I have heard of a book, described by a person in a video, which talks about German POW's. It describes supposed massive-sized areas where German POW's were forced to work and endure labor and misery non-stop. I've heard about this being from the attitude of Dwight D Eisenhower and his "hatred for Germans". I was wondering if someone could explain how true/false this is? Or how valid something as uncommon and surprising as this is? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcJ7W1AG5NY
This has come up before. I am not familiar with the details of the controversy, but I believe the consensus is that the claims made by the author are exaggerated.
I am pretty sure that a thread already exists on this matter, mainly based on one book by one self-styled expert that many German POWs were mistreated / worked to death etc. Lots of investigations have basically proven the claims baseless. As far as I am aware from reading various books is that although there were some deaths in allied custody, they were mostly due to pre-existing illnesses, disease or injuries - and that the prisoners died despite the best efforts of the camp doctors and administrators. IIRC, the "proof" for the claims was large numbers of POWs disappearing from the official records. This was due to a couple of reasons - first off, once the German surrender was signed any prisoner taken from then on was technically not a POW but a disarmed enemy combatant. Tens of thousands of surrendering Germans were entered into the statistics as POWs and when the error was noticed those nunbers were removed from the POW statistics and moved to the disarmed enemy combatant statistics. Also, large numbers of POWs & disarmed enemy combatants were removed from US Army control and became the responsibility of other Allied armies as control of various parts of Europe was handed over in accordance with the Yalta (Potsdam?) treaties. Therefore the numbers could drop drastically from month to month as the US handed over responsibility for certain facilities. (This is mostly off the top of my head and shouldn't be treated as gospel - feel free to correct me)
The Soviets didn't treat German POWs very well, though they weren't a patch on how badly the Germans treated Soviet POWs. But the Western Allies did not maltreat POWs. The only incident I'm aware of that doesn't rebound well on them is the repatriation to the Soviet Union of Cossacks and other Eastern Europeans who'd fought with the Germans. We must have known we were sending them to almost certain death. But US death camps for German POWs? Hogwash, and seemingly Nazi apologist hogwash at that! That last remark is directed at the chap in the Youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/user/ThuleanPerspective), not the original poster (on whom I reserve judgement). More on the guy in the video - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varg_Vikernes - is it acceptable to say "nutter"? See this for more on this nonsense - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Losses - pretty clearly debunked by some pretty serious, heavy-weight historians.
I remember a documentary on the BBC some years ago which covered this subject.These camps were holding areas for those captured in the death throes of the Third Reich and were located adjacent to the Rhine in the Cologne-Bonn stretch of the river.I cannot see that the holding camp was used for all POWs that had to be handled when the Germans capitulated. From what I remember the claim raised controversy but it was generally agreed that it had been exaggerated.The holding of these POWs was transient but such were the numbers I would think that the care and welfare resources of the Western Allies were at full stretch during the summer of 1945.During this period,the Western Allies had also the tremendous task of dealing with the equally large numbers of DPs....... displaced persons including those liberated from the concentration camps.
The camps were called Rheinwiesenlager see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinwiesenlager as you can see the number of deaths of between 3-10,000 is disputed by the author James Bacque who estimates anywhere between hundreds of thousands and 1 million. Postwar conclusions are In 1969, Lieutenant General Leonard D. Heaton prepared and published an exhaustive report for the United States Army Medical Department, that examined preventive medicine and the problems associated with housing such a large number of German prisoners after World War II. The report found a number of problems, including: The army had lost track of some of the locations where POWs were held.[14] The number of prisoners greatly exceeded expectations.[15] Organization of the camps was left to prisoners. Food and water supplies were insufficient during April and May 1945, though they later improved.[16] The 1200 to 1500 calories ration that the Disarmed Enemy Forces were receiving in August 1945 was inadequate.[17] The lack of food led in some cases to "extensive malnutrition."[17] In 2003, historian Richard Dominic Wiggers argued that the Allies violated international law regarding the feeding of enemy civilians, they both directly and indirectly caused the unnecessary suffering and death of large numbers of civilians and prisoners in occupied Germany, guided partly by a spirit of postwar vengeance when creating the circumstances that contributed to their deaths. German PoW's were used as forced labour throughout Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_of_Germans_after_World_War_II http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/france-s-deadly-mine-clearing-missions-surviving-german-pows-seek-compensation-a-574180.html https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/new-danish-film-charts-world-war-two-land-mine-clearance.html I hate using wikipedia without double checking sources but it will have to suffice as I don't have a lot of time.
More on the postwar starvation situation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_in_occupied_Germany As Steelers says, sources should be checked, but it was a desperate situation. Even in UK food was short for many years postwar.
Thinking back there were a few frames of what I would say was a holding camp of German POWs in George Stevens documentary "From "D Day to Berlin". One point about these camps was they were temporary in open fields and without cover....(like Glastonbury when it rained)...this being one of the fundamental claims on the alleged poor treatment of German POWs. As regards POWs being worked ...some years ago had a good look round a Danish museum just north of Flensburg and the site of a German wartime internment camp.There is a copy of a very informative report of West Jutland beach clearance of mines which done under the direction of a British major who authored the report.....in it, from recollection,it cites that about 200 German POWs were lost in the operation. German POWs were also used in the extensive clearance of beach mines on the Atlantic coastline in the Charente Maritime department.Their tombstones in the Berneuil Mitiltary Cemetery bear evidence of the casualties sustained post war.Situated there is a common grave containing 5 POWs who were killed on the same day in 1948...visited this cemetery while on holiday after the Euro was introduced.....changed my French Francs to Euros in Saintes and left my German DMs and Pfennigs in the cemetery collection box as I had planned to do. This cemetery is situated on the fast D 137 just south of Saintes at Preguillac,although its official name is Berneuil....its also the resting place of one Helmut Kampfe,a long way from where he was abducted by the Maquis on the D940 south of Gueret prior to the outrage at Oradour sur Glane. Added note regarding the state of foodstuffs availability in Britain as late as 1947.I remember the school receiving food parcels from the Bay of Plenty, Auckland,NZ ...each pupil received a share of the food gift to take home.At home we also received surplus US Army rations in complete packs.....those were the days when the victors were also having shortfalls in food availability.
