Minden amit a II. világháborúról és a Harmadik Birodalomról tudni lehet
  • Rundstedt17
    #3971
    "Max. nyilvánosan. Mindenki tudta, hogy ki követte le Katyint. "
    Ugye az amcsi szépségekről megintcsak nem hallottál?
    De tessék a kedvedéért:
    The National Archives in Washington, (D.C.) contains an official document called the Weekly Prisoner of War and Disarmed Enemy Forces Report for the week ending Sept. 8, 1945. It shows that 1,056,482 German prisoners were then being held by the U.S. Army in the European theater, of whom 692,895 were still classified as POWs (Prisoners of War) and the other 363,587 as DEFs (Disarmed Enemy Forces.)

    This latter designation was illegal under international law and completely contrary to the Geneva Convention, to which both the United States and Germany were signatories. A German soldier designated DEF had no right to any food, shelter, or water in fact, to anything. Quite often he did not receive even the basic necessities of life and died within days.

    In the first week of September 1945, 13,051 of the 363,587 Germans died and were listed cryptically as "other losses." This was the equivalent of a death rate of 3.6% per week. At such a rate, all the remaining 350,536 DEFs would have been dead within 28 weeks before the end of the approaching winter.

    The civilian death rate immediately outside the American camps in Germany was about 2% per year, or nearly 100 times lower, despite the greater proportion of older people. Since adequate supplies were readily available to the American troops at all times, this killing seems to have been deliberate.

    As for the 692,895 German soldiers still falsely listed as POWs, the last of them had actually been transferred from POW to DEF status a month earlier on August 4, by order of General Eisenhower. Their death rate quickly quadrupled within weeks, from .2% to .8% per week. Assuming the latter rate for the week ending September 8, about 5,543 of the so-called POWs listed in the report as being alive and in American hands had died that week - all would have died within just over two years.. (The reason this death rate was lower than 3.6% weekly for the longer-term DEFs was simply that the barbaric treatment of the DEFs was cumulative, and that some of the American troops refused to go along with this barbaric treatment.) I recall the winter of 1945, when I was on occupation duty in Japan. A similar order came from our local U.S. military commander who was known for his hatred of all Japanese. It did not come from MacArthur's headquarters in Tokyo. We were not allowed to give food of any kind to Japanese civilians, although many of them were on the verge of starvation. I was commanding a detachment of 28 men, which were guarding a Japanese Quarter Master dump at the little town of Niski'ya'hama, about eighty miles south of Osaka. Food in this storehouse was literally spoiling, yet we were not allowed to share it with the Japanese people. For Christmas rations that year, my detachment received eight sheep carcasses and 28 turkeys, with no refrigeration for storage. Rather than see this food go to waste, I shared it with the starving population, and when word leaked out, I came very close to being court marshaled. It was only the intervention of a high ranking officer from MacArthur's Headquarters which saved me.
    The same thing happened over and over again in Germany, and American officers and servicemen were court marshaled, on Eisenhower's orders, for sharing their rations with the starving Germans.


    Lt. Col. Gordon "Jack" Mohr, AUS Ret.