Mal-treatment of German POWs

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David Thompson
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#76

Post by David Thompson » 21 Jun 2005, 16:34

Samuel -- Thank you very much for that listing.

Goldfish
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#77

Post by Goldfish » 21 Jun 2005, 16:40

tonyh wrote:
Grand...many books and findings written about the war are utter garbage. But why is there no attempt made, or commisions installed to refute other bogus "findings". Frankly, I find it dubious that such a rush was made to cobble together a committee just to damn a particular book and bad mouth its author, when the same efforts are almost never made accross the board.
I was actually thinking that if "they" wanted to cover up, or disregard as garbage, Bacque's book, why would "they" hire the most prominent and well-known (to the layman) American historian around to head up the debunking effort? I didn't even hear of Bacque's book until I read Ambrose's refutation of it.

As to why Ambrose and others are interested in debunking Bacque's book, it is because Bacque uses dubious techniques to make very serious accusations. Also, while this sort of thing may not happen "across the board" in such a public manner, any historian publishing a book is guarenteed to get dragged over the coals by those in his field if they don't cross all their t's and dot all their i's. It happens all the time in scholarly historical circles. For example, Chin-tung Liang's General Stilwell in China, 1942-44: The Full Story (St. John's University Press, 1972) was written to refute the accusations made against Chiang Kai-shek's WWII regime by Barbara Tuchman in Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911-45 (Macmillan, 1970). There is also the refutation of Daniel Ford's Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group (Smithsonian, 1991) by AVG vets and others. So, this isn't the first time that historians have come out to debunk a sensational book.


bob lembke
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Listings

#78

Post by bob lembke » 21 Jun 2005, 19:28

Samuel;

Thank you. I will have to study your search engine and see what it covers. I assume that it is a super-catalog that accesses multiple individual catalogs. Across Germany? A wider net? I will study it further and add it to my book search armory. (Let me mention that a Berlin university maintains, with Federal funding, I believe, a super book search engine covering abebooks, ZVAB, and eight other major book sale systems. But abebooks is by far the largest source within it, and I usually go directly to it. The major German Antikvariaten seem to routinely list their books in abebooks.) My wife, at work, has access to one data-base that covers all of the major libraries in Germany and Switzerland, and half of those in Austria. However, ordinary mortals cannot access it; I think I heard that her university pays something like $14,000 a year for its use on univeresity library computers, probably only for librarians. She has found rare things there for my research.

As you know (but for the information of other forum members) there are three German state libraries, the Deutsche Bücherei Leipzig (the original library, founded in 1911, covering the older material, probably up to the end of WW II), a second main library set up in Frankfurt am Main when the end of the war found the Leipzig library behind the Iron Curtain (I think it is called the Deutsche Bibliotek; it specializes in more recent material, and I don't use it; it was they that directed me to Leipzig for my WW I research ), and finally a music library in Berlin. I work a lot with the Leipzig library, which covers WW I, have probably exchanged 20 e-mails with the Director of Research, who has conducted several searches for exotic materials for me, and I have purchased hundreds of pages of copies of exotic materials from the library. I use the on-line catalog of the Leipzig library freqently.

I conducted searches for the Maschke volumes and anything else that he has shelved using his name as both "author" and "editor"; on the Leipzig catalog, on the Frankfurt catalog, and on some sort of combined catalog search engine seemingly covering all of the state libraries. Two of the searches both found the one copy of the one volume and also one copy of the 15 page document written by him on POWs, plus possibly dozens of other books by him on history written in that period. In contrast remember the 11 editions of Major Dr. Reddemann's book that he wrote in 1910 on rural firefighting, carefully cataloged.

A couple of observations. I find, not surprisingly, the German state library cataloging seems to be very good and consistant. Additionally, the more recent materials tend to be better cataloged; my wife says that that is a world-wide condition. The Leipzig search engine states that it will be a few more years before the older material is properly cataloged.

I also have to mention that none of the eight or nine Maschke volumes I found in the state library or in abebook's 65 million volumes for sale seemed to have any mention of the Maschke or any other commission in the listings and descriptions. My German is hardly perfect, but I often read it five hours a day, 98% in Fraktur, and I think I would have noticed, especially the glaring word "Kommission".

So this all raises an interesting question; why are these materials either missing from the state libraries, or not cataloged, or cataloged so badly that they are not easily found? If one volume was cataloged listing Maschke as "Author/Editor", why not the others, if they are held? I have no idea, but any reasonable (to me) explaination does not reflect well on the materials.

Samuel, where where these volumes, generally? University libraries? Regional public libraries? Since you used a different search engine, did you find others in the State Libraries? (And if so, why does the state library search engine not find these volumes? (We are probably getting into another whirlpool of minutia, thankfully one that is not likely to raise emotions like mention of the "B" (Bacque) word.

Much more fun to discuss books and libraries. I love them. But I am, at the same time, deeply sceptical of anything in print, doubly or tripley if they are "official histories". In the battle along that French village street (Fismette, a ways west of Reims) which I have studied for months, I have about 20 American official histories describing aspects of the fighting, (many units fought on the little street; they would be chewed up in days, and replaced, but the wounded and certainly the dead could not usually be evacuated across the little river, which the Germans had kindly filled with barbed wire for miles of its length, so many of the wounded eventually died in the midst of the successor units) an extensive selection of the relevant American, French, and some German documents and orders, obtained from the US Army Center of Military History, and one letter to home from a private, two books written by a lieutenant (he was the sole surviving officer, shot and gassed, of his company, which had 8 "effectives" left, from an initial strength of 270, and a strength a day before of 120, after they were overrun by the 9. Kompagnie, Garde=Reserve=Pionier=Regiment (Flammenwerfer), at the time my father was fighting 20 miles east along the same front with 11. Kompagnie, Garde=Reserve=Pionier=Regiment (Flammenwerfer), wounded twice in a month; hence my particular interest), and another book written by an American sergeant also in the thick of the fighting. The official histories are at stark variance with what the private/sergeant/lieutenant wrote, but also are impossibly at variance with each other. The bridgehead was overrun twice with night-time flame attacks, losing hundreds of men (at least three companies) each time. One or two of the 20 official histories, mostly at the battalion or regimental level, vaguely mention some aspect of these disasters, none specifically mention any losses (if you dig thru disorganized, partial tables of losses elsewhere in the volumes you can compile some partial statistics. The only summary casualty figure is provided in the official history of a medical transport detachment, who proudly stated that they evacuated something like 8500 wounded thru their facility in a month; the fighting in Fismette was the only fighting "in town", basically. If only I had a history from a graves registration unit!). As I mentioned, one regiment, in its history, mentioned that it entered the bridgehead and left two days later, simply mentioning that fact in one brief sentence, no mention of losses. (The next paragraph lovingly described the cute tent city that they put up in a nearby rest area after the withdrawal.) The regiment went in with 2000 men, and left two days later with 1000 men. Not one word, and this was the regimental history, not Pershing's memoirs, or an official history of the American Expeditionary Force. Not one word.

However, the American corps commander wrote to Pershing's chief of staff, reporting the matter clearly (but minimizing the losses, he wrote that it was one company lost in the second overrun, it was really three plus reminants of several earlier units, and even an officer from a different division). This letter is found in a number of sources; he wrote to (quite correctly) shift the blame for the losses to the French army commander, who ordered the impossible bridgehead to be held, and periodically would order a suicidal charge up a fortified hill about 100 yards north of the village street, charges that usually wiped out three companies with no results. Interestingly, as reported by company level officers, when a battalion was rotated in the major would not accompany his battalion, but would deputize a company CO captain to lead the battalion, which had no effective communication with the bridgehead. There was at least one exception, that major was dead in a day leading a suicide charge. The street from the bridgehead to the
command bunker on the south side of the was littered with dead runners, according to the lieutenant and acting company commander of B Company of the 111th IR, who made the trip twice, despite being wounded and repeatedly gassed. The official histories do report that runners who made a few trips received high medals for bravery. Lieutenant Allen, who clearly was annoyed at the reluctance of his superior officers to die, did not receive a medal, although he returned, gassed and wounded, over the wire and gas-filled river to take over his company again.

David, people do not like to write about disagreeable things, never mind "officials" being reluctant to document war crimes, if they have committed or abbetted them. I worked on several obscure areas of the Mexican War (1845-1848) for about 10 years at the New York Public Library, one of the greatest libraries in the world. I read about 80 primary sources, mostly accounts (books published after the war) by officers and men in the American army fighting there, before I realized that the standard personnel composition of an regular army infantry company was 96 men and two women. The latter were termed (if mentioned, but rarely) was "washer-women", but I am sure that they provided sexual relief in the field, as well as the vital task of washing the men's clothing, both services probably being paid for by the men. This is something a gentleman would not write about, hence they were almost never mentioned in many thousands of pages of first-person descriptions and diaries of the campaigning and fighting.

This does not indicate in any way that Bacque's allegations are true. I myself guess that some are, and some are not correct. But one is not going to find the official record admitting that some of this stuff was true, if in fact it was.

My strongest corroboration is the fact that this book, which gives source citations for everthing he seems to state, probably the most completely footnoted book I have seen in 40+ years of serious historical research, has never been attacked, to my knowledge, on the basis of his sources being missing, non-existent, stating something else than what he stated in the text, etc., etc. I have had the book almost 14 years and certainly pay attention to it's mention. Maybe Ambrose/Bischof's attempted rebuttal did, and I did not notice it in 45 minutes of skimming, only recalling articles going on about the horrors of the Holocaust, which to my mind is an indirect admission of some truth in Bacque. If 20% or 30% of the material in Bacque is correct, clearly massive violations of the rules of war, the Geneva Convention (now conveniently "obsolete"), international norms occurred.

Please remember that the "Conference of Greybeards", which many posts tout as conclusively proving that "Bacque is Bunk", when discussing his POW allegations, turns out to be about a different book entirely, largely on another topic, although it does mention some more POW findings that he supposedly made. (The discovery of the Soviet files on their 4 million POWs, supposedly a 20 to 200 page file on each individual POW, including formal death certificates, is fascinating. The Americans seemingly kept no personnel files on their POWs, literally did not know who they held, hence in my family's direct experience, included utter civilians, such as my father's best friend and the forester my cousin knew in the camps. Incidentally, not keeping any records clearly violates dozens of requirements of the Geneva Convention, kindly provided by David.)

Finally, again, has anyone actually read Bacque? (I suspect that one or two posters have, but none seems to admit it.) It possibly suggests the frequent calls for the banning of this book or that movie; when the caller is asked if they actually have read the book or seen the movie; they respond that they would not ever read/view such "filth", or "lies", or whatever contagion is suspected.

Bob Lembke

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Ambrose

#79

Post by bob lembke » 21 Jun 2005, 20:05

Goldfish;

Ambrose was the Director of the Eisenhower Center, and Professor Bischoff of the "Greybeards' Kommission" was its Assistant Director, I believe. So they were professional, paid defenders of the Eisenhower memory, and perhaps would be expected to lead the charge. Ambrose, almost everyone seems to agree, was an uncovered plagerist supposedy since grad school (this is from the Forum, no citation, sorry), but certainly was caught red-handed shortly before his death in a blatant plagerism, which he seemed to excuse by saying that he had not read the book, which had actually been written by his book ghost factory. No one with three neurons firing seems to think he is a serious historian, it seems. He certainly was "flexible"; read a few pages of one of his books and he flatly contradicts himself on a given point a few pages later. The books seem to be paste-up jobs by a staff of grunts.

Professor Bischof has a very impressive CV but I wonder about him being Ambrose's right-hand-man for nine years. He is a very convenient POW-abuse refutation "poster child", as he was a POW in the US, who were generally treated very, very well. People have often tried to rebut Bacque by pointing to the POWs in the US. Someone made an interesting post about the great rations of the POWs in Scotland. The PM I got about someone's father, who was a "forced" laborer in the Egyptian desert for 3 1/2 years, indicated that he was treated very badly. "Out of sight, out of mind."

So these guys are tailor-made to refute Bacque. Ambrose has a great reputation among many not deep in the study of history, as he is an embarrassment to the serious student. And of course he is an enthusiastic flag-waver and cheer-leader; nothing wrong with that in itself, but a great asset to a "flexible" refutation when coupled with what seems to be (based on the posts on a Forum thread) his none-existant ethics.

Anyone actually have or read his refutation book? I heavily skimmed it probably over 10 years ago. If he actually failed to score creditable hits on Bacque, instead of kicking dust in our eyes, as I was my impression, from the distant past, the book could be viewed as a major if unintended endorsement of Bacque.

Bob Lembke

PS: I think I must be considered a bit of a piece of work, possibly an offensive jerk. In my defense, when I had a pleasant chat with David Eisenhower, at a cocktail party (not my usual enviroment) in Philadelphia a few years ago, I did not breath a word of the "B" word, nor POWs, etc.

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#80

Post by David Thompson » 21 Jun 2005, 20:33

Bob -- If we can, let's stick to a single topic per thread, so that we don't have numerous cross-discussions going at the same time. Here's the section rule, and the reason for it:
D. Topicality

The fourth rule of the forum is: "Keep the message on topic." There are two aspects to this rule. The first involves topics which may be discussed in this section of the forum. The second involves staying on topic when posting to a thread.

Permissible subjects for this section of the forum are the holocaust and twentieth century war crimes. If a thread isn't discussing something related to those subjects, it's off-topic.

Although there are occasionally exceptions, the forum management tries to keep a thread on a single topic. This makes it easier for readers to follow, and for researchers to subsequently locate, the discussions. If a poster would like to see further discussion of off-topic matters, please raise the subject in a pre-existing thread on that topic or, if there are no pre-existing threads, on a separate thread.

Non-complying posts are subject to deletion after warning.
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=53962
You remarked:
David, people do not like to write about disagreeable things, never mind "officials" being reluctant to document war crimes, if they have committed or abbetted them.
and
But one is not going to find the official record admitting that some of this stuff was true, if in fact it was.
I think this is an interesting point, which others have raised before in this section, soI've started a thread to discuss this particular topic at:

How useful are official records in studying war crimes?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 085#719085

You also said:
The Americans seemingly kept no personnel files on their POWs, literally did not know who they held, hence in my family's direct experience, included utter civilians, such as my father's best friend and the forester my cousin knew in the camps. Incidentally, not keeping any records clearly violates dozens of requirements of the Geneva Convention, kindly provided by David.)
This double-barrelled contention is the kind that requires source references. You can break them down into
(1)
seemingly kept no personnel files on their POWs, literally did not know who they held
and
(2)
not keeping any records clearly violates dozens of requirements of the Geneva Convention.

Goldfish
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#81

Post by Goldfish » 22 Jun 2005, 02:44

Bob Lembke wrote:
So these guys are tailor-made to refute Bacque. Ambrose has a great reputation among many not deep in the study of history, as he is an embarrassment to the serious student. And of course he is an enthusiastic flag-waver and cheer-leader; nothing wrong with that in itself, but a great asset to a "flexible" refutation when coupled with what seems to be (based on the posts on a Forum thread) his none-existant ethics.
I think you are missing my point. I know why Ambrose led the group as he is an Eisenhower expert and one of Bacque's accusations is not just that the US allowed hundreds of thousands of German POWs to die through mistreatment, but that they were deliberately murdered on Eisenhower's orders. Naturally, Ambrose, as Eisenhower's biographer, would be called upon to refute these accusations.

I am looking at this from the "conspiracy" angle. It seems extremely unlikely to me that tens of millions of former POWs, relatives of the dead, camp guards, their relatives, etc. etc. as well as dozens of governments and news agencies on both sides of the Iron Curtain would keep quiet about this for fifty years (and more, since very few people have jumped up to back Bacque's claims). It also seems strange to me that tens of thousands of these former POWs would go to work for NATO, the American military, and for American companies all the while knowing that these men might be the same men that murdered their kameraden. For my part, my babysitter when I lived in Germany as a child was a former night fighter radar operator in the Luftwaffe who was captured and imprisoned in an American POW camp after the war. Not only did he show no resentment to me or my family, but he mentioned that it was in the camps where he learned to love American culture and started studying English. He later moved to the US. Very strange indeed considering that Bacque claims that at least one in five were deliberately murdered and all were maltreated. History has shown that murder on this scale is not quickly forgotten (look at China's recent problems with Japan) and that victims rarely stay silent for long. In the case of No Gun Ri, for instance, the story managed to be kept secret for a long time because it involved a very small group, but even that story eventually broke when a participant came forward.

The only answer to why no one has spoken about this before (and so many are keeping silent now) is that there is a massive conspiracy to keep things quiet, as you suggested when you mentioned that a profitable Canadian publishing house was closed for publishing Bacque's book. Why then, if the idea was to keep this quiet, would "they" (the people organizing the conspiracy) ask a very well-known author like Ambrose (every book he wrote after D-Day was a bestseller in hardback and paperback) to write a refutation that was only going to put a spotlight on Bacque's accusations? Why not simply allow Bacque's book to quietly fade away?

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#82

Post by Dan » 22 Jun 2005, 02:45

And the rough equivalent of 40 Divisions of German troops in Norway kept under arms for 6 months after the war? By the British? And what did the Norwegians have to say about it? And where did you get that information?

PS I have no problem with the number of German garrison troops in Norway.

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Response

#83

Post by bob lembke » 22 Jun 2005, 11:14

Guys;

I came to my computer to write a fairwell post, and more posts to answer. I repeat that this is a topic I walked away with ten years ago, and retain a marginal interest in due to the impact on my family. I have little interest in European history after 1926, except for the passing interest I have in literally hundreds of topics. (I spend too many hours a day reading the US, European, and Israeli press, and following the US and BBC radio and TV. I am listening to the BBC right now. But I don't have a lot of focused interest, except for WW I and the book I am trying to finish.)

I don't think that there is a present conspiracy to stifle this story (except perhaps a limited one in the lunchroom at the Eisenhower Center), nor that there is a "they", nor did I state that. I can get into enough trouble here with the stuff that comes out of my own mouth, thank you. At the beginning of this thread there were several incoherent posts that shouted about my claiming a conspiracy, including the guy that intelligently called me a "Holocaust denier". Can you cite where I claimed that there was a conspiracy?

Bacque states that there was a collective effort to carry out the maltreatment of the German POWs, that he felt had to have been directed by Eisenhower. He offers a good deal of material to support this, all cited, but I have no idea if the material is bogus, the citations fabricated, etc. But I am impressed that despite a lot of attacks on him, I for one have not seen what seems to be an effective rebuttal of his statements, or any attempts to look at his many sources and see if they actually exist, or were correctly cited.

I bought Other Losses and read it probably in 1992. I have never read it thru since, but I have occasionally peeked into it on one topic or another for a minute or so. I skimmed thru Ambrose's/Bischof's attempt to rebut it in 1993, probably, in Borders. I bought Bacques' Crimes and Mercies and Only Raoul when they came out, and read them once.

Earlier today I picked up Other Losses and read about 80 pages, quickly, looking for something that specifically relates to a thread that David has opened. I didn't find it; I can remember what it was, but wanted to look at Bacque's citation. It possibly is in Crimes and Mercies. This was the first time in about 13 years that I have read more than a page or two of it at an occasional time. I have to say that I was quite impressed by it, a very powerful argument, everything cited, the sources being 95% American officers and officials, allied officers and officials, neutrals, like officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross, American documents, etc. etc. Almost no German sources, perhaps the occasional POW, and Adenaur, and Willy Brandt. If 30% of the material is correct and not made up, it is an extremely damning book, clearly outlining massive violations of norms that must by simple human physiology must have led to hundreds of thousands of unneccessary deaths of helpless prisoners. Do I know if his citations, etc. are correct? I do not. However, they jibe with about 15 or 20 points and sources if independent information I have come across, including conversations with POWs, including members and friends of my family. Like my cousin, when he would still speak, reluctantly. His father-in-law, supposedly a man of massive strength, died in the camps. My cousin would have probably died if not for the saintly French major who was CO of his last camp. (I am going to try to pry his name out of my cousin before he dies, his memory deserves preservation.)

Here I return to a question I have posed several times, several ways, and have never gotten a peep out of you guys. Has anyone actually read Bacque's Other Losses? (Actually, from some things that have been mentioned, a few of you might actually have done so; and, more certainly, others clearly have not.) Really read it through, cover to cover? It's not a big book, 195 pages, small pages, large type. Come on now, fess up.

Goldfish, to answer, or not answer, a couple of your more specific questions. You said that there must have been a great conspiracy to close down that Canadian publishing house, and that by even mentioning it I am somehow pointing to a great conspiracy. (Incidentally, all the info I have on this closing came from the astonished local Canadian press and from the comments by my acquaintance who imports, publishes, and sells military history books and other items.) I don't think that one exists, and you don't need one, just one angry "patriotic" Random House executive.

You say that no one has ever mentioned this before. First of all, Bacque lists dozens and dozens of people; Americans, Brits, French, Swiss, Germans, etc.; officers, officials, human rights workers, the Red Cross, American camp guards; As far as Americans, Hoover, Patton, Mark Clark, Senators, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of State, who have allegedly come forward, written about various parts of this very large question. (Maybe all of these quotes, all documented, are a mass of fabrications. But if so, Ambrose et al would have jumped all over it.) Looking at the earlier posts, the "Greybeards' Conclave" at Salt Lake City (correct?) in 1998 or thereabouts was supposed to have met and conclusively solved this question. When I looked at the summary of the meeting, I see that it was on a different topic, on a different book by Bacque. If I remember, Professor Bischof (Ambrose's right-hand henchman for 9 years) was summarized as having gone on about stuff like conspiracy theories, hass hysteria, or some such rubbish, an ad hominum attack, instead of any specific rebuttal, if the summary is accurate.

While on the topic of people coming forward, I have gotten a fair number of PMs from forum members. All were supportive. All but one, I believe, came from members whose fathers were in these camps. Every one of those agreed that the conditions were very bad, a couple gave specifics, one offered to do more research. One sent my a fairly long manuscript partially on this topic, based on his father's experiences. (Not good; the experiences, not the manuscript.) And all but one of these members are afraid of you guys, or some majority of you guys, and some have warned me to be careful.

I'm not a careful kind of guy. I, like most Germans, was trained to be. Part of my training was, in kindergarden and first grade, in public school, to be pulled in front of the class to be slapped about by the teacher as a patriotic exercise, although my parents had been here for about 20 years. (They finally took me out and sent me to a private school, for my safety, which worked out well, due to the better class of students and teachers alike.) It worked for about 50 years; I felt guilty being a German, I fretted about the Holocaust (Yes, it happened) every day.

Finally, for a number of reasons, mostly centered about the mass hypocrisy on many topics over the world, the "Victimization Olympics", etc., I have evolved into quite a different person, I think. I am now a Nasty Greybeard, and my wife and I speak German in people's faces. (Although my wife, when in a mischevous mood, sometimes segways into Danish (Her best language, besides English), to confuse me. She is also my bodyguard; she's 6' 1" (if her spine were straight she would be 6' 4"), is 20 years younger, is a weight-lifter, and has a carry permit. She calls herself a "librarian of fortune".

Back to the topic. Why do not thousands of German camp activists demonstrate, fast for attention, write press releases, exhibit their wounds.........? The short answer is that most people, like most people on the forum, a) don't give a hoot and b) really don't want it to be true. The longer answer would go on for pages and pages, and I won't even attempt it, thank g-d. Bacque takes a shot at this question, toward the end. As for your radar operator baby-sitter, that sort of behavior or lack of same is typical; there are many examples in my own family. My cousin came to the US not long after being in the camps. In your baby-sitter's case, I can't say, there were over a thousand camps; also, possibly being an aircraft radar operater made him valuable for technical debreifings. Did you discuss it with him?

For a number of reasons Germans do not make good "professional victims". About 1921 the town where my father's sister lived in (a 27 year old mother of two girls) was given to the new Poland at midnight of a certain day, by dawn she had been axed to death by Polish civilians. 350 neighbors were also killed. Within a year he was traveling to Poland, and I never saw him blow up a kilbashi or pirogi shop. (He was quite artful with dynamite and blasting powder, but that's another story.) Didn't mean that he was pleased. He did join the Schwartze Reichswehr.

Again, read the damned book!!! Also, dig up the Ambrose/Bischof rebuttal, and see if it makes sense. If I retain any interest I may buy it, it's probably $2 on the remainder market by now.

I, for my part, will tape an interview with my friend Betty, whose 93 or 94 now, who was there in US Army military intelligence during and after the war. Maybe get more info from 2-3 POWs I can get to.

Bob Lembke

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Norway

#84

Post by bob lembke » 22 Jun 2005, 11:36

Dan;

If a whole country was occupied, and the total personnel was 400,000, I would imagine it was about eight divisions of combat troops, not 40. The US Army now is 8 or 9 divisions, I think, and over a million men.

I don't remember where I saw the mention of the German POWs in Norway being in formation and under arms, but I have seen it several times, I think, and I know somewhere else than Bacque. (In Germany supposedly in at least one camp the Brits allowed the German POWs to have field telephones and even a radio set. And they even had barracks, not just muddy and faeces-ridden bare fields!) I think he mentions the troops from Norway arriving at the US camps from Norway fit and well-fed, having been in British custody, but I don't think that he discussed the diplomatic background. I have read that our buddy Joe was hopping mad about it; he knew why Churchill was keeping them in a combat-fit state. (I read little about WW II, mostly years ago. I have thousands of 4 x 6 inch index cards with WW I notes and bibliographies, not one card on WW II.)

I looked in the indexes for both of Bacque's relevant books, no Norway entry. His footnotes are amazing, (He knew the kind of treatment he was going to get), but his indexes are not that detailed.

Bob Lembke

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#85

Post by Durand » 22 Jun 2005, 12:15

Hallo,

Bob Lembke wrote:
The US Army now is 8 or 9 divisions, I think, and over a million men.
The size of the US Army stands at just under a half million men and women.

Regards,

Durand

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US Army

#86

Post by bob lembke » 22 Jun 2005, 12:48

Durand;

Thanks for the correction. I do not live in the present (not really true, I follow our Middle eastern disaster in great detail) nor do I live in WW II, either.

When I was involved with the military I think our military services were 3,000,000; Army had about 18 divisions, and was the largest service.

I just wanted to point out to Dan that 400,000 personnel does not equate to 40 divisions, when it includes all the infrastructure, support troops, etc. (He may have only being using a figure of speech, and knew that.)

You said: "The size of the US Army stands at just under a half million men and women."

You failed to mention 270,000 Halliburton go-fers and the 30,000 Blackwater guys getting $1000 dollars a day. (citation: tonight's Frontline documentary on contractors") Economics indicates that soon we will have to pay Spec 4's $1000 a day or empty our ranks to pad Blackwater's out. I wonder how much overhead and profit adds to the Blackwater pay to get the actual cost per pair of boots? $600,000 a man a year? Ouch!

Bob

Dan
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#87

Post by Dan » 22 Jun 2005, 15:16

I just wanted to point out to Dan that 400,000 personnel does not equate to 40 divisions
WW2 Divisions were plus minus 10,000 men, and you said they were kept combat ready.

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#88

Post by Durand » 22 Jun 2005, 16:24

Hallo Bob Lembke,

As did you, I read "Other Losses" in the early 1990s. Admittedly, I do not recall much of it, but I do know that I was not much impressed with it. What concerns me about some of your defense of it as reflected in this thread is that you spent an hour skimming the Ambrose criticism. You ask that the participants read "Other Losses", to my way of thinking you may wish to consider reading Ambrose. Also, I am always wary of argument that develop into something of a numbers game. Again your seemingly casual use of numbers concerns me. The numbers in the U.S. Army may not have a direct bearing on the argument under discussion in this thread, but the inflated level of the numbers you cited could have easily been checked. The problem continued with your reply to my post.

Bob Lembke wrote:
You failed to mention 270,000 Halliburton go-fers and the 30,000 Blackwater guys getting $1000 dollars a day. (citation: tonight's Frontline documentary on contractors")
It was not a failure on my part, I was simply correcting your error regarding the information on the U.S. Army. In addition, the 300,000 figure (270,000 Halliburton + 30,000 Blackwater) you provide for the number of contractors in Iraq appears to be a bit high. Checking Frontline's website this morning reflects:
Here is a breakdown of the numbers:
50,000 support/logistics contractors
These are civilians hired by KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary which holds the military's logistical support contract. They work as weathermen, cooks, carpenters, mechanics, etc. Most are from Third World countries and the majority are Filipinos.

20,000 non-Iraqi security contractors
Of these, 5-6,000 are British, American, South African, Russian or European; another 12,000 are from Third World countries, such as Fiji, Colombia, Sri Lanka, and India.

15,000 Iraqi security contractors
Most of these were hired mainly by the British security firm Erinys to guard Iraq's oil infrastructure.

40-70,000 reconstruction contractors
Hired to rebuild Iraq. Some are Iraqis, but they're mostly from the U.S. and dozens of other countries and employed by companies such as General Electric, Bechtel, Parsons, KBR, Fluor and Perini.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... iors/faqs/
Not counting Iraqi's the math from Frontline seems to add to an upward limit of 140,000 contractors.

Also, a cursory check of AP and Christian Science Monitor reporting from the period of the last 10 days reflects a range of 50,000 to 100, 000.

My point with this in relation to the discussion in this thread is that I am not comfortable with your use of numbers to bolster your argument.

Regards,

Durand

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#89

Post by David Thompson » 22 Jun 2005, 16:31

Let's get back on topic. This thread is already skipping merrily from one unsourced allegation to another, like a print version of "Short Attention Span Theater."

Bob -- If you're going to ask other people to answer your questions, please answer theirs as well.

bob lembke
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Response

#90

Post by bob lembke » 22 Jun 2005, 19:48

Durand;

First let me say that I appreciate your gentlemanly and intelligent posts and questions.

With the Blackwater stuff, I was of course spoofing, using the debate tactic called "Reducto ad absurbum" (I may have misspelled it; my Latin is almost nonexistant, my wife's excellent, as well as her Anglo-Saxon; her fragmentary ancient languages include "Irish" {Irish Celtic} and Norse {what the Vikings spoke, close to modern Icelandic}. The latter, and her excellent Danish, might prove to be helpful; we are discussing moving to Iceland.), Reducto ad absurbum could be described as a as proving a point by extending the situation to a rediculous extreme.

I have to appologize to you guys for how I come over to you on this site. I feel that I have been hijacked here from what I considered a WW I/WW II sub-forum. The culture here is astonishingly different from the WW I corner. We (there) often post threads that are completely bogus, total spoofs, that might go on for 20 posts. I was trying to lighten this stuff up a bit with a quip about what a terrible mess we have gotten into. (Can you believe it; a Army colonel wrote me a few months ago asking me to go to Iraq as an Arabic translator? {If you doubt it, I will post the letter.} I have been receiving Social Security for four years, and have had three heart attacks, and 14 cardiac procedures.) My cousin circling Fallugh in his Humvee is enough for this family.

On my home turf my biographic stuff from my wacky family (and mighty WW I warriors) seems very appreciated; I get constant "at-a-boys" and requests for more. However there I think that I am accepted as quite knowledgable (100 times WW II) and most of my assertions are taken at face value.

Here I rather feel that I am in the docket at Nurenburg. Perhaps I belong there.

A buddy is in town and just called; I have to break and wash up for lunch.

Durand, it is great that you actually read Bacque. Anyone else? Fess up!

Got to run.

Gruss aus Philadelphia.

Bob Lembke

PS Got another clandestine supportive PM.

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