Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Eisenhower and the German Pows: Facts Against Falsehood (Eisenhower Center Studies on War and Peace), by Gunter Bischof and Stephen E. Ambrose. 1992. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge

Another German Guilt Dilution Ploy, Transforming Germans from Perpetrators into Victims, is a Failure

This work examines, and soundly debunks, the claim of James Bacque, who had asserted in his OTHER LOSSES, that the Allies under Eisenhower deliberately starved 800,000–1,000,000 captured German POWs. However, this scholarly work is valuable not only in the refutation of the methodology used by Bacque in his book (and subsequent ones), but also in understanding the fallacious argumentation used by other forms of pro-German revisionism (such as that which insists that 2 million German vertriebene perished during the expulsions from post-WWII Poland).

THE FALLABILITY OF ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Some historians almost make a fetish out of archives, assuming that archival sources automatically trump all other information. They do not. And, even when using archival or other primary sources, one has to be careful. Earlier-written sources are not necessarily more reliable than later-written ones. This owes to the fact that earlier-written sources may be based on incomplete or erroneous information–something which can find rectification in later-written sources. (Rudiger Overmans, p. 169).

THE NONEXISTENT ALLIED EXTERMINATION OF GERMAN POWS

The “missing million POWs” is not only a myth. It is impossible. (Overmans, p. 166). The actual number of German dead in Allied hands, during the relevant time period, does not exceed 56,285 at the very most, and is most likely a small fraction of this number. (Cowdrey, pp. 91-92.). Note that, in military lingo, “losses” can mean very many things, not only deaths.

GERMAN GUILT DIFFUSION: TRANSFORMING GERMANS FROM PERPETRATORS INTO VICTIMS

Is pro-German revisionism, of the type exemplified by Bacque, something intended to reduce the gravity of Nazi crimes by inventing comparable Allied crimes? Bischof thinks so, as he comments: “For Bacque’s treatment of a serious historical issue may ultimately have the far more devious outcome of relativizing the unique German responsibility for the destruction of the Jews by way of constructing a nonexistent American holocaust.” (p. 199). All very true, but Bischof forgets all the non-Jewish genocides conducted by Nazi Germany!

RUSSIAN REVISIONISTS EFFECTIVELY COPY THE GERMAN REVISIONISTS

This entire issue is reminiscent of the one raised by Russian revisionists, who fabricated a “counter-Katyn” in the form of tens of thousands of Russian POWs deliberately starved by the Poles during the 1920 Polish-Bolshevik War. To begin with, unlike the Poles later at Katyn, the Russian captives did not have to be in the position in which they found themselves. Also, there is no evidence of deliberate starvation. The mortality rate of Russians in Polish custody was no higher than expected for POWs in that part of the world at that time.

THE CHARACTER OF REVISIONISTS

The revisionists are essentially the same. They selectively cite facts and make non sequiturs out of them, misinterpret or misrepresent data, use faulty mathematics, ignore contrary evidence, and, when all else fails, invoke conspiracy theories to explain away unwelcome evidence.

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For further refutation of Germans-were-victims historical revisionism, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/odra-nysa-boundary-definitive-work-giertych/