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| Sinzig enclosure, part of the Rheinwiesenlager, May 1945 |
The mere mention of German suffering in World War II is regarded by many as implicit German war crimes denial. This one is not. The treatment of Prisoners of War by Soviet Union and Third Reich is well known, but the war crimes committed by the Western Allies are hardly spoken of. U.S. Colonel Ernest F. Fisher, 101st Airborne Division, who in 1945 took part in investigations into allegations of misconduct by U.S. troops in Germany and later became a Senior Historian with the United States Army alleges that U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower intentionally caused the deaths by starvation or exposure of German POWs held in Western internment camps after World War II. Hundreds of thousands of German POWs were designated as "Disarmed Enemy Forces" in order to avoid recognition under the third Geneva Convention, for the purpose of carrying out their deaths through disease or slow starvation. The standards set by the Geneva Convention were, in most cases, totally ignored by the Americans and French in relation to their treatment of German POWs. The camps were simply open fields surrounded by concertina wire. The worst U.S. temporary enclosures were the 19 Rhine Meadow camps founded in April 1945. Those were situated at Bad Kreuznach, Bretzenheim, Büderich, Heidesheim, Remagen-Sinzig, Rheinberg and Wickrathberg. The German POWs were denied enough food and water and had to sleep in holes which they dug with their bare hands. In the Bad Kreuznach cage alone, 557,000 men were interned in an area that could only comfortably hold 45,000 and the camps soon became huge latrines. Prisoners died in their thousands through deliberate starvation, disease and exposure. The task of guarding these prisoners, numbering around 920,000, fell to the men of U.S. 106th Infantry Division. The former U.S. Prison Guard at the Andernach enclosure Adjunct Professor of Philosophy and Religion Martin Brech wrote: Quickly they grew emaciated. Dysentery raged, and soon they were sleeping in their own excrement, too weak and crowded to reach the slit trenches. Many were begging for food, sickening and dying before our eyes. We had ample food and supplies, but did nothing to help them, including no medical assistance. Top image: German officers Hauptmann Karl Güntzel and Major Karl Damm being transported by the U.S. 4th Armored Division, pass by a 37th Armored Battalion M5 Stuart tank during the surrender of Hersfeld on March 31 1945. Credit: Richard James Molloy. U.S. Army Signals Corps. FU. Middle image: Dutch collaborationists photographed at the Harskamp POW camp following the defeat of the German Reich. Approx. 4,000 Dutch collaborators including volunteers of the Waffen-SS were awaiting trial in this camp. In the center stands a veteran of SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Germania of the 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking still wearing his Iron Cross First Class, Infantry Assault Badge in Silver and Wound Badge in Silver. Photo by Dutch photojournalist Willem van de Poll in June 1945. Credit: Benjamin Thomas. Nationaal Archief. FU. Bottom image: the enclosure at Sinzig on May 12 1945. On that date, 116,000 POWs were held there. These POWs are in a barbed wire fenced open field with little or no shelter. The Red Cross (ICRC) was prohibited from providing aid and visit the U.S. run Rhine meadow camps until Feb. 1946. U.S. Army photo.
I just want to express my gratitude for all the information available here. There is a lot of inaccurate information out there! I am sure this compilation will be of great use to serious researchers and historians.
ReplyDeleteI've been looking for an objective site on WW2 for quite a while now. Most sites give you the same conformist drivel we have endured for 70 years. I am not interesting in what some conformist or neo-Nazi writer thinks about Hitler and National Socialism. I acknowledge there were faults of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS just as there were faults of the USF, BRF, and especially the SU. To even argue that some force of good fought a source of evil is spiritual delusion. All wars are for resources and to support one's ideology for a better world, whether logical or illogical. The Stabswache de Euros is definitely a site worth spending time on, free from drivel propagandist character.
DeleteI agree with the above comments. This is a great site by all standards!
DeleteDwight Eisenhower was a war criminal of epic proportions.
ReplyDeleteIf the shoe was on the other foot. The Allies would have all been killed. Let that sink in. Don't forget that it was the Nazis who started the war.
DeleteThe purpose of war, if you are in a defensive role and have no designs on the territory of your attackers, is to destroy your enemy's ability to make war. Destroying their capacity to wage war meant destroying their army, itself, insofar as that army was still willing an able to fight. I can see this is a tragedy, and regrettable. I reject the claim it was revenge. It was the fulfillment of the purpose of a defensive war. Eisenhower was no butcher. He did his part. The war was won. I think the US can accept this truth without shame.
DeleteEven due to the fact that they were are enemy and many believed the Nazi doctrine. The American Forces under Eisenhower were well aware that in reality this was a death camp,and like many death camps should never be covered up and forgotten.
DeleteVictor M Feodorov
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ReplyDeleteOrders of Eisenhower: Prison enclosures are to provide no shelter or other comforts and from March 10, 1945, he downgraded German Prisoners of War to Disarmed Enemy Forces. Inspections by the Swiss Red Cross were not allowed and civil population bringing food to starving German soldiers are rejected or shot and killed. The U.S. administration was continuing the starvation and mass murder in remaining Germany after the ending of the war, targeting both civilians and prisoners of war.
ReplyDeleteEisenhower hated the German people and was a war criminal of the highest degree. Excavations at the camp sites are banned by German and French authorities to this day. Could that be to prevent people literally digging up the evidence of exactly how many POW's were killed by starvation and mistreatment. U.S. whimsy on when to accept or ignore Geneva Conventions on War continues to this day, and is criminal under international law. The Americans are the first to scream loudest when their POW's are mistreated.
DeleteIt is interesting to note that some former members of the Waffen-SS considered it likely that more of their comrades were killed in American captivity than on the battlefield itself!
DeleteEisenhower told the British ambassador to Washington in 1944 that 3,500 officers of the German General staff should be ''exterminated.'' He also favored the liquidation of perhaps 100,000 prominent Germans.
DeleteGuarding the German war prisoners was a not a popular duty for the soldiers stationed at the camps. Many of the guards were described as being of low mentality, non-intellectual, who could neither understand nor see the reason for the Geneva Convention. An example of these men is the American soldier and mass murderer Private Clarence Bertucci. On the night of July 7, 1945, Bertucci opened fire on the tents where the Germans were sleeping with a mounted machine gun. Bertucci cut back and forth across the tents, ripping them, and the bodies inside, to shreds.
DeleteThe beliefs of my and my parents' generation is made up of an ocean of myths. A mountain of lies still being propagated about World War Two. The apologists of the Allied war crimes are still talking out their ass and trotting out the same arguments. This was an eye opening site...and very informative.
ReplyDeleteRobert Lee brings the true story about WWII and its aftermath. No tight and perfect bow. Just the raw truth.
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ReplyDelete"The world must know what happened, and never forget." - General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
ReplyDeleteMartin Brech saw bodies go out of the camp by the truckload, but he was never told how many there were, or where and how they were buried. Brech said in 1995 regarding the U.S. Army, “It is clear that in fact it was the policy to shoot any civilians trying to feed the prisoners.” Brech has also confirmed that Eisenhower’s starvation policy was harshly enforced down to the lowest level of camp guard. This was caused by the Morgenthau Plan. The objective was vengeance rather than promoting U.S. national objectives. Of course, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president who approved this plan, was also responsible. Col. Philip Lauben said that the U.S. and French camps in the Vosges region was just one big death camp.
ReplyDeleteThis is a horrid sign of how hypocritical the democracies of the Allies were.
DeleteYes, I read James Bacque's book "Crimes and Mercies" and I was shocked how many Americans and Europeans who just ignored the evidence of deliberate starvation of German POWs.
DeleteAn interesting bit of history I never learned about in school or read in the history books. Why am I NOT surprised I never once heard of this.
ReplyDeleteIt is often said that to the victor goes the spoils; so, too, do the victors write the history books.
DeleteThis horrible part of history is being hidden from our youth. This was a crime on humanity that needs to never be forgotten. My prayers to all the victims and their families.
ReplyDeleteThe photo of the German officers Captain Karl Güntzel and Major Karl Damm was taken below the autobahn bridge at the Eichhof brewery on their way to surrender the city of Hersfeld to the US Army. Karl Güntzel and the Commander Major Georg August Möller preserved Hersfeld from American destruction on March 31, 1945. Georg August Möller died on October 21, 1945 while in captivity in a French PoW camp. What became of Karl Güntzel, I don't know.
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