobre but very impressive cemeteries. No flags are waving here for the dead, fallen in the bloody and bitter defenses of the many look alike Normandy villages around Caen, Cherbourg, St. Malo, Brest aso and during the break out of the Falaise pocket. I suppose that about 70.000 of these 77.960 actually fell in the battles in Normandy but it can also be less.

It impresses me to read in the German brochures that may a pilot is resting here or a 14 year old German boy which went home in 1945 towards Strassbourg and was arrrested, send to Brittany and died there of hunger (the weaker are always worse of).

What further impresses me is that these Germans are not celebrated as heroes. That they served the "wrong" side. They were shot up by the many allied barrages, air attacks or killed when defending their trenches. Many which retreated on their own were trapped and shot by French.

After the bitter fights turning woods in moon-landscape and villages to rubble, nowaday all this bear no marks of that fight. All villages are beautifully built up, Caen a very well reconstructed city with nice sand-stone appartments and shops.

I was informed by brochures and moveis that also 32.500 US soldiers died, 28.500 from the Commonwealth, a few thousand Poles and French. Also 60.000 French civilians (of which 14.000 in Normandy) died in the bombing of all the towns. Most of the killed Allied soldiers were repatriated after the war to their own countries, the Germans however remained back in hostile France. German POW's had to work in Normandy. Many perished from malnutrition, the hard and dangerous work. They were never treated well and the French took quite a revenge upon them.

The Allied troops performed some well documentated executions (revenge act) after the fight was very hard and many own friends were killed. This happened especially around Bretteville-sur-Laize, Auney-sur-Odon, Tilly-sur-Seulles, Carpiquet, Hill 112.

Finally i visted the Mont Pincon, a hill with a beautiful side, the Cooridor of the Death, were literally 10.000 Germans were killed, many more wounded and 50.000 remained back in the pocket to surrender.

At La Cambe the German cemetery has few flowers to show next to the 20.000 stones. Only one spot was clearly paid attention for: Ofstf. Wittmann and his 4 men crew. They died when riding forward allong the N13 towards Cean. Near Cintheaux they and 3 other Tigers fell prey in dense smoke after a carpet bombing to ambushing Fireflies and/or Typhoon's. They counterattacked obediently as so many "Landser".


La Cambe: 21.139 fallen along the Coast, but here also lie the killed in POW after the war!
Orglandes: 10.152 fallen in the Cherbourg-Carentan peninsula, but also those died in French custody !!!
Marigny: 11.169: fallen in the defense around St.Lo.
Champigny-St André: 19.809 German soldiers fallen in the battles in August and the Allied advance to Seine and Paris.
St Désir de Lisieux: 3.735 fallen in August 1944 between Lisieux and the Seine.
Mont de Huisnes 11.956 fallen around Avranches, Channel Islands, in Britany (St. Malo, Brest aso). Here lies the
14 year old Edmund Baton, arrested by the French in may 1945 near Strassbourg and
died only 2 months later in an POW camp in France of hunger!!!

If I return to Normandy I will search for Edmund Baton and lay flowers on his grave!!! (Crypt 59, grave 50).

Only God knows how many hundreds of thousands of beaten German soldiers perished short after VE-day!!!!
They were driven mercelessly back towards hell again. The mass starvation of the vanquished.

It is an interesting question how many of these dead, died actually during june, july and august 1944 and how many before or far after these horrible months. Fighting in Normandy was sheer hell, with permanent stress, blood and the stench of the wounded and dead.

The great NUMBER of casualties issue

What is irritating me is that Overmans state even lower figures for German soldiers which died during Soviet custody than the soviets admit by themselves based on the number of 2.389.560 soldiers which were captured by them during the offensives in 1943, 1944 and 1945.

I think they may be right that of this number 450.600 soldiers and 66.500 civilians died in the Soviet Union.

BUT: after the war the SU were given extra prisoners by the Western powers so that they had just over 3 million again in may 1945. A simple exercise shows that 2.389.560 minus 450.600 = 1.939.000 soldiers were left then and about ONE million extra captives were added also.

Of these 1 extra million soldiers also a certain percentage died after may 1945.
If this percentage is between 20 and 25% then between 200.000 and 250.000 extra German soldiers must have been died.
Still this bring the total at about 450.000 + 250.000 = 700.000, which is a number in between the 369.000 called by Overmans and the 1.090.000 (1.290.000) which is called so many times in so many books and articles.

You all know I still want an explanation for the 2 million German MIA as given by Rüdiger Overmans. Since the storeys of James Baque are fiction there must be another explanation.

The first explanation is that 1 million of those 2 million MIA were actually killed in battle or by causes of the war. Most of these (90%) fell in the East from the summer of 1944 towards may 1945. The German burrial numbers (about 4 million) are in line with the numbers presented by Rüdiger Overmans.
The other million are caused by other causes like POW, sickness, hunger, exhaustion or they disappeared from the world by living under a false name, joined (forced or not) the Foreign Legion, emigrated to South America, to America aso.

Finally Rüdiger comes with the 5,3 million soldiers KIA and MIA and the Germans officially state 2 million civilians als KIA and MIA with a grand total of 7.3 million for Germany (and Austria) for WWII.

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Re: One Million German POWs killed by US/UK?

#88

Post by David Thompson » 23 Aug 2008, 21:32

Bergveen -- You wrote:
BUT: after the war the SU were given extra prisoners by the Western powers so that they had just over 3 million again in may 1945. A simple exercise shows that 2.389.560 minus 450.600 = 1.939.000 soldiers were left then and about ONE million extra captives were added also.
Do you have a source or sources for this? Are they all POWs who were German nationals, or are some or most of them repatriated Soviet nationals?

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Re: One Million German POWs killed by US/UK?

#89

Post by JTG » 23 Aug 2008, 23:29

[quote="Bergveen"]Hello guys,

I came just back from the Normandy cemeteries and burial sites.

<edit>What further impresses me is that these Germans are not celebrated as heroes. That they served the "wrong" side. They were shot up by the many allied barrages, air attacks or killed when defending their trenches. Many which retreated on their own were trapped and shot by French.
<end>

I'm sorry, Bergveen, but I simply do not understand your position. Are you saying that they were NOT on the wrong side?

<edit>
Only God knows how many hundreds of thousands of beaten German soldiers perished short after VE-day!!!!
They were driven mercelessly back towards hell again. The mass starvation of the vanquished.
<end edit>

Ought not that last sentence to read "The mass starvation of the vanquished AGRESSOR?"

Good grief, no-one invited them, whether the individual wished to be there or not: POWs taken by the Allies in France were hardly as mal-treated as those taken in Russia; is that really your contention?

I would be interested in any figures you might have for mal-treatment of the POWs removed from the Channel Islands, specifically.

Regards

John

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Re: One Million German POWs killed by US/UK?

#90

Post by David Thompson » 24 Aug 2008, 00:25

A number of non-informational posts by Penn44 which added nothing of value to the thread were deleted by the moderator, along with several now-unnecessary reponses by Annelie -- DT.

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