Re: James Bacque

Zimmer wrote in message ...
>Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
>> Christof Strauß (University of Heidelberg) examined Bacque's
>> thesis that approximately one million German POWs perished in
>> American and French camps by taking a close look at two
>> Prisoner of War Temporary Enclosures (PWTEs) in Heilbronn.
>> Strauß found that conditions in these camps indeed did not meet
>> the requirements of the Geneva Convention of 1929. However, to
>> interpret this as evidence of a centrally planned and implemented
>> policy of starvation neglects overall conditions in Germany and
>> Europe in the wake of the war and overestimates to a considerable
>> extent the occupation authorities' scope of action.
>
>Here, Strauss is not so much denying the horrendous conditions in the
>Camps as he is attempting to justify the conduct of the Western allies,
>as though their conduct would be justified if it were not a "centrally
>planned and implemented policy of starvation."

My but you are putting some quite robust interpretations on people's
words. I like the way Strauss says did not meet the requirements
and you immediately translate that to horrendous. How are you
determining horrendous?

Strauss examined whether he could find evidence to support the major
deaths Bacque claims. Strauss notes the camps he investigated did
not meet the 1929 Geneva Convention conditions. He then says the
conditions were below treaty standards but not so bad as to constitute
a centrally planned policy of starvation and points out conditions in
Germany were bad for everyone at the time. Lots of people did not
have food. Also the allied authorities did not have a mechanism to
stave people to death without others noticing the fact.

You then try and announce he is justifying the conditions in the camps.
You seem to imply the allies had real choices about properly feeding
people.

Try the German economy and society collapsed in 1945, there were
millions of foreign workers that had been keeping the system working
that wanted to go home, there were large numbers of Nazi victims to
look after, large numbers of Wehrmacht casualties to care for, large
numbers of Nazis to catch and the collapse meant Germans could do
only relatively minor things to help themselves.

By the looks of it 7.5 out of 35.9 million workers in October 1944 were
foreigners or PoWs. Around 2.5 out of 8.7 million farm workers being
foreign or slave labour, how Germany was feeding itself by stripping
food from other countries, (like 100% of the Norwegian fish catch),
and keeping millions at near or beyond starvation rations, the Nazi
decisions to turn food into fuel or cut fertiliser production instead of
explosives. A food shortage in Germany in mid 1945 is the result of
the Nazis who were running the country until early May.

>>From Germany and the second world war, German crop production
as a percentage of pre war, in 1944, grain 82%, potatoes
80% sugar-beet 100% (1943 92%, 75%, 117%), food
imports of bread cereals had climbed from 1.2 million tons
in 1938/39 to 3.5 million tons in 1943/4.

Pre war the average German caloric allocation was 3000
calories. This had dropped to 2078 calories in the 1942/3
(ration periods 41-53), then 1981 calories 1943/4 (ration
periods 54-66), then 1671 calories 1944/5 (ration periods
67-79) then 1412 calories 1945/6 (ration periods 80-92).
I understand ration periods are for 4 weeks (13 to a year)
starting in September 1939. Which makes ration period
67 October 1944.

The big German cities reports food problems in 1945
before the allies arrived. The official ration was cut to 1,625
calories in January 1945, 1,220 calories in April to 1,100
calories in May.

The British Zone required some 2,000,000 tons or basically
the 1945 UK wheat crop for the period September 1945 to
August 1946, some 1,200,000 tons had been delivered by
mid 1946, the Battle of Winter (45/46) had raised rations
from 1,000 to 1,550 calories but they were back at 1,000
calories in April 1946.

Food in Denmark was good, Norway, once they stopped
the 100% of the fish catch going to Germany (and coped
with the subsequent malnutrition) was acceptable, they
could use German Army stocks as well, but still needed
some 66,000 tons of food, Holland had people starving to
death, France wanted 1,000,000 tons of food and edible
fats in the first 8 months of 1945, even in the south of
Italy food production had not recovered, there was famine
in Indo China and drought in Australia and India.

Also in April 1946 Argentina took measures to stop hoarding
of wheat, Argentina being a major exporter at the time.

Germany's wheat imports in the 1946/47 period were 4 times
that of pre war, in 1947/48 over 6 times pre war levels.

Put it another way pre war Germany took around 4% of the
world's imports of wheat, in 1946/47 it was 11%. World
imports had increased by 232,000,000 bushels, and German
imports had increased by 60,000,000 bushels.

USSBS general summary report ETO,

"Air Attacks on Chemicals, Rubber, and Explosives

Neither the German chemical industry nor any vital segment of it
was selected by the Allied air forces for deliberate concentrated
attack. As far as Oil Division personnel could ascertain, no single
attack was dispatched against synthetic nitrogen and methanol,
despite the readily perceptible military consequences. Yet both
of these vital chemicals were knocked out as a bonus - fortuitous
perhaps and until the end of the war unrecognized - resulting
from the vigorous campaign against oil (Figure 4). When two
plants (Leuna and Ludwigshafen) were shut down by air attacks
dispatched against oil targets, Germany was deprived of 63
percent of her synthetic nitrogen, 40 percent of her synthetic
methanol and 65 percent of her synthetic rubber. Damage to
five additional oil plants increased the loss in synthetic nitrogen
to 91 percent, in synthetic methanol to 86 percent. When the
nitrogen supply began to vanish, agriculture was the first to
feel the pinch. No synthetic nitrogen was available for fertilizer
after September, 1944, and the anticipated drop in the 1945
harvest from this cause alone was estimated at 22 percent."

By the end of April the German Army Group B chief surgeon is given the
job of controlling hospitals under US control for German PoWs. First army
medical section is running 216 German military hospitals, 4 PoW camps, 22
Displaced Persons centres and 3 Recovered Allied Military Personnel (RAMP)
hospitals, around 90,000 patients. Captured supplies become very important for
non combatants, but the US lacked enough staff to sort out what had been
captured. Third army finds a large medical supply dump and sends it to the
concentration camp survivors in Bavaria and Austria. The rail East of the Rhine
was too damaged to support the armies and therefore help with patient
evacuation.

German camps for allied PoWs are described as acceptable to indescribable,
most PoWs need medical help, many had been on forced marches to stay ahead
of allied armies, one experience was 600 miles in 87 days sleeping in fields and
barns. Rations for allied PoWs had been declining steadily from the third quarter
of 1944, post Ardennes US PoWs little better off than Russian prisoners. The
first 12,000 PoWs evacuated to Rouen some 18% needed hospitalisation. Apart
from camps the allies find PoWs on the road, of some 14,000 found on an airfield
in Austria some 10% would die. Some of the UK airborne troops captured at
Arnhem starved to death in captivity.

Now I happen to believe the conditions in the western allied PoW camps
in Germany in 1945 were largely to do with the condition of Germany at
the time, not a systematic attempt to kill the prisoners, though there are
clear cases if individual Germans committing crimes against the PoWs.
The conditions became worse mid year and the number of prisoners,
now Germans in allied hands, became larger.

After liberation Dachau had a death toll of 25% for the around 32,000 men and
300 women in the camp, in early May there were 140 deaths a day, by the end
of May the situation was under control, using the 116th and 127th evacuation
hospitals supported by sanitary, quartermaster, engineer, fumigation and bath
units. Burial parties were mainly German civilians under duress. At Buchenwald
the 120th evacuation hospital was the main medical unit.

In April 1945 there was only a 10 day supply of food in the major German cities,
Dusseldorf and Essen reported starving children, food stocks had been looted.
However even In the middle of 1945 food stocks in small cities and towns were
good.

On 3rd May the US War department warned all theatres that food reserves in
the US were becoming depleted, fresh and canned meat, canned fruits and
vegetables, dehydrated potatoes, rice, dried yeast and spice were the critical
items. Meats were to be replaced by egg products, pasta, beans and stews.
Amongst the suggestions on how to cope the War Department urged a 50%
cut in the Red Cross doughnut and club mobile program.

At the end of the campaign the British are feeding a total of 2,000,000 people
including their soldiers and using some 7,500 tons of fuel every day.

After the end of hostilities the US Army cuts rations to all men by 10% because
of the food situation.

On 13th May SHAEF officials have their first meeting with Doenitz who takes
the opportunity to report severe problems including with food, currency and fuel.

As of 20th May the US is holding 2,884,762 PoWs which is around 460,000
more than were receiving US rations.

The peak of people being directly supported by the US Army in May
is some 7,629,000 people including 2,835,000 PoWs. However
these official figures are probably underestimates thanks to the
chaotic situations. Over the next few months some 1,600,000 PoWs
will be transferred to Belgian and French custody.

Surveys show the 2,000 calorie diet was sufficient for sedentary PoWs,
however they also show that the 2,000 calorie diet packs are reduced
to 1,750 calories by losses during distribution, breakdown and food
preparation. The diet does not help fix the fact most PoWs are
suffering dietary deficiencies before capture, the German army diet had
been deficient in riboflavin and nicotinic acid, when it was available.
The official PoW ration is raised to 2,250 calories.

As for shelter given concentration camp inmates were
kept in their camps due to a lack of shelter what does
this say for the rest of the country? I think the total
number of houses or apartments destroyed or heavily
damaged had reached around 1,700,000 by 1 May
1944, by the end of the war it was 3,600,000 destroyed.
There were 7,500,000 people homeless, then note all
those who fled west to avoid the red army who did not
normally reside in west Germany.

One of the troubles was the reality of ensuring people
did not starve to death in rebuilt shelters or were well
fed but died from exposure.

The death tolls for the US camps appears to have been
56,000, the French officially state around 24,000 deaths
amongst the prisoners they were holding. It is probable
some of these were due to neglect, others to natural
causes, others due to wounds received before capture.
The question is how much of each. I do not have a British
camps death toll.

Apparently 4% of British PoWs taken by Italy and Germany
died of natural causes during captivity. Say 5 years average
captivity, for the British would give 0.8% per year, but
given many British prisoners were captured well after 1940
you could use 1.6% as a probable upper limit. Times
around 5,000,000 PoWs taken by SHAEF gives around
40,000 deaths in the first year as probably the lower
estimate, perhaps as high as 80,000 deaths.

All my readings indicate there was a real food shortage and
major control problems in Germany and Italy in 1945. The
need to keep concentration camp victims in the camps, in
their prisoner garb, the need to replace much of the civilian
officials, people breaking into prisons to kill prisoners, the
need to deal with millions of displaced and homeless people,
the need to ensure enough shelter for winter, the need to
ensure the Nazis were caught. Then add the human reality of
people using the defeat of Germany as well as the exposure
of the extermination system as justification to take "revenge".
The difference being it was not official policy to take such
revenge in the west nor that hundreds of thousands of
German PoWs died in US custody.

>But, to my mind, the
>first step is to determine the extent of the tragedy.

Simple enough tens of thousands of Germans died in allied PoW camps
in 1945, some from wounds, some from natural causes, some from
accidents and some from the conditions in the camps.

>Then we can
>debate about the motives for the crime, quibble over whether it was
>premeditated conspiratorial murder, intentional murder, depraved
>indifference murder, reckless manslaughter, criminally negligent
>homicide, or unavoidable accident.

The straight answer here is, as far as the senior allied authorities
are concerned is it was unavoidable given the conditions of the
time. For some individuals who interacted with the prisoners you
can make stronger cases for guilt. Just like the Germans guarding
allied prisoners earlier in 1945.

>IMHO, however, ANY sort of coverup
>militates against the idea of unavoidable accident.

So tell us all what you define as any sort of cover up, what exactly
do people have to do to avoid this charge?

>When people are
>dying, a moral agent does not sweep their deaths under the rug, while
>the dying continues. Even if these were unavoidable consequences of
>war, the public still has a right to know what the costs of war really
>are. That way, they will be better able to do a moral cost-benefit
>analysis when their leaders next ask for popular support for some
>future war of intervention.

Fine, just do not stop at what happened in Germany in 1945, include
what happened all around the world.

The British official history

Author: Behrens, C. B. A. (Catherine Betty Abigail)
Title: Merchant shipping and the demands of war / by C.B.A. Behrens.
Publisher: London : H.M.S.O. and Longmans Green, 1955.
Description: ix, 494 p., [24] p. of plates (10 folded) :

See chapter XVI, "The shortage of shipping a stranglehold
on essential civilian services" (March 1943).

It covers things like the way the Turks needed 50,000 tons
of wheat but the Egyptians would not sell unless they had
guarantees of fertiliser deliveries so they would not
experience a shortage. Or that the 8th army advance in
1942 upped the Egyptian railway's coal requirements
from 14,000 tons per month to 30,000 tons, plus the fuel
requirements of the supply ships.

South Africa needed its fertilisers, as did Australia, the
shortages produced inflation and encouraged hoarding,
there were fewer ships.

In February 1943 in Ceylon the rubber workers were leaving
the plantations in search of food. For Southern Rhodesia,
Mauritius and Seychelles "famine, though not an immediate
threat, might, it seems, easily become so."

And so on.

How about the Honen Province famine of 1943, the worst
disaster to hit China since the start of the war with Japan.

The Bengal famine of 1943, the pleas at the time for
Iran to have just one ship of wheat at least.

The RAF aircraft food bombing what is now Yemen
in 1944.

According to the book The Pacific War by Saburo Ienaga, the
Japanese pushed production in the territories they controlled
from food into cotton and jute. The Japanese would also
seize food and keep allocations to non Japanese low, even
as the food spoiled. There were food shortages in Malaya for
much of the war, and a post war famine in Vietnam that killed
up to 2,000,000. According to the book, British Military
Administration in the far east by F S V Donnison, every forced
labourer was malnourished, those that were still alive, the
fighting in Burma threatened famine for the population there
and as the Japanese retreated they burnt crops.

(Burma railway figures, 46,000 POW 1 in 3 died, around
75,000 Burmese and 75,000 Malay labourers, 3 out of 7
Burmese and 1 out of 2 Malays died).

Pre war in South East Asia Burma exported around 3 million tons
of rice, Indo China and Thailand around 1.5 million tons each out
of a total production of around 14.4 million tons. In 1945/6 Burma
could just supply enough rice for its own population and overall
production in South East Asia was 2/3 that of pre war. In 1946/7
production was around 75% of pre war, in 1947/8 it was back to
around the pre war level. Malaya needed 700,000 tons of rice a
year pre war, it received 94,000 tons in 1944 and 12,000 tons in
1945, rice went from $6 to $7,500 between December 1941 and
August 1945.

In Java Japanese economic management dropped the area under
crops from 8 million hectares in 1940 to 5.8 million in 1945 with
yields per hectare down maybe 20 to 30% from pre war.

See Food Supplies and the Japanese Occupation in South East Asia.

Burma was the world's biggest rice exporter but by 1945 the
fighting threatened the population with starvation.

Japan tried to make each province, not country, it occupied
self sufficient, to reduce transport needs. Effectively totally
disrupting trade, so areas with excess food cut back
production but could not obtain, say, cooking oil, areas
without sufficient food production were in trouble.

Then there was the demand to sell a fixed percentage of
each crop to the Japanese at a low price, bad enough
for those with surpluses, worse for those without. Japan
neglected pest control (including mosquitoes) and irrigation
systems which did not help rice production.

A crash program to build wooden hulled ships in Java
used unseasoned wood, which warped of course, thereby
leaving only about 10% of the ships built usable. About
1,200 small craft had been lost in Malaya and Sumatra
during the opening of the war.

Thailand built up a 1,000,000 or so ton rice reserve (the
Thais ran the economy, the Japanese the transport), which
really helped post war. The British wrote into the peace
agreement with Thailand the requirement for the Thais to
deliver 1,500,000 tons of rice at cheap prices (given the
prices then being charged).

The fighting, even in France, had its effect on food production,
According to Allied Administration of Italy 1943-45 by C R S
Harris, between July 1943 and September 1945 the allies
imported 2,464,100 tons of food for Italy, plus 3,291,200
tons of coal, in partial return the Italians exported around
2,000,000 pounds sterling of food, about half lemons or
lemon oil. During this period the allied armies bought about
300,000 tons of food from the Italians. A lack of transport
prevented full gathering of the harvest in 1943 and 1944
and distribution of seed in 1945.

Like the rest of Europe the country was awash with weapons,
and revenge attacks included breaking into prisons to kill
the prisoners.

The next figures are from Civil affairs and Military Government
in North West Europe by F S V Donnison.

By the end of 1944 France was running out of food, and
put down a requirement of 1,000,000 tons of foods and fats
over the next 8 months for the civilian population, along with
2,500,000 tons of coal and 800,000 tons of petroleum products.

Belgium was assessed as needing 80,000 tons of food a
month in early 1945, the situation was in Q1/44 the ration
was 1470 calories (versus 2,000 in Germany), it dropped
to 1,200 calories during 1944, in Q4/44, after liberation
the ration was 1450 calories if coupons were honoured,
and they were often not. By June 1945 the ration was
2,000 calories.

Holland, outside of German occupation followed Belgian
rations. Under German occupation the Dutch starved,
and the situation became so bad a truce was organised
so food could be trucked in and air dropped, even so
many died.

Norway, by raiding German Army stocks only needed
around 66,000 tons of food in the first 6 months of
liberation.

Denmark was a food exporter, once the allies could remove
the German army and put a clamp on weapons, provided
it could receive enough coal.

Food priorities were to Allied military personnel, released
Allied POW (who were quickly moved out of Germany
anyway), England, France, the rest of formerly occupied
Europe, Italy, Displaced Persons, German civilians, and
German military personnel -- in that order.

Coal was needed almost as much as food, as it helped food
production and distribution. For example the need for coal
for Denmark. After 6 years of neglect the British coal mines
in 1945 were down to 182,773,000 tons produced compared
with 231,338,000 tons in 1939, this is after drafting men into
the mines instead of the infantry.

In west Germany something like 40% of transportation facilities
were destroyed with 39% of locomotives and 31% of rolling stock
not working. In the British sector 1,000 out of 13,000 km of rail
track was operational.

>> Strauß proved
>> that, contrary to Bacque's assertion, the Americans did allow aid to
>> be delivered to the inmates by representatives of the German
>> churches, and the International Red Cross also was allowed to visit
>> the camps.
>
>Strauss deliberately misunderstands Bacque's position.

Tell us all how you know Strauss deliberately misunderstands Bacque's
position, as opposed to say Bacque later changing his position?

>Bacque merely
>claimed that Ike prevented SOME sorely needed food from reaching the
>camp. He never claimed that NO food was allowed to reach the camps.

The claim is aid by German churches and Red Cross visits. Are you
saying these provided food? And no one is saying there was no food.

>His position is that the rations were (deliberately) inadequate, not
>nonexistent. And, of course, Bacque himself reports Red Cross visits
>to the camps.

Again is this before or after the above criticism?

>> Moreover, between May and December 1945 some
>> 300,000 POWs passed through the Heilbronn PWTEs, and death
>> lists show that only 283 of them died. This seems to indicate not
>> only that Bacque's research was poor but also that his overall
>> estimates of deaths are way too high.
>
>Without elaboration, it is impossible to follow Strauss' logic.

So let me understand this, Strauss went and looked at the death lists,
and found 283 died and this is impossible to follow. You are busy
reporting Bacque's words, so why not tell us how many people Bacque
thinks died at this camp? So we can compare the two figures?

If you want more on the food situation around the world I can post more,
regular readers of this group will have seen much of the data before,
given how regularly the fiction about what really happened in 1945 recurs,
much of the above was cut and paste from pervious posts.

I do not want to be accused of any sort of cover up so I reposted a lot of it,
but there is more.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

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