James Bacque

Many GI's coming back from WW2 didn't want to talk about it and this is why. Eisenhowers 18 starvation camps where 2.2 million Germans were simply starved to death after the war. Aged 8 to 80 men, women and children. Our army guys were ordered to stay away from these POW camps where the Germans themselves were turned to skin and bone. Incredible to think that Hitler and many more did escape to South America according to FBI and CIA files recently released. They knew Hitler lived and didn't go after him. A lot of documentation in this book and banter between Generals in French and American armies. War is he'll and this really proved it.… (lisätietoja)

I was very disappointed, I find interest in looking extensively for errors and misconceptions about history and had looked forward to reading this book, but then??? Having read extensively about WWII history, how is it serious and critical historians have missed all of this mass slaughter he talks about? How also did soldiers come home and not have PTSD problems related to this, but have extensive episodes about shooting a German pointing a rifle at him? How also have we read about so many atrocities but little of these? Well, I shouldn't be too specific as I quit before a hundred pages. I am very disappointed I'm even afraid to give it to the library. His figures and incidences often conflict and contradict. Maybe someone confused this with his numerous fiction books? It's British and printed there also, so they are good at rewriting history? Can't give it lower than one star. Even if you believe it, who rated it a 5? or even a 4?… (lisätietoja)

Hmm

After reading the first couple of chapters, I thought I was going to give this book 5 stars. Clearly, German civilians did suffer in the post-war years, and much of that suffering appears to have been unnecessary. And I'm not one who would dismiss that suffering because "they brought it on themselves". It was also nice to learn about Herbert Hoover's humanitarian work, something of which I had been previously unaware.

By the end of the book, however, my opinion of it had diminished considerably. Bacque tosses a lot of numbers around, but if he's employing some sort of systematic methodology, I wasn't able to detect what it was. Comparing population figure A from source B with population figure C from source D and drawing extreme conclusions from the discrepancy between A and C without taking into account basic notions like random variation and limited precision or the different techniques B and D used to arrive at their figures is not, in my opinion, the way to make a convincing argument.

Bacque's case is not helped by a rambling 5-page appendix in which he presents his suspicions that he's being spied on, nor by his allying himself with figures like Ramsey Clark. (I'll gladly agree that Bacque's case is as strong as Clark's, but that's about as faint as praise gets.)… (lisätietoja)

Alla fine della Seconda guerra mondiale, almeno 4 milioni di soldati tedeschi furono tenuti prigionieri all'aperto, in campi recintati dal filo spinato ma senza alcuna protezione, con poco cibo e poca acqua, o niente del tutto: questo accadde in Germania ad opera degli americani nella zona da essi occupata e durò per molti mesi dopo la fine delle ostilità. L'esercito francese, che ricevette circa 630.000 prigionieri dagli americani per servirsene come mano d'opera in riparazioni di guerra, fece loro patire la fame e li maltrattò a tal punto che non è esagerato calcolare una cifra di 250.000 morti causati dalle pessime condizioni in cui gli uomini furono tenuti.
Per quanto riguarda i campi americani, non è azzardato supporre il decesso di 750.000 prigionieri. Per la maggior parte si trattava di soldati della Wehrmacht arresisi dopo l'8 maggio 1945, ma fra loro c'erano anche donne, bambini e anziani. Queste morti furono catalogate come «Altre Perdite». Per scrivere questo testo, pubblicato per la prima volta alla fine degli anni Ottanta, l'Autore ha intervistato centinaia di ex prigionieri, guardie e ufficiali, raccogliendo migliaia di testimonianze e di documentitratti dagli archivi di Parigi, Londra, Coblenza, Washington e Ottawa.… (lisätietoja)