USA dismissed Switzerland as protecting power of German POWs

[xcalibur]

Here is Ambrose's rebuttal of the book by Bacque:

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/b/bac ... se-001.htm

[David Thompson]

xcalibur -- That link doesn't work. Here's the book review by Ambrose, taken from the Nizkor site:

James Bacque's 'Other Losses'
A Review by Stephen E. Ambrose



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ike and the Disappearing Atrocities
New York Times Book Review, February 24, 1991

Seldom has the publication of a historical monograph on a subject ordinarily of interest only to a few specialists - the treatment of prisoners of war - received so much attention or excited so much anger as James Bacque's "Other Losses." Published in 1989 in Canada, it was the subject of a cover story in the popular Canadian magazine Saturday Night, of a British Broadcasting Corporation documentary, of two German television documentaries and of a coming Canadian Broadcasting Network documentary. (The Canadian book, I should say immediately, carries a jacket blurb from me that was taken out of context and used without permission) It has been discussed on American television, in Time magazine and in many other news media outlets. In its German edition, it was a runaway best seller. The British edition elicited major reviews in the Times Literary Supliment and elsewhere. Prima Publishing of California intendes to publish the book in May, which could fan the flames in the United States.

The reason for the notoriety is the author's conclusion that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, as head of the American occupation of Germany in 1945, deliberately starved to death German prisoners of war in staggering numbers. Mr. Bacque charges that "the victims undoubtedly number over 800,000, almost certainly over 800,000 and quite likely over a million. Their deaths were knowingly caused by army officers who had sufficient resources to keep the prisoners alive."

Eisenhower's method, according to Mr. Bacque, was simple: he changed the designation of the prisoners from "Prisoners of War" (P.O.W.), required by the Geneva Convention to be fed the same rations as American G.I.'s, to "Disarmed Enemy Forces" (D.E.F.), which allowed him to cut their rations to starvation level. Mr. Bacque says the D.E.F. were also denied medical supplies and shelter. They died by the hundreds of thousands. Their deaths were covered up on Army records by listing them as "other looses" on charts showing weekly totals of prisoners on hand, numbers discharged and so forth.

So outraged is Mr. Bacque by his discovery of this heinous crime that he has been quoted in a wire service interview as saying Americans "should take down every statue of Eisenhower, and every photograph of him and annul his memory from American history as best they can, except to say, 'Here was a man who did very evil things that we're ashamed of.'" Questions immediately arise. If there were a million dead, where are the bodies? Did Eisenhower have such vast power that he could order starvation on a mass scale and keep it a secret? Was the undoubted suffering in the camps, especially the transit camps along the Rhine, the result of Eisenhower's policy or the result of the chaotic conditions that prevailed in Europe in the spring and summer of 1945?

Mr. Bacque, a Canadian novelist with no previous historical research or writing experience, says in his introduction: "Doubtless many scholars will find faults in this book, which are only mine. I welcome their criticism and their further research, which may help to restore to us the truth after a long night of lies." Last December, the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans invited some leading experts on the period to examine the charges. The conference participants, including me, plan to publish the papers in book form.

Our first conclusion was that Mr. Bacque had made a major historical discovery. There _was_ wdiespread mistreatment of German prisoners in the spring and summer of 1945. Men were beaten, denied water, forced to live in open camps without shelter, given inadequate food rations and inadequate medical care. Their mail was withheld. In some cases prisoners made a "soup" of water and grass in order to deal with their hunger. Men did die needlessly and inexcusably. This must be confronted, and it is to Mr. Bacque's credit that he forces us to do so.

Our second conclusion was that when scholars do the necessary research, they will find Mr. Bacque's work to be worse than worthless. It is seriously - nay, spectacularly - flawed in its most fundamental aspects. Mr. Bacque misuses documents; he misreads documents; he ignores contrary evidence; his statistical methodology is hopelessly compromised; he makes no attempt to look at comparative contexts; he puts words into the mouth of his principal source; he ignores a readily available and absolutely critical source that decisively deals with his central accusation; and, as a consequence of these and and other shortcomings, he reaches conclusions and makes charges that are demonstrably absurd.

Apart from its assessment of Mr. Bacque's findings, however, the conference - along with the book itself - raises a larger issue: how are readers who are not experts to judge a work that makes new, startling, indeed outrageious, claims? Without the knowledge or the time to investigate, how are they to know if an author has finally revealed the truth "after a long night of lies," or is simply misleading an unwary public?

As for Mr. Bacque's claims, the most immediate question is that of Eisenhower's motive: why on earth would Ike do such a thing? Mr. Bacque answers that Eisenhower hated the Germans. Now it is absolutely true that in the spring of 1945, Eisenhower's anger at the Germans was very great. He never attempted to hide these feelings. In "Crusade in Europe," published in 1948, he wrote, "In my personal reactions, as the months of conflict wore on, I grew constantly more bitter against the Germans." He relates that he signed tens of thousands of letters of condolence to the wives and mothers of his fallen men, and he wrote, "I know of no more effective means of developing an undying hatred of those responsible for aggressive war than to assume the obligation of attemption to express sympathy to families bereaved by it." The uncovering of the concentration camps added to his emotion.

Eisenhower was an enthusiastic supporter of denazification, but not because he hated the Germans or believed in collective guilt. To the contrary, he believed that there were Germans who were committed to democracy and that the task of the occupation was to find them and bring them to the fore. In a speech in Frankfurt in 1945, he declared "The success or failure of this occupation will be judged by the character of the Germans 50 years from now. Proof will come when they begin to run a democracy of their own and we are going to give the Germans a chance to do that, in time." This does not sound like a man who simultaneously was directing the death by starvation of one million young Germans.

Mr. Bacque completely misunderstands Eisenhower's position and activity in the occupation. He puts full responsibility on Eisenhower for every policy decision, never recognizing that he had superiors from whom he took policy directives and orders - specifically, the Army Chief of Staff, the European Advisory Commission, acting in the name and with the authority of the British, Soviet and American Governments, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Combined Chiefs of Staff, that is, the American Joint Chiefs and the British Chiefs of Staff; and the heads of the British and American Governments. The report at the New Orleans conference on the diplomatic background, by Brian Villa of the University of Ottawa, noted that the policy of Eisenhower's superiors was to impress upon the Germans the fact of their defeat, the fact that they had brought it on themselves and in other ways to "treat 'em rough." Denazification was one aspect of that policy. Another was that German prisoners would not be fed at a higher level than German civilians, than the civilians of the liberated nations, or than the displaced persons (DPs).

An assertion that is central to Mr. Bacque's accusation is his contention that there was no European food shortage in 1945. He points to warehouses in Germany full of food. He says that the Red Cross had food available. One of his most daming pieces of evidence is that a train from Geneva loaded with food parcels sent by the Red Cross to feed German prisoners was forced to turn back.

This is shocking - food was available, men were hungry and American officers ordered the train to return to Geneva. But there was a reason: the Allied Governments had decided that Red Cross food parcels would be used to feed displaced persons, of whom there were more than two million in Germany, and the orders to Eisenhower on this policy were explicit. So DPs got those food parcels. It is painful beyond description to have to set food priorities in a hungry world, but it had to be done, and who could argue with the decision?

In his conference report on the food situation in Germany, James Tent of the University of Alabama - Brimingham says there was no question that there were severe shortages. Still, as Mr. Tent points out, there was food stocked in warehouses that was not distributed to prisoners living on a near-starvation diet. Again, this is shocking, until the reason is noted. The Allied Governments were fearful of famine in the winter of 1945-46, and they were stockpiling food. Even with the reserves, they barely got through the winter, and it was three years before the European foot shortage was overcome.

Mr. Bacque's myth was Eisenhower's nightmare. No food shortage? Eisenhower wrote the Chief of Staff, Gen. George C. Marshall, in Februayr 1945: "I am very much concerned about the food situation... We now have no reserves on the Continent of supplies for the civil population."

And here is Eisenhower writing to the Combined Chiefs of Staff on April 25, 1945: "Unless immediate steps are taken to develop to the fullest extent possible the food resources in order to provide the minimum wants of the German population, widespread chaos, starvation and disease are inevitable during the coming winter."

These - and many, many similar messages - went out before the surrender. After the first week of May, all of Eisenhower's calculations as to how many people he would be required to feed in occupied Germany became woefully inadequate. He had badly underestimated, for two reasons. First, the number of German soldiers surrendering to the Western Allies far exceeded what was expected (more than five million, instead of the anticipated three million) because of the onrush of German soldiers across the Elbe River to escape the Russians. So too with German civilians - there were millions fleeing from east to west, about 13 million altogether, and they became Eisenhower's responsibility. Eisenhower faced shortages even before he learned that there were 17 million more people to feed in Germany than he had expected.

No food shortage? This is the report of the Military Governor for Germany in July 1945: "The food situation throughout Western Germany is perhaps the most serious problem of the occupation. The average food consumption in the Western Zones is now about one-third below the generally accepted subsistence level." The September report declares, "Food from indigenous sources was not available to meet the present authorized ration level for the normal consumer, of 1,550 calories per day."

Mr. Bacque says that the prisoners were receiving 1,550 calories a day, and he contends that such a ration means slow starvation. He apparently never looked at what civilians were getting, in Germany or in the liberated countries. In Paris in 1945, the calorie level was 1,550 for civilians. It was only slightly higher in Briatin, where rationing continued. It was much lower in Russia, where rationing also continued. As noted, the official ration for German civilians was 1,550, but often not met. In Vienna in the summer of 1945 the official ration sometimes fell to 500.

There is such a thing as common sense. Anyone who was in Europe in the summer of 1945 would be flabbergasted to hear that there was no food shortage.

According to Mr. Bacque, Eisenhower personally, secretly, and with sinister intent changed the status of surrendered German soldiers from prisoners of war to disarmed enemy forces. In fact, the change in designation was a policy matter. The decision was made not by Eisenhower but by his superiors, specifically by the European Advisory Commission. Nor was any attempt made to keep it secret. All those involved acted with the authority of the British, Russian and American Governments, and they were perfectly straightforward about the reason for the change in status.

What happened is simple enough: the Allies could not afford to feed the millions of German prisoners at the same level at which they were able to feed German civilians, not to mention the civilians of the liberated countries of Western Europe, and not to mention as well the displaced persons. But the United States and other Allied nations had signed the Geneva Convention, which had the force of a treaty. They did not wish to violate it, so they used the new designation of "Disarmed Enemy Forces." The orders to the field commanders were straighforward: do not feed the DEF's at a higher scale than German civilians.

With regard to another of Mr. Bacque's conclusions, he arrives at his sensational figure of one million dead through a system of analysis that has left almost everyone who has tried to check his statistics and methods befuddled. He did make one mistake because of a typing error by a clerk. He saw a figure of 70,000 prisoners in an Army medical report and then calculated the total death rate for all prisoners in American hands on the basis of that number and the 21,000 deaths also mentioned in the report. That is, he arrived at his most basic conclusion, a death rate in all camps of 30 percent, by dividing the 21,000 deaths by the 70,000 prisoners. However, the 70,000 figure should have been 10 times higher. All other figures in the document make it clear that the correct number of prisoners was 700,000. This would make the death rate not 30 percent but 3 percent.

In fact, as Albert Cowdrey of the Department of the Army's Center of Military History reported to the conference, the overall death rate among German prisoners was 1 percent.

Mr. Cowdrey's conclusion, strongly supported by another conference participant, Maj. Ruediger Overmans of the German Office of Military History in Freiburg (who is writing the final volume of the official Germany history of the war), is that the total death by all causes of German prisoners in American hands could not have been greater than 56,000.

Finally, there is the matter of the column of figures in the weekly reports of the United States Army Theater Provost Marshal entitled "Other Losses." It is here that Mr. Bacque finds his "missing million."

What were the "other losses?" Mr. Bacque interviewed Philip S. Lauben, a retired Army colonel who was a member of the German Affairs Branch of Eisenhower's headquarters in 1945. He writes that Colonel Lauben told him "other losses" meant "deaths and escapes."

"How many escapes?" Mr. Bacque asked.

"Very, very minor," Colonel Lauben replied. Mr. Bacque says they were less than one-tenth of 1 percent, with no explanation of how he arrived at such a figure.

Neil Cameron, the producer of the BBC documentary about "Other Losses," told the conference that he had obtained from Mr. Bacque the tape of the interview. It seemed clear to Mr. Cameron that Mr. Bacque had got an old man to agree with words that Mr. Bacque used and then put in his mouth. Mr. Cameron did his own on-camera interview with Colonel Lauben; in it, Colonel Lauben said he was misled by Mr. Bacque and was wrong about the meaning of the term "other losses."

David Hawkins of CNN wanted to do an interview with Colonel Lauben. Colonel Lauben turned him down, explaining in a letter "I'm not being difficult. I am 91 years old, legally blind, and my memory has lapsed to a point where it is quite unreliable. Furthermore I am under regular medical care. Often during my talk with Mr. Bacque I reminded him that my memory had deteriorated badly during the 40 odd years since 1945.

"Mr. Bacque read to me figures...It seemed to me that, after accounting for transfers and discharges, there was nothing left to make up the grand total except deaths and escapes, i.e. the term 'Other Losses.' I was mistaken."

Thus, Mr. Bacque's only witness for the charge that "other losses" was a cover-up term for deaths has twice repudiated what Mr. Bacque maintains that he said.

What then were the "other losses?" In many cases they were transfers from one zone to another, something that was regularly done for a variety of reasons, none of them sinister, and all duly recorded in footnotes on the weekly reports.

But the greatest number of "other losses" is revealed in the August 1945 Report of the Military Governor. (These monthly reports are in the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan., in the National Archives in Washington and elsewhere; they are a basic source on every aspect of the occupation, including food shortages and prisoners. Mr. Bacque did not cite them and there is no evidence he examined them.) The August report lists the numbers of disarmed enemy forces discharged by American forces and those transferred to the British and French for forced labor.

The report continues: "An additional group of 663,576 are listed as 'other losses,' consisting largely of members of the Volksturm [Peoples' Militia], released without formal discharge."

It takes little imagination to see what happened here. The People's Militia consisted of older men (up to 80 years of age, mainly World War I veterans) and boys of 16 or sometimes less. American guards and camp authorities told the old men to go home and take care of their grandchildren, the boys to go home and return to school. Along with the transfers to other zones that Mr. Bacque ignores, these people account for all the "missing million."

In short, Mr. Bacque is wrong on every major charge and nearly all his minor ones. Eisenhower was not a Hitler, he did not run death camps, German prisoners did not die by the hundreds of thousands, there was a severe food shortage in 1945, there was nothing sinister or secret about the "disarmed enemy forces" designation or about the column "other losses." Mr. Bacque's "missing million" were old men and young boys in the militia.

Nevertheless, Mr. Bacque makes a point that is irrefutable: some American G.I.'s and their officers were capable of acting in almost as brutal a manner as the Nazis. We did not have a monopoly on virtue. He has challenged us to reopen the question, to do the research required, to get at the full truth. For that contribution, he deserves thanks. But as to how he presented his discovery, I turn again to Albert Cowdrey: "Surely the author has reason to be satisfied with his achievement. He has no reputation as a historian to lose, and "Other Losses" can only enhance his standing as a writer of fiction." There remains, finally, the larger issue. It took a conference of experts to challenge Mr. Bacque's charges. Individual scholars have hesitated to take him on because to do so required checking through his research - in effect, rewriting his book. Instead, many of them have said in their reviews in Britain, France, Germany and Canada that they cannot believe what Mr. Bacque says about Eisenhower is true, but they cannot disprove it. Mr. Bacque has all the paraphernalia of scholarship; it looks impressive enough to bamboozle even scholars. Under these circumstances, what is a lay reader to do? I suggest that he or she trust common sense. As when confronting the Holocaust-never-happened school, ask the obvious questions. If the answers aren't clear, the charges have not been proved. In Mr. Bacque's case, two such questions are: Where are the bodies? and Is this book consistent with our picture of Eisenhower's character as we know it from innumberable other sources? Ultimately, in cases such as this one, it is often the obvious questions that bring us closest to the truth.

[Paddy Keating]

Mr. Bacque misuses documents; he misreads documents; he ignores contrary evidence; his statistical methodology is hopelessly compromised; he makes no attempt to look at comparative contexts; he puts words into the mouth of his principal source; he ignores a readily available and absolutely critical source that decisively deals with his central accusation; and, as a consequence of these and and other shortcomings, he reaches conclusions and makes charges that are demonstrably absurd.

Mr Ambrose makes Mr Bacque sound like the average prosecution attorney. Joking aside, while it is beyond doubt that many German POWs, particularly captured Waffen-SS men, were dreadfully mistreated by US military personnel, it is stretching credibility to entertain the notion that there was a deliberate conspiracy by the Western Allies to murder between 800,000 and over 1,000,000 German POWs.

Not that I am suggesting that the Western Allies were not capable of terrible brutality. The Anglo-American terror bombing of cities attests to that. But the Western Allies had, I believe, already decided that the new West Germany would serve as a buffer between the Soviet Empire and North-Western Europe.

One does not create an effective buffer state by murdering a million men, many of whom were teenagers, whose only 'crime' was to be drafted into the armed forces of their country. The West German economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s was all part of the strategy. The West Germans were pacified by prosperity. The mistakes of Versailles in 1918 were not going to be repeated. The men of the new state were, as Eisenhower himself said, needed to build that new state.

Funny, isn't it, how Germany's economy started having problems as soon as the Soviet Empire fell apart. The cynical observer might see it as the result of no longer being needed once the Cold War ended.

PK

[David Thompson]

(A) Well, with the Ambrose review additional research done in earlier posts by Roberto, here's what I've found on the first of Ostuf.'s allegations.

The western allies had more than 5 millions german POWs at the end of the war . This number was reduced to 3.800.000 by eisenhower thanks to an administrative trick ,calling these POWs “disarmed enemies forces” so they were not POWs anymore and they were denied the survey of international Red Cross ,which is exactly what Panzermahn is talking about .

Let's discuss this claim point by point.

(1) The first point is:

The western allies had more than 5 millions german POWs at the end of the war .

According to Heribert Schwan/Rolf Steininger, Besiegt, besetzt, geteilt. 1979 Stalling Verlag GmbH, Oldenburg - München - Hamburg, pp. 116-17, the western allies held 7,745,000 German Pows at the war's end in May 1945. Here's how Schwan and Steininger broke that figure down:

USA: 3,800,000 (of these, 667,000 were handed over to France, 135,000 to Russia, 31,000 to Belgum and 5,000 to Luxembourg. Of the total POWs held by the Americans, 379,000 lived in the USA, the others in American camps in Europe).

UK: 3,700,000 (of these 25,000 were handed over to France, 33,000 to Belgium and 7,000 to the Netherlands. 385,000 of the UK POWs lived in the British Isles, 103,000 in the Near East, 1,600 in Australia, 34,000 in Canada, 46,000 in North Africa, and the rest were held in camps on the European continent)

France (including North Africa): 245,000 prisoners taken and 692,000 taken over, together 937,000 men.

From this we can see that Ostuf.'s total of 5 million German POWs held by the western allies is too small, and that by the Schwan and Steininger figures the total should be 7,745,000.

(2) Ostuf.'s second point for this claim is:

This number was reduced to 3.800.000 by eisenhower

3.8 million is not the result of a reduction, but instead is the US share of the German POWs held by the western allies, as can be seen from the Schwan and Steininger figures above.

(3) Ostuf.'s third point for this claim is:

an administrative trick ,calling these POWs “disarmed enemies forces” so they were not POWs anymore

This point was also made by Bacque, and answered by Ambrose as follows:

According to Mr. Bacque, Eisenhower personally, secretly, and with sinister intent changed the status of surrendered German soldiers from prisoners of war to disarmed enemy forces. In fact, the change in designation was a policy matter. The decision was made not by Eisenhower but by his superiors, specifically by the European Advisory Commission. Nor was any attempt made to keep it secret. All those involved acted with the authority of the British, Russian and American Governments, and they were perfectly straightforward about the reason for the change in status.

What happened is simple enough: the Allies could not afford to feed the millions of German prisoners at the same level at which they were able to feed German civilians, not to mention the civilians of the liberated countries of Western Europe, and not to mention as well the displaced persons. But the United States and other Allied nations had signed the Geneva Convention, which had the force of a treaty. They did not wish to violate it, so they used the new designation of "Disarmed Enemy Forces." The orders to the field commanders were straighforward: do not feed the DEF's at a higher scale than German civilians.

This classification was, in my opinion, a violation of the Geneva Convention of 1929. It is not at all clear that it was a war crime, however, because a war crime is subject to the defense of justification. There is an independent question of whether the reclassification of all POWs to "disarmed enemy forces" who were fed a lower food ration than US troops, was justified by the food shortage in Europe in 1945-1946 and the decision to feed the German POWs at the same rate as civilians in Germany.

(4) Ostuf.'s final point for this claim is:

they were denied the survey of international Red Cross

This has yet to be established. The fact that Charles De Gaulle did not schedule an interview with a representative of the International Red Cross does not establish that no French official spoke to the the International Red Cross, or that the IRC was denied access to all POW camps of the western allies.

(B) Ostuf's second claim is:

In May 45 ,the swiss Red Cross had more than 100.000 tonns of food ready to ship to the german POWs in US camps in Germany and France and the swiss started to send some of these loads ...the US Military Government in Germany sent back whole trains of food to the Swiss Red Cross ,forbidding more shipments . Why ? If I was the military commander of a POWs camp ,I would be happy if somebody else was going to pay for the food of my prisonners . (Sources : “Dunant’s Dream” by Caroline Moorehead , Carroll & Graf , New York ,1999) Another evidence of a pre-plan of starvation .

This claim was raised by Bacque, and refuted by Ambrose, as follows:

An assertion that is central to Mr. Bacque's accusation is his contention that there was no European food shortage in 1945. He points to warehouses in Germany full of food. He says that the Red Cross had food available. One of his most damning pieces of evidence is that a train from Geneva loaded with food parcels sent by the Red Cross to feed German prisoners was forced to turn back.

This is shocking - food was available, men were hungry and American officers ordered the train to return to Geneva. But there was a reason: the Allied Governments had decided that Red Cross food parcels would be used to feed displaced persons, of whom there were more than two million in Germany, and the orders to Eisenhower on this policy were explicit. So DPs got those food parcels. It is painful beyond description to have to set food priorities in a hungry world, but it had to be done, and who could argue with the decision?

In his conference report on the food situation in Germany, James Tent of the University of Alabama - Birmingham says there was no question that there were severe shortages. Still, as Mr. Tent points out, there was food stocked in warehouses that was not distributed to prisoners living on a near-starvation diet. Again, this is shocking, until the reason is noted. The Allied Governments were fearful of famine in the winter of 1945-46, and they were stockpiling food. Even with the reserves, they barely got through the winter, and it was three years before the European foot shortage was overcome. (emphasis mine - DT)

Ostuf., please note that you used the plural "the US Military Government in Germany sent back whole trains of food," while Bacque and Ambrose only speak in the singular of "a train from Geneva loaded with food parcels sent by the Red Cross to feed German prisoners was forced to turn back." (emphasis mine - DT).

[Ostuf Charlemagne]

My dear Thompson ,you last post stunned me because it borders on the "bad will" and on a desperate intent to hide the sun with a finger ...I knew you as an almost impartial moderador and now that you are given the sources ,you ask for more . So let's me answer step by step :
a - I have too many sources for that starting with many articles in lots of magazines ( not revisionnist ones ) starting with Aventures de l'Histoire I mentioned there ..... Yes ,it is true that I didn't take into account the german POWs in England ...you are just giving me more facts ,but anyway ,since you agree that it was a violation of the geneva Convention ,let's go to the other points .
4 - As I wrote ,even left-wings newspapers of the period insurged against that ...enough said .

b - Of you first reply : By the book and then we talk ....
e -of you first reply : well ,ask Ambrose .....(sorry if you will need a medium for that ,but I'm not guilty for the stupid claims of Ambrose)
g -of your first reply : You may say whatever you want ,but facts are that Shroeder and Camille Fuchs died there ,it was not nice ,possibly a violation of the geneva convention rules (unless you justify the preventive arrest of the jews by the nazis ,after all it was the same thing ....) and this shows that Bacques was surely not wrong ....

And now rapidly and as a "tutti frutti" : claims refuted by Ambrose ...sure ,Ambrose was a lier .So far you didn't explain why Ambrose backed up the theories of Bacques ...up till he got a job with the US army college .
About german POWs forbidden to write to their relatives ,you want any sources ??? It's like to ask me any sources if I would be writing that in 1969 a man went to the moon ! Don't worry , I will go to see my archives and send some e-mails to some veterans I know so I will shows up with a list of names who can attest to that ,in my next post .So far you are ,nevertheless raising up some good points i gone answer to you soon ..... Regards . (and yes ,the feeling I got is that you are all in a desperate move to deny all that .....we put the finger on the wound ,uh ...)

[Ostuf Charlemagne]

Xcalibur : reading again these posts ,I think that my poor english mislead us in one point . In french the word "argument" means an evidenced fact ,while I realize that in english it means a fight over something or an insult ...well ,now you understand . I will try to be careful about that next time . Of course ,if Adolf had won the war we would be all speaking german and this kind of problems wouldn't shows up !

Kidding ,Xcalibur .... Entschuldige !

[David Thompson]

Ostuf. -- I have no ill will towards you or the claims, and I'm trying to be impartial. That's why I'm taking the allegations one by one and looking at them carefully. If I didn't think they were worth discussing, I wouldn't have bothered to do any research to discuss them. And if I had something bad to say about you -- as you know, I'm not shy. This subject is new to me, so don't be surprised if I ask questions about it. I suspect that in my place, you would do the same. And don't worry -- I'm not through looking at your argument.

You remarked:

So far you didn't explain why Ambrose backed up the theories of Bacques ...up till he got a job with the US army college .

That's right. It's because you said to me that Ambrose only realized it much later, after "he got a job with the US army college":

Thompson : About Ambrose withdrawing his denial of Bacques , I read somewhere that few days bafore his death ,Ambrose declared that the work of Bacques had "destroyed the work of his lifelong (of Ambrose)",implying Bacques was right ,as Ambrose stated at first ,by the way ..... I didn't found my source (going over my archives yesyerday night ) so I do not maintain it ... up till I find it . (my emphasis - DT)

However, if we look at the Ambrose book review, even there he says that to a certain extent, he did agree with Bacque, as you have already noted:

Mr. Bacque, a Canadian novelist with no previous historical research or writing experience, says in his introduction: "Doubtless many scholars will find faults in this book, which are only mine. I welcome their criticism and their further research, which may help to restore to us the truth after a long night of lies." Last December, the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans invited some leading experts on the period to examine the charges. The conference participants, including me, plan to publish the papers in book form.

Our first conclusion was that Mr. Bacque had made a major historical discovery. There was widespread mistreatment of German prisoners in the spring and summer of 1945. Men were beaten, denied water, forced to live in open camps without shelter, given inadequate food rations and inadequate medical care. Their mail was withheld. In some cases prisoners made a "soup" of water and grass in order to deal with their hunger. Men did die needlessly and inexcusably. This must be confronted, and it is to Mr. Bacque's credit that he forces us to do so.

Our second conclusion was that when scholars do the necessary research, they will find Mr. Bacque's work to be worse than worthless. It is seriously - nay, spectacularly - flawed in its most fundamental aspects. Mr. Bacque misuses documents; he misreads documents; he ignores contrary evidence; his statistical methodology is hopelessly compromised; he makes no attempt to look at comparative contexts; he puts words into the mouth of his principal source; he ignores a readily available and absolutely critical source that decisively deals with his central accusation; and, as a consequence of these and and other shortcomings, he reaches conclusions and makes charges that are demonstrably absurd. (emphasis in original - DT)

You also remarked:

you want any sources ??? It's like to ask me any sources if I would be writing that in 1969 a man went to the moon !

Yeah, I know. It happens to me all the time, but I still try to give one or more sources anyway. It's a good habit, and it avoids wasting time too.

[Ostuf Charlemagne]

Thompson : OK ,I read your post carefully yesterday night ...we can begin with the fact that the “Disarmed enemy Forces” are ackowledged by Mr. Ambrose ,which must to answer your question .... you just had to read your own post ,my dear ....
About the revisionnist claims of Mr Ambrose ,there is a lot to say ,for instances :

- “ If there was a million dead ,where are the bodies “ ... Under some pinewood ,I guess .I described one of those instances in my last post ....and there is more instances ,by the way . Now we could say ABSOLUTELY the same about the holocaust .So the denial of Ambrose (after having backed up Bacques ...until to get a job with the US army college...mmmmhhhh.) is kind of revisionnist . If you don’t accept revisionnism from one side ,you shouldn’t accept it from the other side .If you were really impartial ,of course .

- “ Did Eisenhower have such a power “ ..... I already told you he was instrumental .Bacques missed the whole point .Orders were coming from the top .(Eichmann didn’t had a vast power ,neither) and as a former judge and former captain ,you should agree with me on that ,Thompson . If it was a policy ,as Bacque implies, it was coming from the top . There both Bacque and Ambrose are loosing the mark .

- “ Mr Bacque ,a canadian novelist “ ... in fact ,Bacque is a graduate of the university of Toronto (in 1952) ,he wrotes some novels ,yes ,and also historical biographies and was also a publisher .The attempt to reduce him as a “novelist” ie . a writer of fiction ,is intented to the listeners’s subconscient to think ; “ah ,so his work “Other Losses “ is a fiction too”. I think this would be enough to shows how biased was Ambrose and his personnal dishonesty ,too . We call that “subliminal messages” ,the KGB calls that “desinformatsya” and the christians call that “a sin by omission”. Enough said .

- “their mail was withheld”...”this must be confronted “ ..... So at last Ambrose recognized this point .So your question is answered there ,Thompson ,which lead me to think,again ,that you didn’t read fully your own message . Better ,because now I will refrain to elaborate a list with more than 180 names of german veterans I know to whom it happened . Less time on the computer .Much better .

- “ He (Ike) believed that there were germans who were committed to democracy ...and bring them to the fore” ...... Yep . Like (an instance among others ) the case of Mr. Auerbach who was appointed as Bavarian Commissioner by the US Military Command . The man was a former inmate of Dachau KL where he have been interned not because he was jew but because he was a crook . Being an “holocaust’s survivor” was enough to grant him the high function , in the eyes of Ike and his staff . Too sad he pursued his usual activities ,becoming a multimillionary of the black market ,stealing both the US Army and the german people , untill he was arrested by the US MPs (under Patton’s army .It seems Ike was closing his eyes about his “protoeges” ) once his deeds were vox populi . Sincerely ,if Mr.Ambrose planned to deny Mr.Bacques with this kind of evidences , Bacques had really nothing to fear ...

- Also Ambrose ackowledge the case of the Red Cross food-train ,trying to explain that they had to set up priorities ....Verywell . It was surely the same case for Auschwitz ,and most readers would agree that this is not an excuse .It remains a violation of the Geneva Convention about the feeding of POWs. So far I still fail to see where Bacques is proved wrong ...

- Further it shows that Eisenhower was concerned only about the food rations of the civilian population ,not of the POWs. And Bacques remains undenied .

- About the calories ,in France the german POWs rations were of 1006 calories ,once “ameliored”. There Bacques may have been misinformed about a situation which was indeed a lot worse than he had claimed . (At last for the german POWs in France as evidenced by the article of “Le Monde” of october 1945 , re- my last post .)

- Now let’s agree with an Ambrose point : Yes ,it was a general food shortage in the whole Europe .
a) Why the US command denied to receive the supplies of the Swiss Red Cross ?
b) Even so ,it was always the duty of the US Army to feed correctly their POWs .Why not to give them US army C-rats (rations ,not rats ,for the non-english reader) ? Those were plentiful and a lot of US servicemen were doing big bucks selling it at black market ... (Don’t tell me no : My father was working as a clerk for the US army supplies offices ,in Marseilles in 1945 (the old man spokes a good english unlike myself , I choosed to learn german at school ,and I never learned english .)... he told me about the huge depots of food rations and cigarettes and the black market it provoked.)

No Mr Ambrose ,we can’t buy this denial ,neither .

For instance let’s see the following testimony ( of Hans Schmidt ,former of the Leibstandarte – Of course Rob will dismiss this testimony claiming that Schmidt is a nazi . Being an SS volunteer ,indeed . But it does not means that Mr Schmidt is lying .) : “ GIs (...) were forbidden to even give opened half-consumed cans of food to starving german POWs “ , also I have the testimony of two german women , Frau Walter and Frau Hammer who lived both in the city of Bingen in 1945 .They attests that at Dietersheim camp they tried once to bring some food to the german POWs .They were shot by US sentries and saved their lifes just because those sentries were bad shooters .But many german women who did the same were shot dead in other instances .
So ,if Ike was so worried about the POWs rations ,why he didn’t allows to them the rations of the Red Cross ? why not to feed them with the plentiful C-rations ? why he didn’t accepted the help of these women ? after all they were just bringing food . And there is exactly where I start to call Ambrose a LIER .

- “Albert Cowdrey - US army center of Military History ,etc.....” reported a death rate of 1% among POWs. Wooow !!! It’s worse than a stupidity .This is a governmental lie – since it come from an US army center – in the same vein as in “ I didn’t have sex with Mrs Lewinsky “. At this time – just after V-Day in Europe – the death rate of the US Army was around 0.4% ( 3.8 for one thousand according to my sources ,”Aventures de l’Histoire” ,May 2003)...so the death toll of german POWs without shelter would be barely twice the death toll of a non-combattant US army well fed and cared for ? Who can believe that ????

- About Col (ret) Philip S. Lauben ,he was an expert of the German Affairs Branch of the SHAEF. He was categorical when he stated – AT FIRST - that the words “other losses” means indeed “deaths” and don’t means “escapes” .It was under preissure of the US Army that he retracted himself ( “I am legally blind “, etc .... you can be blind and remember about your work, don’t you think ?)

- “transferred to the britishs and the frenchs for forced labor “ ( dixit Ambrose) :
ah ... I thought Sauckel was hanged at Nuremberg specifically for that . Here Ambrose acknowledge unvoluntarily another violation of the Convention of Geneva .That’s by now a lot of evidenced violations of the Geneva Convention by Eisenhower and his forces ,don’t you think ,Thompson ? We see that the western allies forces and governments were using the same methods as the german occupation forces . It’s starting to look really messy , Thompson ...

- “If the answers aren’t clear ,the charges have not been proved” Ambrose –dixit ,again ... So it’s with this kind of unilateral declarations that he tried to deny Bacques ? well , I don’t find the answers of Ambrose to be very clear ,neither .

PADDY : “The western allies had already decided that the new West Germany would serve as a buffer “ ... I beg your pardon ,but it was decided later ,after 1948 .And we are talking about a period of 1945/48 ....

“The West Germans were pacified by prosperity “ ... oh the beautiful propaganda legend ! We know about the plan Marshall,of course .But don’t you think it was indeed the capacity of work of the german people which was responsible for their further prosperity ? Many look- alike plans were implemented by the US in latin-american countries and it does not makes them richer , much to the contrary . Anyway ,if you are right ,why don’t you suggest the US government to”pacify by prosperity” the irakis ? ... Of course ,this is absolutely off topic . Just thinking ....

Thompson (again) : It must be noted ,too ,that “Other Losses” was translated in french . in France ,another historian called Cremieux tried to deny Bacques ,too . Cremieux was indeed a lot faster (smarter ?) and stronger than Ambrose . This guy claimed to deny Bacques in base at a “complete revision “ of the archives he had effectued in ...3 days ! Cremieux must be the Speedy Gonzales of the historical research ...

The worldwide desperate efforts to deny Bacques remains failures until today .
(Unless you can deny- with evidenced facts -all the points I raised up here .)

It’s also interesting ,Thompson ,to see your prerogative to juggle with numbers while we are forbidden to do so about the holocaust . It’s like to fight among gladiators with a tied arm . .. Numbers aside ,the fact remains that many years before Bacques writes “Other Losses” ,the german government was claiming 1.400.000 POWs who had never come back . Later the russians ,in their archives , recognized the death of 600.000 german POWs . There is always a difference of 800.000 missing POWs. A very near number as claimed by Bacques as deads POWs.
Is that only a coincidence ,Thompson ?


Comebacking with Mr. Ambrose ,on the other points of his claims ,I only read stuff like “absurd” ,”misuse of documents” ,”methodology hopelessly compromised” ,etc .... It sounds like a Congressional Hearing . Words . Words transfigured to sounds “profesional” . And not an ounce of evidence to sustain these words .

I beg your pardon ,guys , but if you don’t show up with something more“substantial”,
I’m afraid that Bacques will remains evidently undenied for long time .
C’mon ,Thompson , I’m sure you can do better than Ambrose .It shouldn’t be difficult , after all ....

Regards .

[David Thompson]

Ostuf. -- My work schedule is ugly this week, but I will try to answer. Please remember that it takes a lot more work to refute an allegation than it takes to make it. Here are a few comments for you, though:

(1) As for

Thompson : OK ,I read your post carefully yesterday night ...we can begin with the fact that the “Disarmed enemy Forces” are ackowledged by Mr. Ambrose ,which must to answer your question .... you just had to read your own post ,my dear ....

please remember that I first asked the question, and then, instead of insisting that you do it for me, I researched the matter myself and provided the answer without prompting.

(2) If you don't mix up my answers with those of Ambrose, I promise not to mix up your answers with the claims of Bacque. Otherwise, everyone will be confused.

(3) You said:

- “their mail was withheld”...”this must be confronted “ ..... So at last Ambrose recognized this point .So your question is answered there ,Thompson ,which lead me to think,again ,that you didn’t read fully your own message . Better ,because now I will refrain to elaborate a list with more than 180 names of german veterans I know to whom it happened . Less time on the computer .Much better .(my emphasis -- DT)

Ambrose was talking about mail to the POWs. Your statement was a little different, Ostuf. You said:

Up til the end of 1945 ,Eisenhower forbiden the german POWs to send letter to their families .... Why ? Could it be because he knew that lot of them weren’t going to be alive in some months ??(my emphasis -- DT)

If the POWs were allowed to send letters to their families, at least they'd know they had survived the war. It is the forbidding of letters sent by POWs -- not letters received by POWs -- that gives your rhetorical question "Why ? Could it be because he knew that lot of them weren’t going to be alive in some months ??" any credibility. Otherwise, holding up the POWs' mail is just an unpleasant thing to do -- it's not sinister.

(4) You asked:

- “Albert Cowdrey - US army center of Military History ,etc.....” reported a death rate of 1% among POWs. Wooow !!! It’s worse than a stupidity .This is a governmental lie – since it come from an US army center – in the same vein as in “ I didn’t have sex with Mrs Lewinsky “. At this time – just after V-Day in Europe – the death rate of the US Army was around 0.4% ( 3.8 for one thousand according to my sources ,”Aventures de l’Histoire” ,May 2003)...so the death toll of german POWs without shelter would be barely twice the death toll of a non-combattant US army well fed and cared for ? Who can believe that ????

Some pretty prominent Germans believed it. Here are two studies, the results of which fall far short of your claim of 800,00 deaths:

(a) Maschke Commission, cited in Overmans’ Deutsche Militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg:

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

(b) Rüdiger Overmans’ Deutsche Militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg:

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

Now you can see that the maximum number of deaths given here is 22,000 out of 3.8 million POWs held by the US. The other figure is even lower -- only 5,000. So where do your figures come from?

(5) You also said:

- “transferred to the britishs and the frenchs for forced labor “ ( dixit Ambrose) :
ah ... I thought Sauckel was hanged at Nuremberg specifically for that . Here Ambrose acknowledge unvoluntarily another violation of the Convention of Geneva .That’s by now a lot of evidenced violations of the Geneva Convention by Eisenhower and his forces ,don’t you think ,Thompson ? We see that the western allies forces and governments were using the same methods as the german occupation forces . It’s starting to look really messy , Thompson ...

The Geneva Convention of 1929 permits POW labor, Ostuf. Have a look. The convention text is at:

1929 - Convention Between the United States of America and Other Powers, Relating to Prisoners of War; July 27
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/geneva02.htm

For convenience, here's an excerpt:

SECTION III. LABOR OF PRISONERS OF WAR.
CHAPTER 1. Generalities.
ARTICLE 27.
Belligerents May Utilize the labor of able prisoners of war, according to their rank and aptitude, officers and persons of equivalent status excepted.

However, if officers or persons of equivalent status request suitable work, it shall be secured for them so far as is possible,

Noncommissioned officers who are prisoners of war shall only be required to do supervisory work, unless they expressly request a remunerative occupation.

Belligerents shall be bound, during the whole period of captivity, to allow to prisoners of war who are victims of accidents in connection' with their work the enjoyment of the benefit of the provisions applicable to laborers of the same class according to the legislation of the detaining Power. With regard to prisoners of war to whom these legal provisions might not be applied by reason of the legislation of that Power, the latter undertakes to recommend to its legislative body all proper measures equitably to indemnify the victims.

CHAPTER 2. Organization of the Labor.
ARTICLE 28.
The detaining Power shall assume entire responsibility for the maintenance, care, treatment and payment of wages of prisoners of war working for the account of private persons.

ARTICLE 29.
No prisoner of war may be employed at labors for which he is physically unfit.

ARTICLE 30.
The length of the day's work of prisoners of war, including therein the trip going and returning, shall not be excessive and must not, in any case, exceed that allowed for the civil workers in the region employed at the same work. Every prisoner shall be allowed a rest of twenty-four consecutive hours every week, preferably on Sunday.

CHAPTER 3. Prohibited labor.
ARTICLE 31.
Labor furnished by prisoners of war shall have no direct relation with war operations. It is especially prohibited to use prisoners for manufacturing and transporting arms or munitions of any kind or for transporting material intended for combatant units.

In case of violation of the provisions of the preceding paragraph, prisoners, after executing or beginning to execute the order, shall be free to have their protests presented through the mediation of the agents whose functions are set forth in Articles 43 and 44, or, in the absence of an agent, through the mediation of representatives of the protecting Power.

ARTICLE 32.
It is forbidden to use prisoners of war at unhealthful or dangerous work.

Any aggravation of the conditions of labor by disciplinary measures is forbidden.

I also posted a US study on the subject right here in this section of the forum for all to see, at:

US and POW Labor in WWII
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=40027

As for Sauckel, he was hanged for enslaving civilians -- something that the laws and customs of war don't permit.

(6) You also said:

It’s also interesting ,Thompson ,to see your prerogative to juggle with numbers while we are forbidden to do so about the holocaust . It’s like to fight among gladiators with a tied arm . .. Numbers aside ,the fact remains that many years before Bacques writes “Other Losses” ,the german government was claiming 1.400.000 POWs who had never come back . Later the russians ,in their archives , recognized the death of 600.000 german POWs . There is always a difference of 800.000 missing POWs. A very near number as claimed by Bacques as deads POWs.
Is that only a coincidence ,Thompson ?

(a) When you say "while we are forbidden to do so about the holocaust," who are the we, Ostuf.? And as for a "juggle with numbers" about the holocaust, you should reread the rules here. They don't mention numbers. See:

"A note on denial"
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=10881

(b) As for the 800,000 difference in "missing" POWs, please start by showing that there are that many German POWs who were missing. Then show me the German POWs who claimed to have witnessed deaths on that scale in the western POW camps.

(7) Finally, you said:

C’mon ,Thompson , I’m sure you can do better than Ambrose .It shouldn’t be difficult , after all ....

Ah, Ostuf. Not so fast. The burden of proof is on the proponent of the claim. See:

"Questions, claims and proof" at
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=47046

[Ostuf Charlemagne]

Thompson : you are raising sone interesting points ,as usual ....I 'm kind of busy too ,so I recorded your message on diskett (and the rules of the link you provided) and I will go over it with time and quietness....

About your question ,fine ,yes ,I promise .

About POWs mail ; C'mon ! How the relatives would write to them without to know if they were deads or POWs and in this case ,without to know in which POWs stockade they could be (because the POWs were not allowed to write ,precisely) ???? Please ,let's keep it serious . This is just common sense .

About holocaust : So we (for instance Panzermahn and myself ,but other readers may join...) can shows up with politically incorrect ( but evidenced) numbers ( as long as we don't say "It never happens") ???
Please ,SWEAR that I won't get banned for that (swear it in a message I will record) and I promise that now we gone have fun in this forum !!!

See you .

[xcalibur]

You mean you don't read the posts here?: For instance, Mills has been running down numbers since I got here, as well as before that. He may be right, he may be wrong, nobody banned him. And he's not the only one. So bring your figures on.

[David Thompson]

Ostuf. -- You said:

About POWs mail ; C'mon ! How the relatives would write to them without to know if they were deads or POWs and in this case ,without to know in which POWs stockade they could be (because the POWs were not allowed to write ,precisely) ???? Please ,let's keep it serious . This is just common sense .

I don't know what the restrictions were. I haven't seen the orders. I certainly haven't seen any claims (other than yours) that "the POWs were not allowed to write ,precisely." The passage I quoted said that the POWs weren't allowed to receive mail, not that they were forbidden to send any. But if the POWs could write to their relatives, the relatives would then know that they were alive. And it doesn't make a lot of sense to let a POW tell people that he's alive if you're planning to kill him and then try to conceal his death. That was your point too. We need more proof before we close the file on this question.

You also said:

About holocaust : So we (for instance Panzermahn and myself ,but other readers may join...) can shows up with politically incorrect ( but evidenced) numbers ( as long as we don't say "It never happens") ???
Please ,SWEAR that I won't get banned for that (swear it in a message I will record) and I promise that now we gone have fun in this forum !!!

Marcus Wendel, the proprietor of the forum, has the final word on these issues. I have never seen him ban anyone for obeying the rules. As for having fun here, I am more interested in having informed discussions, with lots of proof involved. After nearly 1 1/2 years of moderating, I've had my fill of bogus atrocity and "no atrocity" claims.

[Panzermahn]

This point was also made by Bacque, and answered by Ambrose as follows:

According to Mr. Bacque, Eisenhower personally, secretly, and with sinister intent changed the status of surrendered German soldiers from prisoners of war to disarmed enemy forces. In fact, the change in designation was a policy matter. The decision was made not by Eisenhower but by his superiors, specifically by the European Advisory Commission. Nor was any attempt made to keep it secret. All those involved acted with the authority of the British, Russian and American Governments, and they were perfectly straightforward about the reason for the change in status.

What happened is simple enough: the Allies could not afford to feed the millions of German prisoners at the same level at which they were able to feed German civilians, not to mention the civilians of the liberated countries of Western Europe, and not to mention as well the displaced persons. But the United States and other Allied nations had signed the Geneva Convention, which had the force of a treaty. They did not wish to violate it, so they used the new designation of "Disarmed Enemy Forces." The orders to the field commanders were straighforward: do not feed the DEF's at a higher scale than German civilians.

This classification was, in my opinion, a violation of the Geneva Convention of 1929. It is not at all clear that it was a war crime, however, because a war crime is subject to the defense of justification. There is an independent question of whether the reclassification of all POWs to "disarmed enemy forces" who were fed a lower food ration than US troops, was justified by the food shortage in Europe in 1945-1946 and the decision to feed the German POWs at the same rate as civilians in Germany

Wow, finally,David has opinionated that the Americans were capable of violating Geneva Convention unlike the goody two shoes who always prevailed over evil forces potrayed by Hollywod films..

Back to serious points, i believe the Americans had repeated the same thing during the Afghanistan war in 2001...Captured Taliban fighters and some of muslim westerners were labeled as battlefield detainees just like how the German soldiers who surrendered to the Americans as disarmed enemy forces (D.E.F) so, what is your opinion on this kind of violation of Geneva Convention....?

By the way, i had some ideas on how to strip surrendered enemy soldiers of their POW designation

a) Battlefield detainee
b) Illegitimate fighters / terrorist / bandits / H.B.C (human bomb carriers)
c) Protective custody of disabled non-uniformed fighters
d) Battlefield arrestee

what do you think, David?

[David Thompson]

Panzermahn -- You asked:

Back to serious points, i believe the Americans had repeated the same thing during the Afghanistan war in 2001...Captured Taliban fighters and some of muslim westerners were labeled as battlefield detainees just like how the German soldiers who surrendered to the Americans as disarmed enemy forces (D.E.F) so, what is your opinion on this kind of violation of Geneva Convention....?

By the way, i had some ideas on how to strip surrendered enemy soldiers of their POW designation

a) Battlefield detainee
b) Illegitimate fighters / terrorist / bandits / H.B.C (human bomb carriers)
c) Protective custody of disabled non-uniformed fighters
d) Battlefield arrestee

what do you think, David?

(1) The subject area for this section of the forum is the 20th Century, not the 21st, so remarks about the Afghan War are off-topic.

(2) POW issues in WWII were governed by the 1929 Geneva Convention, while current POW issues are governed by the 1949 Geneva Convention -- a different treaty:

1949 - Convention (III) Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War; August 12
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/geneva03.htm

See also:

1949 - Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, August 12
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/geneva07.htm

[Ostuf Charlemagne]

Xcalibur : you are right .I don't have time to read all the forum .Lucky you .
Panzermahn :