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dead-german-soldiers-ww2
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 being held by the U.S. Army in the European theater, of whom 692,895 were still classified as POWs, and the other 363,587 as DEFs=Disarmed Enemy Forces.
This designation was illegal under international law and completely contrary to the Geneva Convention. In the first week of September 1945, 13,051 of the 363,587 Germans died and were listed cryptically as "Other Losses." At this rate, all remaining 350,536 DEFs would have been dead within 27 weeks before the approaching winter.
-------------------------------
Source US National Archives,
In 1944: Eisenhower told the British ambassador to Washington that the 3,500 officers of the German General staff should be ''exterminated.'' He also favored the liquidation of perhaps 100,000 prominent Germans.
April 17, 1945: The Americans opened their enormous Rheinberg Camp, six miles in circumference, with no food or shelter whatsoever. As in the other big "Rhine meadow" camps, opened in mid-April, there was initially no latrines and no water. In some camps, the men were so crowded they could not lie down. Meanwhile, at Camp Kripp, near Remagen, the half-American Charles von Luttichau determines that his German comrades are receiving about 5% as much food as their captors." Complaining to the camp commander, who stated: ''Forget the Geneva Convention. You don't have any rights."
http://www.canadaatwar.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=2398
Late April 1945: Heinz Janssen, a survivor of the Rheinberg camp, described conditions as they were at the time. "Amputees slithered like amphibians through the mud , soaking and freezing. Naked to the skies day after day and night after flight, they lay desperate in the sand of Rheinberg or sleep exhaustedly into eternity in their collapsing holes.''
Late Summer, 1945: Jean-Pierre Pradervand, head of the International Red Cross delegations in France, told Henry W. Dunning, an American Red Cross official, that conditions in the French camps are worse, in many instances, than anything seen in the former Nazi camps. Pradervand showed Dunning pictures of the living skeletons. Dunning explained all this to the American Red Cross in Washington, which informed key government officials. Nevertheless, the cover-up continued.
1947 - 1950's: Nearly all the surviving records of the Rhineland death camps were destroyed. The West German government concluded that 1.7-million German soldiers were alive at the wars' end, and who were known to have been in fair health, and disappeared. The Western Allies pinned virtually all the blame on the Soviets.
1950: The first German edition of ALLIERTE KRIEGSVERBRECHEN is published. Never translated into English, the book gives eye-witness descriptions of the horrific deplorable conditions which prevailed in the American camps.
This designation was illegal under international law and completely contrary to the Geneva Convention. In the first week of September 1945, 13,051 of the 363,587 Germans died and were listed cryptically as "Other Losses." At this rate, all remaining 350,536 DEFs would have been dead within 27 weeks before the approaching winter.
-------------------------------
Source US National Archives,
In 1944: Eisenhower told the British ambassador to Washington that the 3,500 officers of the German General staff should be ''exterminated.'' He also favored the liquidation of perhaps 100,000 prominent Germans.
April 17, 1945: The Americans opened their enormous Rheinberg Camp, six miles in circumference, with no food or shelter whatsoever. As in the other big "Rhine meadow" camps, opened in mid-April, there was initially no latrines and no water. In some camps, the men were so crowded they could not lie down. Meanwhile, at Camp Kripp, near Remagen, the half-American Charles von Luttichau determines that his German comrades are receiving about 5% as much food as their captors." Complaining to the camp commander, who stated: ''Forget the Geneva Convention. You don't have any rights."
http://www.canadaatwar.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=2398
Late April 1945: Heinz Janssen, a survivor of the Rheinberg camp, described conditions as they were at the time. "Amputees slithered like amphibians through the mud , soaking and freezing. Naked to the skies day after day and night after flight, they lay desperate in the sand of Rheinberg or sleep exhaustedly into eternity in their collapsing holes.''
Late Summer, 1945: Jean-Pierre Pradervand, head of the International Red Cross delegations in France, told Henry W. Dunning, an American Red Cross official, that conditions in the French camps are worse, in many instances, than anything seen in the former Nazi camps. Pradervand showed Dunning pictures of the living skeletons. Dunning explained all this to the American Red Cross in Washington, which informed key government officials. Nevertheless, the cover-up continued.
1947 - 1950's: Nearly all the surviving records of the Rhineland death camps were destroyed. The West German government concluded that 1.7-million German soldiers were alive at the wars' end, and who were known to have been in fair health, and disappeared. The Western Allies pinned virtually all the blame on the Soviets.
1950: The first German edition of ALLIERTE KRIEGSVERBRECHEN is published. Never translated into English, the book gives eye-witness descriptions of the horrific deplorable conditions which prevailed in the American camps.