Other Losses [Hardcover]

James Bacque (Author)

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James Bacque
James Bacque is a novelist, book editor, essayist and historian whose work has helped raise awareness in human rights issues associated with war crimes, particularly spurring debate on and research into the treatment of German POWs at the end of World War II.

His fiction titles include The Lonely Ones, 1969 (Big Lonely in the paperback edition, 1970); A Man of Talent, 1972; Creation (with Robert Kroetsch and Pierre Gravel), 1972; The Queen Comes to Minnicog, 1979; and Our Fathers’ War, 2006. His history titles include Crimes and Mercies, an immediate bestseller upon release, and Other Losses.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (September 21, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517090651
• ISBN-13: 978-0517090657
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,073,424 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

146 of 161 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable addition to WWII history, July 4, 2001

By 

E. Rodin MD (Sandy, UT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Other Losses (Paperback)

Mr. Bacque is to be congratulated for publishing this book which describes the fate German soldiers who had surrendered to General Eisenhower's forces at the end of WWII. They had expected to be treated according to the Geneva convention governing the conduct of armies in regard to captured enemy personnel. This was not to be the case. As Mr. Bacque points out an entire new category of "Disarmed Enemy Forces", DEF, was created. Its only purpose was to avoid having to feed and house these millions of ex-soldiers and thereby bypass the Geneva convention to which America was a signatory. One may argue about the precise numbers of ex-soldiers who died in these "temporary enclosures" but the fact that inhuman treatment did exist cannot be denied. Neither can the fact that a considerable percentage of them was subsequently given to the French for what is called today "slave labor," albeit this term refers nowadays only to non-German nationals. Readers who may feel negatively about Bacque's revelations should be aware that this treatment of former members of the German army was not just happenstance but the execution of the Morgenthau plan to render Germany harmless forever. The plan was not directed against the German leadership or Nazis, but the German people at large. Mr. Baque makes frequent reference to this unfortunate document but readers, who cannot conceive that U.S. personnel may also carry out atrocities should look at the Document section of Warren F. Kimball's "Swords or Ploughshares? The Morgenthau plan for Defeated Nazi Germany."The book clearly shows that Roosevelt had endorsed a policy of "being hard on Germany" and Eisenhower was in full accord. That you cannot be "hard" on a country but only on its people and that this policy is bound to involve cruelties was not a consideration. The conditions changed only after Eisenhower's return to the U.S. and the appointment of Lucius D. Clay as High Commissioner. He clearly saw that the existing situation, even for the civilian population, made neither military nor political sense. It would merely turn the population to communism because even the Russians fed the people in their zone better than the Americans did. It is also to President Truman's credit that he quietly dropped the Morgenthau plan soon after the Potsdam meeting. As a former member of the Wehrmacht I had become aware of the Morgenthau plan in the winter of 1944-1945 but had regarded it as Nazi propaganda. I had always had high admiration for the principles America stood for and the Morgenthau plan seemed to be in total contradiction to those ideals. As mentioned in my book War and Mayhem I had intended to surrender to the U.S. forces towards the end of the war, but changed my mind on VE day and through the grace of God managed to avoid American as well as Soviet captivity. Having read Mr. Bacque's book I am even more grateful for the good fortune which kept me out of DEF status and instead allowed me to go to medical school within about six weeks after Germany's capitulation. I had no idea about the conditions German ex-soldiers were exposed to in those days, just as I had no idea about what really went on in the Nazi concentration camps until after the war. There are things people just didn't talk about. To "let it all hang out" became popular only in the late sixties and thereafter. But for the sake of historical accuracy both sides need to be heard and Mr. Bacque has done us this service for which he deserves our gratitude.

79 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shattering the Eisenhower Mystique, February 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Other Losses: An Investigation into the Mass Deaths of German Prisoners at the Hands of the French and Americans After World War II (Hardcover)

James Bacque deals with a topic most historians (especially Eisenhower apologists like Stephen Ambrose) want to avoid. It is the frightening account of how Allied forces, at the end of World War II, systematically used, abused and starved millions of German POWs in what Gen. George Patton described as "Gestapo tactics." As an historian, Army veteran, and grandson of a German army officer during that war, it's high time this story was told. So much is written about German atrocities during the war (Malmedy, Trois Ponts, etc). But little is discussed about such issues as this (another being "Operation Keelhaul"... forced 'repatriation' of Russians who served in the German Army). Bacque's evidence is convincing, thorough, and hard to avoid. Too bad so-called "historians" like Ambrose can't see this for himself. Must reading for any serious student of World War II history.

85 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Uncle Was There., April 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Other Losses (Paperback)

My uncle served in the US Army during WW2. When I was younger, he had told me about the US prison camps that he had seen as a member of an Army Engineering detachment. His stories are, sadly, supported by the book, "Other Losses".

Unfortunately, my uncle is now dead, or else, he could give everyone reading this review an eye witness account of the American attrocities perpetrated on the German people after the war had ended. As he had said, "We were supposed to be the Good Guys!"