Anyone Read This Book?
by sammielee24 4 Replies latest jw friends
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sammielee24
- The book "Gruesome Harvest," should be on the mandatory highschool and college reading list for history and sociology.
- It is one of the few books that are available in English that address the murder of millions of non-combatant German civilians and German prisoners of war from 1944 to 1950 as a matter of deliberate allied policy not inefficient logistics as it is most often presented in school text books.
- It is important because this book was written as it was still happening and includes comments from eye witnesses in the same time period. The book is not politically correct and shocked me because it speaks in a such a predudicial fashion about persons of the black race.
- That however in this point makes it useful to sociologist and historians because it correctly reflects widely held opinion at the time within U.S. society.
- As to the correct observation that allied policy was to reduce the German population through, murder in multiple forms, slave labor, and starvation, and destroy the fabric of the society through mass rape of the female population, other authors are critized for saying the same thing but only decades later.
- Fact is there is a great effort to keep this information from the public because it shows that the victors of WWII incorporated not only military strategy and tactics but also the NAZI ideology of racial hatred and a policy of extermination and discrimination for one people.
- Four million persons perished because of the ethnic cleansing carried out by, Russians, Poles, Czechs, and Serbs according to the former German Prime Minister Konrad Adenauer,
- Five million Germans starved to death in occupied Germany according to estimates by the Canadian James Bacque, and 2 million German Soldiers died in allied captivity often while performing slave labor in Auschwitz like - and worse - conditions.
- General Eisenhower prohibited the German Public from sharing their own meager rations with detained German soldiers on pain of death. Hence from 1944 until 1948 a U.S. and Russian Holocaust for the Germans was on going.
- For more information on this topic see books by the following authors: James Bacque (Other Losses) (Crimes and Mercies), Alfred M. de Zayas (Die Wehrmacht-Untersuch ungstelle) and (The Nemisis of Potsdam), Guido Knopp (Die Gefangenen), Erich Kern and Karl Balzer (Allierte Verbrechen and Deutschen). A similarly important historical document is the book titled (Alliierte Kriegsverbrechen) which translates to "Allied War Crimes".
- It is a collection of historical information of eyewitness experiences of hundreds of Allied war crimes.
- This information was written down in 1946 by German Soldiers held prisoner in Camp 91 in Darmstadt by U.S. forces.
- Lawyers for the defense hoped to bring some of this information as evidence and perhaps for mitigation to the Nüremberg Tribunal but the it was not permitted. In fact the Commander of Camp 91 attempted to collect and destroy all copies of this book.
- That is why it is important that as many people read the afore mentioned books as possible. They need to be translated into English and widely read so that the fairy tale of WWII as the last "Good War" can finally be put to rest .
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ssn587
The Victors are always the good guys, just ask em, My two Uncles were over there for part of that after WWII ended, they said the Americans took many casulaties from German soldiers who didn't surrender and from individuals acting in guerilla war fashion, so it was on both sides, there wasn't a lot of fellow feeling for the Germans at that time either. One has to take into account the prejudical outlook of the now captives, germans, now that the war was over. I bet there aren't too many books bitching about all the money poured in there in American held territority. Have a good friend who was a German prisoner of war from Poland, he speaks of how his parents were killed when Germany invaded their country, and as a young boy he was put in work camps and farms and finally mines, was on the way to more internment when freed by the Russians and was able to escape them also and worked his way to the American held territory. He had many experiences, and he often talked about the German soldiers who didn't surrender and were attacking the Americans and others before being killed, imprisoned, or they just stopped out of sheer frustration of not being able to inflict significant casulaties on the Americans. He worked his way up and was at the Nueremberg (spelling) trials and according to him and his brother gave evidence against the Germans there. The irony of his experiences was that upon arriving in the U.S. during the early 50's, he ended up marrying a woman of German/Polish ancestry.
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sammielee24
I never believe one side only so I like to read stories from all sides. Too much gets left out and I especially like to read first hand accounts from 'normal' people.
I know German families who lived there during the war and their point of view is so different - starvation, poverty, rapes and death and to read of the Dresden massacre and such and understand the rationale behind it, one tends to view all politicians and the stories after as somewhat suspect. The best documentary that I saw on the Russian involvement and Stalinism was Blood on the Snow. A long one but with real footage taken at the time - it was very interesting.
sammieswife.
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restrangled
Sammielee, I am very anxious to read this book. It's the first I have heard of it.
I have traveled to Germany many times. It was always hard to believe all the horror that took place within that country. After reading the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The 900 Days, among others.... I have no doubt.
I visited Daukau. It was just outside this beautiful little town. Daukau was walled in, and the entire time I kept thinking, How could the town's people not hear and know what was going on?
Then I heard the tale of several towns people trying to look over the fence, were caught and shot to death by the Nazi's as a warning for everyone else.
I still felt disgusted with every German.....until we lived through the Bush/Cheney regime.
I then realized, as a citizen who never voted for either, I will be judged by the world for what they have done. They were close to being as dirty as Hitler in my opinion, and yet as a citizen, I had no say until 2008.
It is a frightening prospect. The world looks at us as American citizens and we did nothing for 8 years.
We may never live down the Bush Administration, just like Germany never lives down Hitler.
r.
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yknot
Sad sad sad........
How exactly do people live with themselves after direct participation?