German Deaths in Allied Occupied Europe?

Question

Anyone have any thoughts on claims of millions of German deaths under Allied Occupation?

I know of two books by James Bacque, that have put out some pretty astounding numbers. Do you believe his claims are credible, even the minimum numbers he's quoting are still in the millions. (near 10 million).

Thoughts on Bacque's books or any other sources that either support or refute these claims are welcomed.

Thanks Erik Van Thienen. Some interesting numbers there for POW's.

Any thoughts on the claims that millions of German civilians starved to death, died of preventable diseases or exposure between 1945-1948?

Answer 1

There were many deaths because of the flight and expulsion of Germans from the territories in the East that are now parts of Poland and Russia. Millions of people had to flee and it was winter. There are different estimates for the number of casualties. I've often heard the estimate of 2 millions, but there are also far lower estimates, this may help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Germans_after_World_War_II#The_results

I am not sure which number is correct.


In the West there was nothing like this. Those who were in the British or American zones were lucky. My mother was in the British zone as a child and can't say anything bad about the British. It was a time of shortage and many difficulties in life, but not so terrible that many people died. All in all she doesn't have too bad memories from that time and she hasn't personally heard of people who died because of bad living conditions where she was. The worst hardship they had was that they had to share their house with refugees from the East.

My father was in the French zone, he and his family suffered from hunger and his mother died in 1947 from an infection (although she was in hospital). But this was rather a single case, it certainly did not happen in the millions. At least I don't know anyone else personally who lost a family member under such conditions after the war in the West.

Right after the war Germans used to speak a lot of German sufferings and liked to view themselves rather as victims than as perpetrators, I am sure that if there had been millions of deaths (except for those during the expulsions and the war casualties) that would have been a big story and people would have spoken a lot about it. Near to 10 millions is certainly false.

I had never heard of this James Bacque before. I just googled his name and found that his claims were rejected by other historians:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bacque

I also found a German website where he was massively criticized.

Answer 2

German POW’s captured in campaigns in Western Europe, were held in Allied POW camps. These came under the inspection of the Red Cross and all the evidence suggests that German POW’s held in Western Europe were well treated – accommodation was adequate as was food. The Red Cross took care of communicating with families. But there were a few deadly epidemics, especially at the end of the war, when the Allies were overwhelmed by millions of German POW's. There was a shortage of food, shelter and medicine.

German POW’s captured on the Eastern Front had a far worse experience. Russia had failed to co-operate with the Red Cross. Russia had failed to provide a list of captured German soldiers – despite promises – and the Germans reciprocated. German POW’s could expect nothing but the harshest of treatment from the Russians. Those German POW’s who were captured were tarred with the known atrocities that had been carried out by the SS. German POW’s were seen as the people who had destroyed vast areas in western Russian and killed millions. Therefore, those who had been captured were used to rebuild what they had damaged. If they died doing so, then they died.

"Death rates of POWs held by the U.S, the Commonwealth, and the Soviet Union"

"German soldiers held by Soviet Union: 15-33% (14,7% in "The Dictators" by Richard Overy, 35.8% in Ferguson)
German POW in British hands 0.03%
German POW in American hands 0.15%
German POW in French hands 2.58%
German POW in East European (not including the Soviet Union) hands 32.9%" ("Allied war crimes during World War II", Wikipedia)

Answer 3

"So somewhat it took the allies until 1944 to surely attack a German occupied zone." You recommend apart from North Africa and Italy, and the allied bombing of Germany? I additionally did no longer see the Soviets come racing to anyone's help back in 1940. They have been extremely satisfied to place the boot into Poland while the Germans invaded, and did bugger all in the time of the conflict for France and the conflict of england. D-Day took years of making plans and progression, ordinarily via fact we in basic terms had one possibility at it, and did no longer experience obliged to drop our very own adult males right into a meat grinder for the sake of the Soviets who have been indifferent to Hitler's antics as long because it did no longer impact them. inspite of the reality that, the Soviets have been nicely offered interior the process the Baltic and Arctic convoys, and the adult males who served in those convoys, as nicely via fact the Atlantic convoys are between the main unsung heroes of WW2. "the U.S. grew to become into taking nearly all of the Germans." As Hitler had already alluded a decade earlier WW2, his ambition grew to become into to amplify to the east on the price of Russia, and Russian ambivalence on the initiating of WW2 got here ultimately at great price to Russia.