---
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title: "Other Losses: An Investigation into the Mass Deaths of German Prisoners at the Hands of the French and Americans after World War II"
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# Other Losses: An Investigation into the Mass Deaths of German Prisoners at the Hands of the French and Americans after World War II

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Other Losses caused an international scandal when first published in 1989 by revealing that Allied Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower’s policies caused the death of some 1,000,000 German captives in American and French internment camps through disease, starvation and exposure from 1944 to 1949, as a direct result of the policies of the western Allies, who, with the Soviets, ruled as the Military Occupation Government over partitioned Germany from May 1945 until 1949. An attempted book-length disputation of Other Losses , was published in 1992, featuring essays by British, American and German revisionist historians (Eisenhower and the German POWs: Facts Against Falsehood , edited by Ambrose & Günter). However, that same year Bacque flew to Moscow to examine the newly-opened KGB archives, where he found meticulously and exhaustively documented new proof that almost one million German POWs had indeed died in those Western camps. One of the historians who supports Bacque’s work is Colonel Ernest F. Fisher, 101st Airborne Division, who in 1945 took part in investigations into allegations of misconduct by U.S. troops in Germany and later became a senior historian with the United States Army. In the foreword to the book he states: “Starting in April 1945, the United States Army and the French Army casually annihilated about one million [German] men, most of them in American camps … Eisenhower’s hatred, passed through the lens of a compliant military bureaucracy, produced the ­horror of death camps unequalled by anything in American military ­history … How did this enormous war crime come to light? The first clues were uncovered in 1986 by the author James Bacque and his ­assistant.” This updated third edition of Other Losses exists not to accuse, but to remind us that no country can claim an inherent innocence of or exemption from the cruelties of war.

Review: The Greatest War Crime Never Told - In the waning days of World War II in Europe millions of Wehrmacht soldiers were fleeing westward in order to surrender to the Americans and British whom they assumed would give them better treatment than the vindictive Russians closing in from the east. Little did they know that they were walking into a trap that would seal the fate of many of them. In this excellently documented and reasoned book Canadian historian James Bacque takes a look at those fateful days and the inevitable tragedy that resulted in the needless deaths of upwards of one million German prisoners. He takes us behind the scenes to the planning and policy making occurring in the American high command and demonstrates convincingly that what happened was no fluke, but rather deliberate mass murder. If Bacque is right, and I believe he is, then this is the single greatest war crime committed by American soldiers in American history. And they almost got away with it too. For more than forty years this war crime sat hidden in U.S. Army records obscured by bureaucratic euphemisms such as Other Losses which forms the title of this book. Even today the Pentagon is still covering up the facts by claiming that Other Losses means transfers of prisoners to other commands. And some of the world's most renowned World War II historians such as Stephen Ambrose have participated in this cover-up. Bacque takes us into the prison camps themselves using eyewitness testimony by some of the German prisoners who survived their ordeal and also eyewitness testimony by their American camp guards. Germans were herded by the thousands into open pens surrounded by barbed wire and prison towers. Only a few tents were provided. Most prisoners sat on the ground which turned to mud when the rains of spring came to Germany. There was inadequate food, inadequate water, inadequate shelter, and virtually no medical supplies. The prisoners soon started dying of dysentery, pneumonia, malnutrition, and other causes brought on by their exposure to the elements and lack of proper care. And all of this was the result of deliberate policy set forth by none other than General Dwight Eisenhower, the highest ranking American general in the European theater. But this war crime went even above Eisenhower straight to President Roosevelt and his Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau who devised the infamous Morgenthau plan which intended to de-industrialize Germany and thereby kill off several tens of millions of Germans. Bacque shows us secret orders such as the one issued by Eisenhower on March 10, 1945 which created the new classification of DEF (Disarmed Enemy Forces). Unlike the POW (Prisoner Of War) classification Germans prisoners classified as DEFs would have no protection under the Geneva convention. The German government would be responsible for feeding German prisoners with the DEF classification even though Eisenhower knew full well that after May 8, 1945 there would be no German government. But the orders went even further. German civilians were forbidden to bring food or clothing to the camp inmates on pain of being shot and Bacque provides us the exact public notice which was posted for this. Not only did Eisenhower and some of his subordinates (Hughes, etc.) carry out this atrocity but they made sure that it stayed secret for more than forty years. By using bland, euphemistic terms such as Other Losses in official Army reports they could cover up their war crimes. Very few people ever challenged them on it. Journalists were for the most part happy to go along with the party line and so the greatest war crime in American history lay undisturbed for James Bacque to find in the 1980's, more than 40 years later. Reading these accounts is all so horrible. To think that we have been looking up to and honoring people like Eisenhower, Roosevelt, and Marshall all these years who now turn out to be war criminals just turns my stomach. And just like Uncle Joe Stalin, they all got away with these crimes. Not a single one of them was ever punished for what they did. What I cannot understand is why there was not an out-and-out revolt by the lower ranking American officers and enlisted men to protest this mass murder. This is certainly not the greatest generation of Americans, not if they participated in mass murder like this. Bacque's book should puncture any illusion you may have about World War II being the "Good War". All wars are nasty and total wars are even more nasty than usual. Our war "leaders" don't think twice about lying to us and misleading us in order to build up their own egos. I highly recommend this book. This is a MUST READ for anyone interested in World War II.
Review: Other Losses is a Very Revealing Book - James Bacque does an excellent job of documenting his claim that the Allies, led by the United States of America, intentionally starved to death approximately one million German prisoners of war. Not only does Bacque quote from German survivors of the camps, but he quotes a large number of American guards and officers who witnessed the German POW deaths. These Americans include Martin Brech, Daniel McConnell, Major-General Richard Steinbach, Lieutenant Colonel Henry W. Allard, Colonel Philip Lauben, Colonels James B. Mason and Charles H. Beasley, Captain Ben H. Jackson, General Mark Clark, Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Pollack, Sergeant Merrill W. Campbell, Captain Frederick Siegfriedt, Lieutenant Arthur W. von Fange, and a couple of American officers who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. The Red Cross was prevented from providing food and shelter to the German POWs even though these were readily available. The German POWs were not provided tents or housing, and many died from exposure to the elements. Most of the German POWs were intentionally given inadequate food, and many died from slow starvation. Since Eisenhower and his associates at SHAEF controlled the media, pictures and stories from these camps were not allowed to reach the media. Eisenhower showed the piles of dead bodies at Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen and other German camps at the end of the war, but the pictures of dead bodies at the American-run German POW camps were not allowed to reach the public. James Bacque ends his outstanding book with an appeal for tolerance and understanding. Bacque states: "Surely it is time for the guesswork and the lying to stop. Surely it is time to take seriously what the eye-witnesses on both sides are trying to tell us about our history. All over the Western world, savage atrocities against the Armenians, the Ukrainians and the Jews are known. Only the atrocities against the Germans are denied. Are Germans not people in our eyes?"

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #511,370 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #18 in 20th Century Canadian History #976 in German History (Books) #2,187 in World War II History (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.7 out of 5 stars 205 Reviews |

## Images

![Other Losses: An Investigation into the Mass Deaths of German Prisoners at the Hands of the French and Americans after World War II - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81AGPzQkK4L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Greatest War Crime Never Told
*by T***G on March 14, 2014*

In the waning days of World War II in Europe millions of Wehrmacht soldiers were fleeing westward in order to surrender to the Americans and British whom they assumed would give them better treatment than the vindictive Russians closing in from the east. Little did they know that they were walking into a trap that would seal the fate of many of them. In this excellently documented and reasoned book Canadian historian James Bacque takes a look at those fateful days and the inevitable tragedy that resulted in the needless deaths of upwards of one million German prisoners. He takes us behind the scenes to the planning and policy making occurring in the American high command and demonstrates convincingly that what happened was no fluke, but rather deliberate mass murder. If Bacque is right, and I believe he is, then this is the single greatest war crime committed by American soldiers in American history. And they almost got away with it too. For more than forty years this war crime sat hidden in U.S. Army records obscured by bureaucratic euphemisms such as Other Losses which forms the title of this book. Even today the Pentagon is still covering up the facts by claiming that Other Losses means transfers of prisoners to other commands. And some of the world's most renowned World War II historians such as Stephen Ambrose have participated in this cover-up. Bacque takes us into the prison camps themselves using eyewitness testimony by some of the German prisoners who survived their ordeal and also eyewitness testimony by their American camp guards. Germans were herded by the thousands into open pens surrounded by barbed wire and prison towers. Only a few tents were provided. Most prisoners sat on the ground which turned to mud when the rains of spring came to Germany. There was inadequate food, inadequate water, inadequate shelter, and virtually no medical supplies. The prisoners soon started dying of dysentery, pneumonia, malnutrition, and other causes brought on by their exposure to the elements and lack of proper care. And all of this was the result of deliberate policy set forth by none other than General Dwight Eisenhower, the highest ranking American general in the European theater. But this war crime went even above Eisenhower straight to President Roosevelt and his Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau who devised the infamous Morgenthau plan which intended to de-industrialize Germany and thereby kill off several tens of millions of Germans. Bacque shows us secret orders such as the one issued by Eisenhower on March 10, 1945 which created the new classification of DEF (Disarmed Enemy Forces). Unlike the POW (Prisoner Of War) classification Germans prisoners classified as DEFs would have no protection under the Geneva convention. The German government would be responsible for feeding German prisoners with the DEF classification even though Eisenhower knew full well that after May 8, 1945 there would be no German government. But the orders went even further. German civilians were forbidden to bring food or clothing to the camp inmates on pain of being shot and Bacque provides us the exact public notice which was posted for this. Not only did Eisenhower and some of his subordinates (Hughes, etc.) carry out this atrocity but they made sure that it stayed secret for more than forty years. By using bland, euphemistic terms such as Other Losses in official Army reports they could cover up their war crimes. Very few people ever challenged them on it. Journalists were for the most part happy to go along with the party line and so the greatest war crime in American history lay undisturbed for James Bacque to find in the 1980's, more than 40 years later. Reading these accounts is all so horrible. To think that we have been looking up to and honoring people like Eisenhower, Roosevelt, and Marshall all these years who now turn out to be war criminals just turns my stomach. And just like Uncle Joe Stalin, they all got away with these crimes. Not a single one of them was ever punished for what they did. What I cannot understand is why there was not an out-and-out revolt by the lower ranking American officers and enlisted men to protest this mass murder. This is certainly not the greatest generation of Americans, not if they participated in mass murder like this. Bacque's book should puncture any illusion you may have about World War II being the "Good War". All wars are nasty and total wars are even more nasty than usual. Our war "leaders" don't think twice about lying to us and misleading us in order to build up their own egos. I highly recommend this book. This is a MUST READ for anyone interested in World War II.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Other Losses is a Very Revealing Book
*by J***R on December 13, 2012*

James Bacque does an excellent job of documenting his claim that the Allies, led by the United States of America, intentionally starved to death approximately one million German prisoners of war. Not only does Bacque quote from German survivors of the camps, but he quotes a large number of American guards and officers who witnessed the German POW deaths. These Americans include Martin Brech, Daniel McConnell, Major-General Richard Steinbach, Lieutenant Colonel Henry W. Allard, Colonel Philip Lauben, Colonels James B. Mason and Charles H. Beasley, Captain Ben H. Jackson, General Mark Clark, Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Pollack, Sergeant Merrill W. Campbell, Captain Frederick Siegfriedt, Lieutenant Arthur W. von Fange, and a couple of American officers who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. The Red Cross was prevented from providing food and shelter to the German POWs even though these were readily available. The German POWs were not provided tents or housing, and many died from exposure to the elements. Most of the German POWs were intentionally given inadequate food, and many died from slow starvation. Since Eisenhower and his associates at SHAEF controlled the media, pictures and stories from these camps were not allowed to reach the media. Eisenhower showed the piles of dead bodies at Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen and other German camps at the end of the war, but the pictures of dead bodies at the American-run German POW camps were not allowed to reach the public. James Bacque ends his outstanding book with an appeal for tolerance and understanding. Bacque states: "Surely it is time for the guesswork and the lying to stop. Surely it is time to take seriously what the eye-witnesses on both sides are trying to tell us about our history. All over the Western world, savage atrocities against the Armenians, the Ukrainians and the Jews are known. Only the atrocities against the Germans are denied. Are Germans not people in our eyes?"

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Valuable addition to WWII history
*by E***D on July 4, 2001*

Mr. Bacque is to be congratulated for publishing this book which describes the fate German soldiers who had surrendered to General Eisenhower's forces at the end of WWII. They had expected to be treated according to the Geneva convention governing the conduct of armies in regard to captured enemy personnel. This was not to be the case. As Mr. Bacque points out an entire new category of "Disarmed Enemy Forces", DEF, was created. Its only purpose was to avoid having to feed and house these millions of ex-soldiers and thereby bypass the Geneva convention to which America was a signatory. One may argue about the precise numbers of ex-soldiers who died in these "temporary enclosures" but the fact that inhuman treatment did exist cannot be denied. Neither can the fact that a considerable percentage of them was subsequently given to the French for what is called today "slave labor," albeit this term refers nowadays only to non-German nationals. Readers who may feel negatively about Bacque's revelations should be aware that this treatment of former members of the German army was not just happenstance but the execution of the Morgenthau plan to render Germany harmless forever. The plan was not directed against the German leadership or Nazis, but the German people at large. Mr. Baque makes frequent reference to this unfortunate document but readers, who cannot conceive that U.S. personnel may also carry out atrocities should look at the Document section of Warren F. Kimball's "Swords or Ploughshares? The Morgenthau plan for Defeated Nazi Germany."The book clearly shows that Roosevelt had endorsed a policy of "being hard on Germany" and Eisenhower was in full accord. That you cannot be "hard" on a country but only on its people and that this policy is bound to involve cruelties was not a consideration. The conditions changed only after Eisenhower's return to the U.S. and the appointment of Lucius D. Clay as High Commissioner. He clearly saw that the existing situation, even for the civilian population, made neither military nor political sense. It would merely turn the population to communism because even the Russians fed the people in their zone better than the Americans did. It is also to President Truman's credit that he quietly dropped the Morgenthau plan soon after the Potsdam meeting. As a former member of the Wehrmacht I had become aware of the Morgenthau plan in the winter of 1944-1945 but had regarded it as Nazi propaganda. I had always had high admiration for the principles America stood for and the Morgenthau plan seemed to be in total contradiction to those ideals. As mentioned in my book War and Mayhem I had intended to surrender to the U.S. forces towards the end of the war, but changed my mind on VE day and through the grace of God managed to avoid American as well as Soviet captivity. Having read Mr. Bacque's book I am even more grateful for the good fortune which kept me out of DEF status and instead allowed me to go to medical school within about six weeks after Germany's capitulation. I had no idea about the conditions German ex-soldiers were exposed to in those days, just as I had no idea about what really went on in the Nazi concentration camps until after the war. There are things people just didn't talk about. To "let it all hang out" became popular only in the late sixties and thereafter. But for the sake of historical accuracy both sides need to be heard and Mr. Bacque has done us this service for which he deserves our gratitude.

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