<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Hmm
Review: After reading the first couple of chapters, I thought I was going to give this book 5 stars. Clearly, German civilians did suffer in the post-war years, and much of that suffering appears to have been unnecessary. And I'm not one who would dismiss that suffering because "they brought it on themselves". It was also nice to learn about Herbert Hoover's humanitarian work, something of which I had been previously unaware.
By the end of the book, however, my opinion of it had diminished considerably. Bacque tosses a lot of numbers around, but if he's employing some sort of systematic methodology, I wasn't able to detect what it was. Comparing population figure A from source B with population figure C from source D and drawing extreme conclusions from the discrepancy between A and C without taking into account basic notions like random variation and limited precision or the different techniques B and D used to arrive at their figures is not, in my opinion, the way to make a convincing argument.
Bacque's case is not helped by a rambling 5-page appendix in which he presents his suspicions that he's being spied on, nor by his allying himself with figures like Ramsey Clark. (I'll gladly agree that Bacque's case is as strong as Clark's, but that's about as faint as praise gets.)
Rating: 
Summary: "Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it."
Review: An extraordinary book. It tells two of the most extraordinary stories of the 20th century simultaneously. Neither has been told before. One is the story of a great hero - Herbert Hoover, not J. Edgar the FBI boss, but a multimillionaire humanitarian whose courage, outspokenness, persistence and dedication saved literally tens of millions of people from starvation after the first world war and then after the second. And it's the story of why we never hear about this. General Eisenhower, war "hero" and later US president, of whom we have all heard, persued a deliberate policy of preventing available food aid into Germany between 1945-49. Laws preventing immigration turned the country into a prison. As Bacque revealed in earlier book OTHER LOSSES, millions of disarmed soldiers died in prison camps; further more, Bacque tells the story of the suffering of civilians, dying from starvation. It is a part of living memory that times were extraordinarily hard, but Bacque's research has enabled an estimate of the scale for the first time: at least 9 million. He has found the documents which trace the decisions leading to this second holocaust, leading back to Eisenhower and his advisors. It is a courageous act for a man aged more than 70 accuse a war hero and president of being commiting atrocities. Bacques thoughts on collective are thought provocing. It's a sign of the times that a book like this is out of print. By it before it becomes a historical document in itself. Read it and tell people. It's relevant to today.
Rating:
Summary: Historical accuracy triumphs over politcal correctness!
Review: BRAVO! This book is long overdue! Finally historical fact is placed over group think and pressure groups!This Seth guy seems to have issues. You probably think the world is flat. Sorry we Krauts are still breathing your air. I don't know where you get the 7 million number from, but the standard 6 million figure was taken from a "confession" by I believe it was Hess after many brutal torture sessions at the show trial at Nuremburg where we heard career witnesses tell tales of human blood geysers and mini nuclear bombs that were used to kill jews with.
Strange evil guys like Simon Wiesenthal have admitted that the large majority of so-called gas chambers were rubbish, and the few they cling to have long been debunked, with the help of a Jewish researcher no less. Such conspiracy theorizing, this alleged extermination program. It's a great lesson in modern wartime propaganda!
Rating:
Summary: No one, single group has a monopoly on Evil or Madness
Review: Excellent book. Extremely well researched. I have always been interested in East Prussia from having read a lot on the Teutonic Knights. Suddenly in 1945 a 700-year-old German land ceased to exist -- what happened to all of it's people? And what happened to the vanquished men and women that Hitler so cruelly led down the dark path of death and destruction? Bacque sheds some very important light in this work and provides a good starting point to find out more.
I must say, Seth's statements below in his review are very disturbing, almost as disturbing as many of Hitler's statements in "Mein Kampf". People like Seth would do well to imagine this scenario, no matter how unlikely: The war in Iraq has a reversal of fortune and the Americans are driven out...an Iraqi paratroop battalion lands in Tuscon and goes to his home, they seize his family and prepare to kill them, calling it "justice" and "due revenge"...what does he do? Does he say, "go ahead and kill them,they should get what they deserve"? NO. He says something like "hey I didn't vote for the current President and even if I did that doesn't mean I agree with the war in Iraq, my leaders didn't ask me personally, so don't take revenge on me and my family." There were many Germans that despised the Nazi government, but fear of retribution in a police state like that kept them from acting. The famous close-call bomb plot to kill Hitler was planned and carried out by, guess who?...a German, and lots of other Germans along with him. When that smoke cleared Hitler had put to death about 1000 Germans (soldiers and citizens alike) he believed to be involved.
Make no mistake, the Holocaust was the most heinous collective act ever carried out against a civilian population and heads a long list that includes the Crusades, the Hundred Years War, and the "Trail of Tears". We should NEVER forget, but not to the exclusion of remembering so many countless others that were victims of the evil men do to men.
Read a book on the Holocaust and shed a tear for little 9-year-old Lena Weitzman who died in a gas chamber..then read this book and shed a tear for little 9-year-old Anna Richter who was shot in the head by a vengeful Soviet soldier. If you can shed a tear for one but not the other, then the humanity you were born with has deserted you -- and has left you an empty, bitter, waste of a life. Hate destroys from the inside out as well.
Rating:
Summary: Crimes and Mercies by James Bacque
Review: Exelent book for joung people!to learn something about the great United States and their crimes.My family and I lived through it, in Bad-Kreuznach Rhld.Pfalz.Germany.
Rating:
Summary: To Bad Some "Top Reviewers" are Filled With Hate!
Review: I read with absolute disgust the so-called non-review of this book by Seth Frantzman. He sounds just like the Nazi's he condemns. This was not a review but the ravings of a homicidal,evil,racist human being. How did the holocaust happen? Because people and attitudes like Mr. Frantzman unfortunately exist. How could Amazon print this disgusting piece of trash by this pathetic little Hitler who's sole complaint is that there was not enough murder going on in WWII to satisfy him....This man never even read the book. The cure for evil in the world is the cold light of truth not lies and this book does justice in uncovering a dirty secret that the ends do not justify the means. Just because the Nazi's murdered civilians and terror bombed cities does not mean we can, That's why we are the good guys. Acts are evil no matter who is committing them or what excuse is made for doing them.
Rating:
Summary: To Bad Some "Top Reviewers" are Filled With Hate!
Review: If historical facts truely cause some "readers to write trash" so be it. I have read my copy of this book and in my opinion should be required reading by everyone.
Many Germans civilians were killed and their properties stolen from them because of this war. My family lost our farm that we had for over two hundred and fifty years in East Prussia. But I guess accordingly to "The Top Reviewer" we had it coming to us because our German government, at the time, was evil.
I was only a young boy at the time, but we survived. Because we lost our farm in the real eastern Germany, we came to this country.
And I grew up and became an Electronic/Electrical Engineer. By the way. One last special note to "Mr. Top Reviewer", and people like him, when you look up at the moon at night, remember this.
A young German boy survived your bad wishes and was a proud member of the team that helped design and build all of the first unmaned Spacecrafts that landed the moon. This Spacecrafts series were called the Rangers. And they are still there, all of them that went.
Don't forget, never.
Rating:
Summary: A Powerful Book
Review: In this powerful new book, Canadian historian James Bacque presents detailed evidence, much of it newly uncovered, to show that some nine million Germans died as a result of Allied starvation and expulsion policies in the first five years after the Second World War -- a total far greater than the long-accepted figures. These deaths are still being concealed and denied, writes Bacque, especially by American and British authorities. Crimes and Mercies -- a handsome hardcover work, illustrated and well-referenced -- is a devastating indictment of Allied, and especially American, occupation policy in defeated postwar Germany. Nearly 15 million Germans fled or were brutally expelled in the greatest act of "ethnic cleansing" in history, a human catastrophe in which some two million were killed or otherwise perished. Then, under the notorious "Morgenthau Plan" and its successor policies, the Allies carried out a massive looting of Germany, and even prevented German civilians from growing enough food to feed themselves. Bacque shows, for example, that General Eisenhower, in violation of the Geneva Convention, in May 1945 forbade German civilians to take food to prisoners starving to death in American camps. He threatened the death penalty for anyone feeding prisoners. Bacque also describes the terrors of the postwar camps in Poland where children and other German civilians lost their lives. Written with fervor, compassion and humanity, and making use of never-before cited records in Moscow archives, James Bacque exposes a little-known but important chapter of 20th century history. He builds upon the revelations of his startling 1989 study, Other Losses, which presented evidence to show that hundreds of thousands of German prisoners of war died as a result of cruel and illegal mistreatment by American, British and French authorities. American historian Alfred M. de Zayas, author of Nemesis at Potsdam and The German Expellees, provides a valuable foreword
Rating:
Summary: Lies, the germans got what they deserved
Review: Lets get this straight. The Germans invaded a dozen countries, murdered 7 million jews, a million Gypsys, communists and christians and then murdered another 15 million russians and caused another few million combat dead in their campagins. They helped cultivate fascist movements in places like Croatia and Hungary that also killed hundreds of thousands. And now I'm sopposed to feel sorry for them because the allied rounded up German soldiers and some starving took place among the civilians of germany. I'm sorry but this book takes it too far. It tries to make the reader feel Ike was a villian becase he didnt spend every waking minute trying to save german civilians and former nazis from starvation. Ike was too busy trying to stop the communists from stealing europe and to busy helping the many victims of german barabarism. Ike was too busy protecting his soldiers to feel abd about the former SS men dying in his POW camps. This book is such a revisionist account for all those that think Germany was the victim in the war. As far as I'm concerned the allies didnt kill enough germans, we should have put them in their own gas chambers and made them feel how the Jews felt. We should have taken every former nazi, made them strip down, and shot them in ditches we made them dig for their own graves. Ike was far too hospitable to this criminal nation. This book is not worth readng except to understadn revisionism at its best.
Rating:
Summary: Everyone should read this book
Review: My Grandparents were expelled from their home because of the Potsdam treaty. My grandfather's sister was sent to a Soviet work camp. I have other relatives that were not so lucky. When WWII history is discussed, all we hear about is the holocaust. The holocaust should never be forgotten, but if nobody reads this book, what happened to the Germans will never be remembered. This book will provide an eye opening account of what happened to German civilians after WWII, a subject that is obvlivious to the majority of the American population. As far as the "top reader" Seth is concerned. If you complain about feeling like a "villan" while reading this book, now you know how all Germans and German-Americans feel when a new holocaust book, tv movie, or film is relased and the blame is placed squarely on the shoulders of the German people, not the Nazi government. I cannot express the anger I felt while reading his review. I really feel sorry for somebody that callous and ignorant. So, hey Seth, there's my name and address, look me up, and we'll have a little chat.
<< 1 >>
|
