Eisenhower and the German Pows: Facts Against Falsehood (Eisenhower Center Studies on War and Peace) [Hardcover]

Gunter Bischof (Author), Stephen E. Ambrose (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Eisenhower Center Studies on War and Peace | Publication Date: November 1992

In response to James Bacque's controversial Other Losses, this collection of essays attempts to refute charges that Eisenhower deliberately starved to death German POWs and examines conditions in Europe immediately following World War II.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a 1989 study entitled Other Losses , novelist James Bacque contended that Gen. Eisenhower, commander of the American occupation forces in Germany, starved to death a million German prisoners of war in 1945 as an act of revenge. In 1990 the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans invited historians to a conference to examine these charges; this volume contains essays by eight who attended, including Ambrose and Bischof (the Center's director and associate director, respectively). The conferees concluded that there was widespread mistreatment of German prisoners by Allies in 1945, but that it was not the result of a directive from Eisenhower, although he had expressed his hatred of the Germans throughout the war. The texts published here effectively refute Bacque's arguments and dismiss his book as the work of a sloppy amateur who wrenched material out of context and misquoted eyewitnesses. Illustrations.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr (November 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807117587
• ISBN-13: 978-0807117583
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,170,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Stephen Ambrose was a renowned historian and acclaimed author of more than 30 books. Among his New York Times best-sellers are: Nothing Like It in the World, Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers, D-Day - June 6, 1944, and Undaunted Courage.He was not only a great author, but also a captivating speaker, with the unique ability to provide insight into the future by employing his profound knowledge of the past. His stories demonstrate how leaders use trust, friendship and shared experiences to work together and thrive during conflict and change. His philosophy about keeping an audience engaged is put best in his own words: "As I sit at my computer, or stand at the podium, I think of myself as sitting around the campfire after a day on the trail, telling stories that I hope will have the members of the audience, or the readers, leaning forward just a bit, wanting to know what happens next." Dr. Ambrose was a retired Boyd Professor of History at the University of New Orleans. He was the Director Emeritus of the Eisenhower Center in New Orleans, and the founder of the National D-Day Museum. He was also a contributing editor for the Quarterly Journal of Military History, a member of the board of directors for American Rivers, and a member of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Council Board. His talents have not gone unnoticed by the film industry. Dr. Ambrose was the historical consultant for Steven Spielberg's movie Saving Private Ryan. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks purchased the film rights to his books Citizen Soldiers and Band of Brothers to make the 13-hour HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. He has also participated in numerous national television programs, including ones for the History Channel and National Geographic.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars German expellee 's view, February 21, 2006

By 

Donauschwab (West-By-God-Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eisenhower and the German Pows: Facts Against Falsehood (Eisenhower Center Studies on War and Peace) (Hardcover)

My ancestors left Germany in the mid 1700's to settle in eastern parts of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Through wars, Mongol and Turkish attacks we hung on.
In 1945 we were fleeing ahead of the Russian armies as they destroyed everything in their path, until meeting the American armies heading east. Many in our village were shot or hauled off to Siberia as slave labor. As a youngster, I experienced the poverty and lack of food millions of refugees suffered.
Readers should be aware of the inherent bias of both Ambrose and Bischof as they are employees of the Eisenhower Center. In a subsequent book, CRIMES AND MERCIES, Drawing on newly released secret Soviet documents,Bacque refutes many of Bishop and Ambrose's objections.This is a must read as it completes the picture of the destruction and rebuild of Germany.

7 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dealing With Pro-German Revisionists: a Primer, November 2, 2009

By 

Jan Peczkis "Scholar and Thinker" (Chicago IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Eisenhower and the German Pows: Facts Against Falsehood (Eisenhower Center Studies on War and Peace) (Hardcover)

This work examines, and soundly debunks, the claim of James Bacque, who had asserted in his OTHER LOSSES, that the Allies under Eisenhower deliberately starved 800,000--1,000,000 captured German POWs. However, this scholarly work is valuable not only in the refutation of the methodology used by Bacque in his book (and subsequent ones), but also in understanding the fallacious argumentation used by other forms of pro-German revisionism (such as that which insists that 2 million Germans perished during the expulsions from post-WWII Poland).

The revisionists are essentially the same. They selectively cite facts and make non sequiturs out of them, misinterpret or misrepresent data, use faulty mathematics, ignore contrary evidence, and, when all else fails, invoke conspiracy theories to explain away unwelcome evidence.

Even when using archival or other primary sources, one has to be careful. Earlier-written sources are not necessarily more reliable than later-written ones. This owes to the fact that earlier-written sources may be based on incomplete or erroneous information--something which can find rectification in later-written sources. (Rudiger Overmans, p. 169).

The "missing million POWs" is not only a myth. It is impossible. (Overmans, p. 166). The actual number of German dead in Allied hands, during the relevant time period, does not exceed 56,285 at the very most, and is most likely a small fraction of this number. (Cowdrey, pp. 91-92.). In military lingo, "losses" can mean very many things, not only deaths.

Is pro-German revisionism, of the type exemplified by Bacque, something intended to reduce the gravity of Nazi crimes by inventing comparable Allied crimes? Bischof thinks so, as he comments: "For Bacque's treatment of a serious historical issue may ultimately have the far more devious outcome of relativizing the unique German responsibility for the destruction of the Jews by way of constructing a nonexistent American holocaust." (p. 199).

This entire issue is reminiscent of the one raised by Russian revisionists, who fabricated a "counter-Katyn" in the form of tens of thousands of Russian POWs deliberately starved by the Poles during the 1920 Polish-Bolshevik War. To begin with, unlike the Poles later at Katyn, the Russian captives did not have to be in the position in which they found themselves. Also, there is no evidence of deliberate starvation. The mortality rate of Russians in Polish custody was no higher than expected for POWs in that part of the world at that time.