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Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians under Allied Occupation, 1944-1950 |  | Author: James Bacque
Publisher: Talonbooks
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 127865
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0889225672
Dewey Decimal Number: 943.0874
EAN: 9780889225671
ASIN: 0889225672
Publication Date: August 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
More than nine million Germans died as a result of deliberate Allied starvation and expulsion policies after the Second World War - one quarter of the country was annexed, and about fifteen million people expelled in the largest act of ethnic cleansing the world has ever known. Western governments continue to conceal and deny these deaths. At the same time, Herbert Hoover and Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King created the largest charity in history, a food-aid program that saved an estimated 800 million lives during three years of global struggle against post-Second World War famine - a program the German people were initially excluded from as a matter of official Allied policy. Revised and updated for this new edition, "Crimes and Mercies" was first published by Little, Brown in the UK in 1997, becoming an immediate best seller.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
 1997 pioneering book, still undigested June 26, 2010
Rerevisionist (Manchester, England)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Based mostly on Soviet records and Hoover Institution Archive, Stanford. First published in 1997 (after the Soviet Union collapsed, of course; before this, Bacque published Other Losses after three years' research in 1989). Bacque is Canadian, or lives in Canada; his bibliography has German sources, but not Russian, suggesting he is fluent in German. The book has black and white photos on art paper, a couple of badly-reproduced maps, and appendices, notes, and index. The book (published by a mainstream US publisher) seems to have had a reception similar to David Irving's book on Dresden. In my view this book is part of the long slow process of facing facts about the Second World War - and the First, as there was forced starvation in Germany after that war too. Bacque I think estimates 9 million deaths to 1950. I have to say he seems a bit cavalier in his use of percentages to infer deaths, as population pyramids and other things ought to be taken into account. But there were staggering numbers of prisoners taken - I believe something like 6 million Russians surrendered to the Germans, for example; later, things reversed as millions of Germans were expelled from the east though it's not entirely clear how many of them had moved there since the 1930s. There were colossal numbers of atrocities too, in addition to starvation and deaths, all censored from the smug cottonwool of the BBC, NBC and the rest and the press.
Cynical readers might wonder why an ordinary American publisher would handle such a
book and it comes as no surprise to find Bacque accepting much of the usual quoted
material. This book is a landmark, but after thirteen years it's still 'controversial'.
 Humbling.. June 17, 2010
Vanes (Stratosphere)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Truly humane in the highest sense..Documenting war crimes against the losers in war..Humane,heart-rending photos of those who were victims of war crimes--The children..of the losers in war.The heroic actions of Herbert Hoover to humbly give aid to the defeated..Quotes from inspiring sources as Hoover's biography,MiddleMarch,and Prussian Nights..Haunting..moving stories of courage and proof of what went on in French itenerant camps,Potsdam conference photographs,(Here is James Bacque similar work on the SOLDIERS of Germany after the war..Other Losses)etc..Ruyter Suys touring the world:Better image of French/German relations to me..
 Selective History? May 23, 2010
James S. Carter (La Canada Flintridge, CA United States)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I'm inclined to go along with Christopher Grant's review of November 2004. Although any historian can expect an accusation that he presents only the evidence that supports his prior conclusion, this book supports that suspicion by focusing so closely on an accounting of numbers and by not providing enough of them.
After reading the Wikipedia review of Bacque's previous book "Other Losses", I am suspicious that Bacque is guilty of selecting only the evidence that supports his view that so many millions of German civilians died as a direct result of Allied imprisonment and of withholding humanitarian aid from Germany. On the other hand, he brings to light the underappreciated and effective humanitarian efforts of Herbert Hoover to relieve the postwar starvation in Europe --- after both World Wars. He does not discuss the Marshall Plan at length. What statements he makes about it are in disagreement with a KCET program I saw a few years ago, which stated that Marshall Plan funds were spent in the US (not in Germany) for goods that were shipped to Germany.
That there were many German and Polish civilian disposessions and deaths that resulted from moving Poland westward at the end of WWII should not be surprising, and Bacque's accounting of the numbers of them is shocking if true.
The author's style of wrtiting does not match that of a professional historian of the rank of John Dower (on postwar Japan), although he cites references in the text and provides a lengthy bibliography. But before trusting his numbers, I would like to read another book on the subject written by a professional historian. The subject matter would certainly support a dandy Masters or PhD. dissertation and would gain credibility from a qualified peer review.
crimes and mercies March 20, 2010
Rafael Collazo Davila (Grand Junction,Co)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
In this well researched and highly readable book,the author shows that the aftermath of armed conflict in most cases is often just as cruel as the wars themselves. The prevailing side having suffered so much at the hands of their enemy,one would expect retribution be visited upon former enemy soldiers in the form of harsh imprisonment,long forced marches,public humiliation and so forth. But what American would expect that their war leaders would embark upon a deliberate campaign of starving to death thousands upon thousands of those who surrended to us as is described in this narrative? One can presume this was left out of World War II history books simply because the information wasn't readily available for historians for many years. And if it was,that it would not be an easy matter to mention,as it would tend to cast an embarrassing blot upon the conduct our soldiers and highest political leaders of the time. Better to emphacize the benevolence of the Marshall Plan for reconstructing Europe! Yet it's good that we become aware that our highest officials-however high-minded their professions-can also succumb to the basest of cruel acts if given the opportunity. (Ironically it would appear our treatment of Japanese POWS seems to have been carried out in a more humane manner in spite of our having suffered many more casualties in the Pacific theater!)
I would heartily recommend this book to war historians,particularly those interested in the realm of historiography and who want to know the "history behind the history."
If this is just 10% true then January 18, 2010
William A. Hensler (Holt, Michigan United States)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Most of what you've been told about post WWII history is wrong. Consider these two true stories not in the book.
This reviewer was listening to two WWII vets talk about their service (time: 2004, place: Camp Custer NCO club, Michigan). The German was in his early 80s and still was in complete control of his mental abilties. He told of the fight in Normandy all the way until the fall of Germany. The American was about the same age but in more frail mental condition. The American said "we captured some German POWs and shot them." The old German just glared at him (this reviewer thought me was going to fly across the table). Then the German cooly replied, "if vee knew you vould be like zee Russians ve vould have fought you much harder."
When American transportation units were moving supplies through Normandy, France the units of the allied armies went on a raping spree that would put the Soviets to shame. The local French government stated that Normandy would have been better off under German than American occupation. Finally the American cracked down on their raping soldiers. The bottom line of this story is the American could be as degenerate and barbaric as the Soviets. We just had better press.
This book is like that story from the American soldier of WWII. While every American was a hero the fact of the matter is many Americans got rich looting Germany. The time of the absolute occupation of Germany, 1945 until 1950, was the best time ever to be an American. All the Americans had girlfriends who lived off the good will of the GIs and their ration books.
The primary villians in this book is Henry Morgenthau, General Eisenhower, and to a lessor extent, Churchill. Margenthau engineered the programs that kept food relief from reaching Germany from 1945 until mid-1949. In some ways the Americans were more brutal to the Germans than the Soviets. When the Soviets extracted their revenge on the Germans it was Stalin's policy to remould then into Communists. Indeed, if given a choice between living in the east or the west it was fairly even that both areas were terrible for Germans.
I am just shocked to read how the Americans treated captured German soldiers. A person who read those garbage "Time-Life" books about WWII sees this junk on how well run and well fed the American prisons for German soldiers were in WWII. Then you find out the truth that the American run prison camps were just fine from 1942 until early 1945. Then General Eisenhower directs that the German POW camps are to be run just like the way the NAZIs ran the death camps. The result is more German soldiers starve to death in Allied camps than are killed by fighting in WWII.
Also, this book reveals that it was the full intent of the Allies to do Germany great harm after the Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin meetings in 1943. The crime against the Jews just gave the Allies excuse to wage a war of extermination against Germans via starvation. But the bottom line is Germany was going to pay for starting wars in 1870, 1914, and 1939.
The bottom line in this book is the Germans were fully logical in their observation "Enjoy the war for the peace will be terrible."
This book makes no excuse for the Nazi's war against Jews and other peoples. But the fact is the Nazis who did those crimes were make to pay for those crimes. They were all either killed in the war or tied for their crimes. Never in the history of man had ever a group of people been held accountable for the crimes of others. Millions of German children, old people, and women starved to death under allied and Soviet occupation.
This reviewer knew fully well that German lost all patents when the war was done. But this was extended to nearly everything of German manufacture. Then Germany was stripped of almost all heavy equipment. It's a fact that Israel had so much ex-German heavy equipment that there was serious talk in Israel during the 1950s of reopening the Panther tank production lines because Israel had been given nearly all the machine tools needed to produce Panzer tanks. But this book takes the theft of German assets further. Electric power plans, complete assembly lines, and all other items were shipped to the winning nations. What struck me was German manufacturing level in 1947 was 3% (!) of 1939. The nation was starving to death because it was not allowed to return to work.
Herbert Hoover is a very heroic figure in this book. The book says that his relief actions saved millions from starvation. Hoover was tireless in work and, to President Truman's credit, helped raise German back into the standing of a regular nation. Also, Hoover was shocked at the rather indifferent way the Americans treated the Germans. Indeed, the American would frequently stop food shipment to relieve the famine in Germany while the typical American of the post-WWII period enjoyed a diet of 3300 calories per day, back then a fattening diet.
An Average American reader will come away with a realization that the USA has always had an anti-German foreign policy and does anything to hurt Germany. The USA supported the blockaid of Germany in 1919 where millions of Germans died of starvation. The USA blocked aid to starving Germans in the post-WWII period.
Even the much talked about Marshall plan is a fraud. Billions of dollars of German equipment, gold, and finances are seized after WWII. Indeed, German coal miners work in slave conditions and receive starvation rations. Their coal is seized by the Allies. Then Germany receives less than 1 Billion dollars of aid in 1948 and by 1949 the economy is allowed to recover. This recovery has less to do with the rather pathetic Marshall plan than the fact that the Allies finally allow the German people to restablish a working government and currency.
Yes, this book has some minor problems. The Appendices goes into some detail that may be disputed by other authors and reduce the credibility of the book.
Now, this trueism exists for all Master's degree students. In the area of every American POW camp in the USA may have a mass grave yard of German soldiers. If these grave yards can be discovered, escavated, and then the lies of the USA to the German people can be shown to the world.
Most of the post WWII history book of Germany are a lie. This book is the truth.
Last, this reader will leave the average reader with a true story. Former President Hoover lived until a ripe old age in his 90s and passed away during the 1960s. Somebody asked him what was the best thing he ever had in his life. He smiled and said, "I outlived my critics."
May God Bless Former President Hoover in saving Germany from Starvation.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
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