Do you deny that the US killed vast numbers of German civilians including women and children, in places like Dresden, Hamburg, Wurzburg, etc...?
Do you deny that those killings were deliberate? Do you deny that if the US repeated this action today in Iraq that Bush would be denounced by the left as a war criminal and immediate calls for his impeachment would begin? Do you deny that the US killed vast numbers of Japanese civilians as a result of firebombing Tokyo, including women and children?
Do you deny that if the US repeated this action today in Baghdad that Bush would be denounced by the left as a war criminal and immediate calls for his impeachment would begin?
Do you deny that there were many instances of German civilians being pressed in to service at Concentration Camps and forced to "clean up" the mess their herrenvolk had left?
Do you deny that many Nazi's were shot on sight? Here's quotes from noted WW2 Historian Stephen Ambrose on US treatment of German POWs: 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.
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. 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.
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
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 April 17, 1945: The Americans opened their enormous Rheinberg Camp, six miles in circumference, with no food or shelter whatsoever. As in the other big "Rhine meadow" camps, opened in mid-April, there was initially no latrines and no water. In some camps, the men were so crowded they could not lie down. Meanwhile, at Camp Kripp, near Remagen, the half-American Charles von Luttichau determines that his German comrades are receiving about 5% as much food as their captors." Complaining to the camp commander, HE SAID: ''Forget the Geneva Convention. You don't have any rights."
Years of talking to my grandfather and others of his generation who were in Europe at this time, show plenty of anecdotal evidence that death rates in the holding camps were extremely high. In the initial months after capture, there would have been little else to do with them other than pen them up Andersonville-style. With the lack of food many German prisoners did perish from malnutrition and exposure to the elements. This hardly seems controversial. It seems you are the one who is mistaken And was it our humane treatment that made West Germany think we were the good guys, or was it the fact that we were the only thing that stood between them and Stalin? Do you deny that Harry Truman dropped the A Bomb on Japan and was commander in chief while the US laid waste to much of North Korea(their casualties and damges were extremely high)?
Do you deny that those killings were deliberate? Do you deny that if the US repeated this action today in Iraq that Bush would be denounced by the left as a war criminal and immediate calls for his impeachment would begin? Do you deny that the US killed vast numbers of Japanese civilians as a result of firebombing Tokyo, including women and children?
Do you deny that if the US repeated this action today in Baghdad that Bush would be denounced by the left as a war criminal and immediate calls for his impeachment would begin?
Do you deny that there were many instances of German civilians being pressed in to service at Concentration Camps and forced to "clean up" the mess their herrenvolk had left?
Do you deny that many Nazi's were shot on sight? Here's quotes from noted WW2 Historian Stephen Ambrose on US treatment of German POWs: 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.
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. 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.
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
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 April 17, 1945: The Americans opened their enormous Rheinberg Camp, six miles in circumference, with no food or shelter whatsoever. As in the other big "Rhine meadow" camps, opened in mid-April, there was initially no latrines and no water. In some camps, the men were so crowded they could not lie down. Meanwhile, at Camp Kripp, near Remagen, the half-American Charles von Luttichau determines that his German comrades are receiving about 5% as much food as their captors." Complaining to the camp commander, HE SAID: ''Forget the Geneva Convention. You don't have any rights."
Years of talking to my grandfather and others of his generation who were in Europe at this time, show plenty of anecdotal evidence that death rates in the holding camps were extremely high. In the initial months after capture, there would have been little else to do with them other than pen them up Andersonville-style. With the lack of food many German prisoners did perish from malnutrition and exposure to the elements. This hardly seems controversial. It seems you are the one who is mistaken And was it our humane treatment that made West Germany think we were the good guys, or was it the fact that we were the only thing that stood between them and Stalin? Do you deny that Harry Truman dropped the A Bomb on Japan and was commander in chief while the US laid waste to much of North Korea(their casualties and damges were extremely high)?
posted by SarahWeddington | 12:22 PM
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