Eisenhower and German POWs

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Accusation of genocide

According to Canadian novelist James Bacque hundreds of thousands or millions of German POWs died of starvation or exposure while held in post-war internment camps. However no professional historian has confirmed these deaths and Bacque's scholarship is often criticized for poor methodology and having misinterpreted data.

Bacque charges that hundreds of thousands of German POWs who entered the camps were not transferred out and so they must have died. In the book Other Losses, Bacque claims that he interviewed witnesses who claimed that trucks full of dead did leave the camps each day, and civilian women claim to have been fired upon whilst trying to throw bread over the fence. The fact that Red Cross inspectors were banned, Red Cross food aid was returned, building of shelters was forbidden and soldiers were kept on short rations are seen by Bacque as the method of the genocide.

A contemporary critic of Eisenhower's policy in Germany was senator Homer E. Capehart.

Defense of Eisenhower

In a New York Times book review, historian and Eisenhower biographer Stephen Ambrose retorted:

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. (source)

Several historians rebutting Bacque have explained that the missing POWs simply went home, that Red Cross food aid was sent to displaced civilians and that German POWs were fed the same rations that the US Army was providing to the civilian population. US and German sources estimate the number of German POWs who died in captivity at between 56,000 or 78,000 or about one percent of all German prisoners which is roughly the same as the percentage of American POWs who died in German captivity.

Eisenhower and American policy shortly after the war

It is nevertheless known that Eisenhower didn't have the same level of military respect for his enemy as many of his subordinates. Template:Fact While Lt. Gen Alexander M. Patch, and others were treating captured non-Nazi generals such as von Rundstedt and other officers captured during the last days of the war with respect due their military rank , Ike was admonishing them for doing so. Template:Fact Ike, having seen the death camps, was repulsed by the horrors of the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis and had little patience with those who would extend military courtesy to officers of this regime, no matter what their knowledge of the atrocities.

American Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. had written a book outlining the Morgenthau Plan, Germany is Our Problem. In November 1945 General Eisenhower, Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone, approved the distribution of one thousand free copies of the book to American military officials in Germany. Historian Stephen Ambrose draws the conclusion that not only did Eisenhower approve of the plan, he had infact contributed to it while it was being written. (Reference: John Dietrich. The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (2002) pg. 27)

External links

• Did the Allies Starve Millions of Germans? -- This James Bacque article seems to be the main source for the genocide accusation
• Stephen Ambrose's lengthy rebuttal of Bacque's claims
• Bacque and US Army historian Fisher's rebuttal of Ambrose's sudden about-face
• The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, by Earl F. Ziemke, Center of Military History, United States Army, 1975

Related Issues

• Expulsion of Germans after World War II Expulsion of Germans from territory annexed by neighbouring nations.
• Morgenthau Plan U.S. proposed post surrender plan for Germany.