Talk:Rheinwiesenlager

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Let's debunk Bacque

From here:

Why not quote from Nizkor as well? Funny how one needs to revert to Bacque Bashing with biased sources--196.207.33.197 (talk) 19:32, 15 November 2008 (UTC).

STARTS I feel like an old alcoholic who has fervently sworn off the bottle but can't resist taking one more drink!

But let me take one more try, making it as simple as I can.

1. James Bacque in his [i]Other Losses[/i] (1991 revised edition, Pima Press) asserts that the German POWs, held in US prison camps in Europe, were:

[quote]....exposed to conditions that killed them at the rate of over 30% per year.[/quote] p. 65

2. The sole source proffered for this assertion is Bacque's Appendix 2.

3. Appendix 2 contains facsimiles of two Tables, IX and X, taken from the typed manuscript of "Medical History, European Theater of Operations" to be found in the National Archives. I have no question but that the Tables are authentic. They are based on a survey by the U.S. Army Medical Corps in the European Theater in may-June 1945.

4. As indicated in my prior post, the caption to Table IX states that it is a comparison of (a) the number of [hospital] admissions and (b) death rates per 1000 per annum for POWs in the ASCZ, with ETO (less UK) Troops [ie essentially US Troops]. Table X is a listing by causes and number of deaths of the "Chief Causes of Death Due to Disease in ABSZ Prisoner of War Enclosure For Six Week Period Ending 15 June 1945".

5.Table IX shows a number of 2,754 POW deaths from disease and a 34.2 death rate per 1000. In light of Table IX's caption, one would think that the 34.2 death rate per 1000 was a per annum rate. The caption says so.

Bob Lembke, however, disputes this and insists that the stated rate was only for the 6 weeks reviewed, which, if true, would elevate the annual death rate to 296.5 per 1000, or 29.65%. ( 52/6 = 8.67 x34.2 = 296.5) [b]BUT:[/b]

    (a) Bracque himself states that the rates per 1000 shown in Table IX are [b]annual [/b] and [b]not[/b] 6 week rates:

        [quote].....the rate per thousand for hospital admissions for injuries was 468 [b]per year[/b].[/quote] [my emphasis]Appendix 2, p.211.

    (b) If the rates shown are on a 6 week basis, then, for example,  the POW rate of 5,003 per 1000 for total hospital admissions would be 43,376 per 1000 per annum (52/6 = 8.67 x 5,003 = 43,376), or 43+ admissions for each POW per year, or about 1 every 8-9 days!!!  That stikes me as far beyond the stretch of credibility.

    (c) Equally incredible would be the resulting death rate for US Troops.  If the 3.8 death rate per 1000 shown for US troops excluding battle casualties were computed on a 6 weeks basis, then the total US death rate per annum would be 32.95 per 1000 per annum, or 3.3% - many times higher than the comparable figures supplied in one of David thompson's previous posts.

    (d) In my own albeit limited [Iv'e only been around 75 years] experience, unless specifically otherwise indicated, "rates" when quoted are generally understood to be per annum rates.  E.G. "I got a 6% interest rate on my mortgage!"

    (e) Conclusion: Bob Lembke's old dog still just wont hunt.

6. One would also think from looking at Table IX that the number of hospital admissions and deaths shown are those which actually took place during the 6 week period in question. That seems to me the fair implication of its caption and the arrangement of of the table that follows. But this would demolish Bacque's assertion of an over 30% POW death rate and so he argues that no, the numbers of hospital admissions and deaths shown are [b]not[/b] the numbers actually experienced during the 6 week period, but rather those 6 week numbers projected forward throughout the year. So that, for example, the number of 37,713 POW hospital admissions for injuries shown on Table IX are the [i]projected [/i] admissions which would occur for the entire year if one were to apply the shown rate of 468 per thousand per annum to the population of POWs surveyed.

7. By cobbeling up that theory, Bacque can play mathmetical mumbo-jumbo and produce a POW death rate of over 30%. Here's how: Bacque first purports to compute the number of POWs in the study by taking his 37,713 assumed hospital admissions per year and dividing that number by the 468 per thousand annual rate stated in Table IX. This results in a computed POW study population of 80,583. Well OK, but so what? If you consider the 2,868 total number of POW deaths shown on Table IX as a projection for the total deaths for the entire year, then if the population of the study is 80,563 the annual death rate is only 3.56% (2,868/ 80,563 = 0.0356, or 35.6 per 1000, as shown on Table IX.)

8. Ah, but wait! Although according to Bacque the POW hospital admission numbers reflect projections for the entire year, the POW death numbers do not! How so? Well, in effect Bacque maintains that the "annual projected" 2,868 POW death total shown on Table IX is simply phony. He gets there by looking at Table X, which shows a total of 2,304 deaths from disease during the 6 week period from the 12 chief causes listed, and which, if you project them out for a full year, results in a total of 19,968 annual deaths from disease. That of course is much better, because against a study population of 80,563 a total of 19,968 deaths per year gives you an annual death rate of 24.78%.

9. But we are still not quite at the over 30% rate. How to get there? It's simple - dredge up a Table 23 included in a 1969 Article published in the [i]History of Preventative Medicine in Word War II[/i] which shows the number of POW deaths from disease during the same 6 weeks as 2,754 which when added to the 114 deaths from injury and battle casualty comes to a total death tole of 2,868. When annualized and applied to a study population base of 80,563 the result is a total death rate of 30.86% (52/6 = 8.67 x 2,868 = 24,866/ 80,563 = .3086)

10. But wait! Table IX shows the same number of POW deaths from disease as does Table 23 from the 1969 Article - doesn't that suggest that [b]all [/b]numbers in Table IX are actual numbers experienced for the 6 week period? Of course not, silly! That would mean that Bacque's computation of the size of the POW population underlying the study was all wrong and we couldn't get to our 30% plus death rate. We would be back to that 3.56% rate which, although pretty bad, certainly wouldn't sell any books at all. No, the explanation is simple:

[quote]The evidence is clear that the author of this History [Table IX] hid the death rate by suppressing evidence.....[He] simply reproduced the POW death figures for six weeks as if they applied to a whole year. He thus apparently reduced the death rate of 29.7 percent per year for disease to 3.42 percent. This is probably why the author of the History did not show Table X complete. Table X's true total of 2,754 would have revealed that he had deceptively used the same number in Table IX......Because in Table IX the disease death rate has been falsified, the rates for injury and battle casualty have almost certainly been falsified downwards to reduce the death rate...... [/quote]

It's a case of falsification, suppression of facts, cover up!!! That should surely sell some books! [b]BUT[/b]:

    (a) There is nothing whatsoever in Table IX that suggests that the numbers stated are anything other than those actually experienced during the 6 week period reviewed, and certainly no hint that they might be projected annual totals.  If the latter was the case, surely the author would have so indicated.

    (b) If the numbers stated are annual projection of 6 week actuals, then the figures for US Troops simply make no sense.  Let's test  Bacque's technique for determining the size of the POW population underlying the study(see 7. above) to determine the size of the US Troops in the ETO European Theater of Operations.  The US hospital admissions are shown on Table IX for injuries are 31,070; divide that by the 101 rate per thousand per annum shown and the result is a US troop count of 307,624 in the entire ETO in May - June of 1945.  I don't know what the exact number actually was, but it was many times the result of applying Bacque's approach.

    (c)  Let's test it just once more to make sure the first wasn't a fluke.  Take the 1, 162 total US Troop deaths shown and divide it by the total US Troop death rate of 4.1 per 1000 per year.  Here we get an even more lidicrous result of 283, 415 for the US Troop comliment in the ETO.

    (d)  Bacque notices the absurd results produced by application of his methodology to the US TRoop figures, but brushes them away as either statistically unreliable or based on a different survey.  And anyway, so what:

[quote]These difficulties in Army statistics are typical and usually prevent anyone from discovering the death rate in the camps. [/quote] Appendix 2, at p.211.

11. I find it passing strange for a historian to attack the credibility of the only documentary source he has for the theorem he is proposing, but I suppose there is something to the saying that a drowning man will clutch at a sword. As a lawyer, I've been caught myself a few times in desperation to find an argument to save a hopeless case. But I don't think it says much for the integrity of a historian.

13. It seems tolerably clear to me that both Bob Lembke and James Bacque in their different ways have approached Table IX "bassackwards" in the parlance often employed in this part of the world. If you just hone up and apply Occam's well known razor by simply accepting the Table for what it clearly says it is all internal inconsistencies and contradictions vanish into thin air, and one is still left with a shameful 3.56% annual POW death rate, which the Table itself deplores by pointing out that it is nearly 9 times that of US Troops. The only inconsistency is that the POW population derived by applying the various rates per 1000 per annum to the various numbers given the result in each case hovers around 700,000, and that disagrees with a POW population for the study of 70,000 which appears somewhere in the text of the study (which Bacques fails to set out.) Well, its not too hard for me to imagine a tired typist missing a zero - I made the identical mistake on one of my previous posts, and although I'm a superantiquated two finger hunt and peck typist, I at least like to think that others may also be capable of making mistakes too.

14. But then of course without allegations of a shockingly high death rate, outrageous conduct at the highest levels of government, rampant falsifications, suppression of evidence, coverups - how is a book supposed to sell?

15. The above is [b]BORING[/b] beyond belief, and I solemly vow that this is absolutely, definitely, finally, without reservation, cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, my very last post on this topic! (Unless, of course, I am once again overwhelmed by temptation.) ENDS

Andreas 23:01, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I see you received no reply. I've read Neither Ambrose nor Bacque, but let me give you two teasers not dependent on horrid tables of statistics to try to figure.

• A common defense of Eisenhower is that there was a world shortage of food, so of course the civilians and POV's were on very low rations.

• Sadly, I encountered this book The Journal of a Retread by Col. Stanley Andrews, an agricultural officer, who detailed his experiences.

The whole economy of the American zone in West Germany, that which had not been destroyed by the bombing and the fighting, had come to a virtual standstill. Nothing moved or was undertaken by Germans themselves except by permission of the military. The military controlled fuel, transportation, food supplies, money -- the works.

I sought and received an appointment -- one might call it an audience -- with General Eisenhower's chief of staff, the late Lieutenant General Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith. General Smith had the reputation of being rough but fair. After a few remarks on who I was and where I had come from, I broached the subject of action on opening factories, setting up machinery, loosening up transportation, labor, materials, (binder twine, horseshoes, etc.) and releasing prisoners so that the harvest could be gotten in promptly. I reported that I had flown over Southern Germany coming in and it appeared from a rather low altitude that fields all had been planted and were ripe with a good harvest, especially wheat, rye, and barley.

General Smith listened, but in the end said simply: "Don't get too worked up and concerned about these Germans, the policy is to make it hard on these SOBs to get going again."

Now my uncharitable interpretation would be that perhaps there was a worldwide food shortage, but that the U.S. didn't care and in fact deliberately made things even worse for the starving in Germany. But that's just me. There are so many people who say so much. In for example this paper "The United States and the Refusal to Feed German Civilians after World War II" by Richard Dominic Wiggers[1] where he concludes that "they both directly and indirectly caused the unnecessary suffering and death of large numbers of civilians and POW's in occupied Germany, guided partly by a spirit of postwar vengeance when creating the circumstances that contributed to their deaths."

The problem with Wiggers' article is that he ignores all the evidence that doesn't fit his thesis of American cruelty. According to official statistics,the British and American zones were getting over a quarter of a million tons of food per month in 1946. In 1947 the Americans promised 3.6 million tons of food for Germany,according to the published papers of Lucius Clay. Wiggers' assertions about German infant mortality are contradicted by data published by the British Medical Journal and the League of Nations.

• The second teaser would be, what happened to the prisoners that the U.S. handed over to the French, and that Bacque said 250,000 of never got to return to their home soil alive? If someone can dig up the answer to the request made here then perhaps we have an answer one way or the other. Let us hope the breakdown showed that the erasure of most of those 290,000 was something innocent. No need to comment if no answer is forthcoming, I don't expect an answer either--Stor stark7 ^Speak 20:50, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Location

Where exactly was the Rheinwiesenlager situated? As the POWs mainly were from the Ruhr pocket, it should be somewhere near Dusseldorf or Duisburg. Someone who knows te details? --Proofreader 13:17, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

James Bacque

Smith2006, I have reverted your addition of this theory to the infobox in line with WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE. This outlandish idea is already mentioned in the subsection entitled 'Conditions and deaths'. It is thoroughly discredited and deserves no more than a passing mention there. Many thanks, AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 17:08, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Smith2006, I notice that you choose to edit war rather than join me here on the talk page. I will, however, persevere with my attempts to discuss this. Regarding Bacque, I would like you to read Other_Losses#Reliability_of_Bacque.27s_claims. His claims have been discredited, and are a very good example of a fringe theory, to which we should not accord undue weight. A claim dismissed by mainstream scholars has no place in an infobox. Many thanks, AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 09:02, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the estimates by James Bacque some 100 times higher than virtually every other estimate], regardless of the lack of credibility of his methodologies, are better suited for a footnote than the info box at the top of the article. They are to be as nice as possible about them, "controversial". Even though they have credibility issues, I did, however, put them in the ref in the info box, but clearly not the text.Mosedschurte (talk) 14:02, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that's OK. I would say it complies with our policies. Are we sure it's accurate to describe Bacque as a "scholar" though? I thought he was a novelist who turned his attention to this matter. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 11:21, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Historical Context

While not offered as a defense of mistreatment, per se, could it not be honestly reasoned that the alleged US atrocities were still kinder and gentler than the treatment offered German and other Axis POWs (and repatriated civilian refugees) by the Soviets?

We (including Bacque!) really cannot sit in judgment over the people who lived through the privation and atrocities caused by the Nazis. I do not believe Americans should mistreat anyone (that's not the "American Way"); but I'll be damned if I condemn any of the Allies for anything they did to the people who empowered and facilitated Hitler and his well-dressed entourage...

Those who manage to avoid the heavy lifting (by virtue of youth) should not complain about the people whose blood guaranteed their freedoms... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.123.189.97 (talk) 02:01, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Look, of course right now the article is ridiculous and WP:Undue that the prose text of this article is over 70% dominated by "DEF" and "Conditions and death", absolutely dwarfing the actual discussions about construction, bills, costs, total numbers processed, staffing, etc. I don't think the answer is counter text showing that it was better than nearly every other country's treatment of POWs. Rather, the article just needs to be re-written focusing on the descriptions, construction, operation, etc. of the Rheinwiesenlager camps themselves, rather than as a 65%-85% DEF/Bacque fest that it is now.

Feel free to edit to adjust that WP:Undue Wikipedia violation. I don't have time right now, but I'm going to try to transform it into a real article on the general subject of the Rheinwiesenlager camps generally, with the addition of info on the actual conventional camp construction, operation, etc, and not some WP:NPOV bitchfest based on the DEF/Bacque attacks that is also grossly WP:Undue in terms of size in this article.Mosedschurte (talk) 02:09, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

In Defense of Bacque

My Uncle was a German prisoner in the A4 camp outside Bad Kreuznach until being handed over to the French. By his eyewitness account, on average 17 men died per day of exposure and disease in the Bad Kreuznach camp. If we do some math,according to that estimation, 2091 prisoners died between April and September in the Bad Kreuznach camp alone. If we assume that the other 19 camps had similar death rates as BK (not an entirely valid assumption, as BK was one of the worst), we come to an overall figure for the Rhineland camps of 39,729. While hardly James Bacques claims of 700,000 to 1,000,000, it is substantially higher than the American Army's figures, or the later German Governments findings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.203.107.122 (talk) 02:04, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Table of Prisoner of War casualties per nation

I would like to delete the table of prisoner of war casualties as WP:Undue, and WP:NPOV. Can it be shown to have any relevance to the camps?

Note, e.g. Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II only covers acts during the period of war, not the subsequent occupation, see the talk page archives for the apparent consensus on this.

E.g. the table purportedly shows "The total death rate for POWs in World War II were as follows:". If that is accurate then I have 2 big issues with it. WW2 in Europe ended in May 1945. The camps lasted April - September 1945. Of what relevance is casualty rate tables from a previous time period when the U.S. had relatively few prisoners? It wasn't until the war was over really large numbers of Germans surrendered, see for example[2]. Can you show that the table for casualties for "POWs in World War II" also covers the mainly post-war period that the camps existed in? If not then the table is misleading and should be deleted as such.

Also, the word POW, i.e. Prisoner of War shows that the table is not applicable. Many of the prisoners in these camps were not Prisoner of War, they were Disarmed Enemy Forces, i.e. DEF when the conditions were at their worst. I.e. making a comparative table purportedly showing casualty rates of POW's during the war wholly inapplicable in an article mainly dealing with the period after the war when at times large parts of the inmates were not even counted as POW's. --Stor stark7 ^Speak 18:44, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I also find the table dubious, though I had mainly thought of other reasons. It is based on a single source, which may or may not be more valid than others.? From the table at the top of the article you get a range of .157% to 1% for the camps the article is about, so the number in the table further down is even below the lower bound. Knopffabrik (talk) 15:14, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The table includes Disarmed Enemy Forces in the number of POWs and the low numbers for British and American camps in that table are cited by historians as evidence that DEFs were not treated badly. See Bischoff, Ambrose and Bohme. It comes from a RS so is relevant. Wayne (talk) 14:37, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

"Regansburg" picture

There is a picture with the line "Women held in the Third U.S. Army prisoner of war enclosure at Regansburg, Germany. May, 1945". There is a German city called Regensburg (with an e instead of the a). But it's very far from the Rhine, so why should a picture be in the article about the Rhine meadow camps? Knopffabrik (talk) 15:18, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

US historian Arthur L. Smith

The German version quotes a "US historian Arthur L. Smith": The suffering caused by Americans and the maltreatment that often led to death as well as the inhuman conditions of German prisoners of war in the Rhine meadow camps were a war crime. - This was by no means explicable as a result of the war, a shameful chapter in history that was never investigated by the US government. (retranslated from German).
Arthur L. Smith, Die „vermißte Million“. (The missed million) Zum Schicksal deutscher Kriegsgefangener nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Band 65, S. 39, 49, 86; im Auftrag des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte hrsg. von Karl-Dietrich Bracher, Hans-Peter Schwarz, Horst Möller, Oldenbourg Verlag München 1992, ISBN 3-486-64565-X
Institut für Zeitgeschichte that publishes the magazine to me makes a very reliable impression, and the article here says the magazine is one of the most important publications of German historical research. Knopffabrik (talk) 16:13, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Photo

The photo of the bony soldiers on the page of the International Red Cross gives an impression of the camps very different from the one of the photos here: [3] It's from a camp in France though. Knopffabrik (talk) 16:41, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, only one of the pictures here show individuals clearly, and that is some women in May 8th 1945. Presumably very recently captured. The picture from the Red cross comes from a site that states that "The ICRC made approaches to the authorities of the four occupation zones and, in the autumn of 1945, it received authorization to send both relief and delegates into the French and British zones. On 4 February 1946, the ICRC was allowed to send relief into the American zone" If we make the assumption that the French withheld the Red Cross from access to German prisoners also in France then that picture will have been taken maybe 4 months later, at the earliest. You can get plenty hungry in 4 months. Actually the prisoners might even be prisoners of the US Rhinecamps, since the U.S. gave the French maybe 740,000 to use as they pleased. The French seem to have missplaced 290,000 of them.[4] Also hungarians were treated in the same way. See HUNGARIAN PRISONERS-0F-WAR IN FRENCH CAPTIVITY 1945 - 1947 One Hungarian I met actually told me that Hungarians had it worse in France than in Russia.

--Stor stark7 ^Speak 17:13, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The statement by the general about "making it tough on these SOBS" may partly explain why prisoners were not released in time for the harvest,but let us remember what the article said about "fear of Werewolf activity". It should perhaps be noted that the early policy of preventing German economic recovery was motivated not just by vengeance but by the understandable feeling that Germany had to be kept weak for the safety of Europe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaron Carine (talk • contribs) 13:23, 5 February 2011 (UTC) The German historian Christof Straub contests the assertion that Germans were prevented from bringing food to the prisoners. According to him,Eisenhower permitted churches to feed the prisoners. An American veteran cited in Eisenhower and the German POWs said that townspeople brought food to the camp he was stationed at. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaron Carine (talk • contribs) 14:47, 5 March 2011 (UTC) Was your uncle certain that a death rate of 17 per day continued for the entire spring and summer? Statistics based on decades old memories must be approached with caution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.193.85 (talk) 12:28, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

In 1945 the Le Monde newspaper published several articles about conditions in the camps and reported a death rate exceeding 21%, the newspaper stated; "As one speaks today of Dachau, in ten years people throughout the world will speak about camps like Saint Paul D'Eyjeaux". On July 10, 1945 the Americans handed over Dietersheim camp to the French military. On taking command, Captain Julien wrote: "This is just like the photographs of Buchenwald and Dachau." The U.S. Army's surgeon general described some of the camps as resembling Andersonville Prison in 1864 and noted "extensive malnutrition". Lt. Colonel Henry W. Allard, the commander in charge of the DEF camps in France, stated "The standard of the PW (POW) camps in the ComZ (U.S. rear zone) in Europe compare as only slightly better, or even, with the living conditions of the Japanese PW camps our men tell us about". These contemporary records support widespread hunger. Some ignored orders not to provide food but several U.S. soldiers have said that they risked being punished for allowing it.. 211.26.122.6 (talk) 15:07, 12 March 2011 (UTC)