Michael Korda, in his outstanding new book ("IKE") reminds us that Dwight David Eisenhower was — in fact — “an American hero” in war and peace, as a general and as a president.
In its review of “IKE,” The Washington Post said — accurately — that Eisenhower is a “hero for our times.”
“What can be more appealing today to Americans, divided, trapped in an unpopular and seemingly unwinnable war, than a fresh and inspiring account (Korda’s “IKE") of U.S. leadership in World War II?” The Post reviewer said.
I will take that analogy one specific step further and compare Ike’s decision not to go for Hitler’s Berlin in 1945, and stand it against President George Bush’s catastrophic blunder in occupying Baghdad in 2003.
As Korda points out, Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower had to march against the great Churchill and some of his own generals — Patton and Montgomery — who wanted Anglo-American forces to beat Russia to Berlin in 1945.
Ike said at the time that it had already been decided that the #### capital belonged to the Soviets, and that even if the U.S. had taken Berlin, we would have had to give it back to Stalin the moment the war was over.
As Korda writes, Ike’s mission in Europe “was simply to defeat Germany once and for all,” not to lose precious American soldiers’ lives in the unstrategic Battle of Berlin.
In 1953, then president, Ike returned testily — for him — to the Berlin issue eight years after the end of the war.
It would have taken 10,000 U.S. servicemen’s lives to capture the German capital, a sacrifice mothers, fathers and sweethearts would not have wanted to make “for an unworthy objective,” Ike said in ‘53.
Ike was not president in 1945, and we did go into Berlin.
Darn, what was Ike up to then? Holding a birthday party for John McCain in San Diego? Trying to find out where Jenna’s china pattern is registered? And who was it, then, that halted the American troops at the Elbe? Jane Fonda?
Ike was not president in 1945, and we did go into Berlin.
Darn, what was Ike up to then? Holding a birthday party for John McCain in San Diego? Trying to find out where Jenna’s china pattern is registered? And who was it, then, that halted the American troops at the Elbe? Jane Fonda?
Ike was busy killing German POWs. According to Niall Ferguson the rate of death for German POW’s U.S. Camps was 4 times higher than the rate for those who surrendered to the British. In his book, “Other Losses” James Bacque claimed that Ike killed over 750,000 German POWs. According to Bacque, Ike reclassified the POWs so that the Geneva convention rules woudn’t have to be followed.
What would you say if today if the US were killing the terrorists at that rate and in that manner, BJ?
In his book, “Other Losses” James Bacque claimed that Ike killed over 750,000 German POWs. According to Bacque, Ike reclassified the POWs so that the Geneva convention rules woudn’t have to be followed.
What would you say if today if the US were killing the terrorists at that rate and in that manner, BJ?
A) If we were killing terrorists at that rate, we would not have been in Iraq longer than we were in WWII. We are creating new terrorists through our occupation, unfortunately.
B) The Bacque claims about Ike “killing” captured Germans are wrong. Stephen Ambrose: “When scholars do the necessary research, they will find Mr. Bacque’s work to be worse than worthless.”
C) Ike did reclassify the POWs after the war to Disarmed Enemy Forces in order to feed them through the postwar food shortage. This is not the same kind of gripe that any of us have heard related to post 9/11 allegations of prisoner abuse. On the Bacque charges, Ambrose writes:
In short, Mr. Bacque is wrong on every major charge and nearly all his minor ones. Eisenhower was not a Hitler, he did not run death camps, German prisoners did not die by the hundreds of thousands, there was a severe food shortage in 1945, there was nothing sinister or secret about the “disarmed enemy forces” designation or about the column “other losses.” Mr. Bacque’s “missing million” were old men and young boys in the militia.
Nevertheless, Mr. Bacque makes a point that is irrefutable: some American G.I.’s and their officers were capable of acting in almost as brutal a manner as the Nazis. We did not have a monopoly on virtue. He has challenged us to reopen the question, to do the research required, to get at the full truth. For that contribution, he deserves thanks.
Eisenhower also ended the Korean conflict with the threat of nuclear bombing.
Well, maybe. The US and USSR change of administrations may have also helped reach the armistice breakthrough. Just months before Panmunjom, Stalin died, and N. Korea had begun to doubt that it would have continuing USSR support. So both sides were looking for a solution, though they all still talked their tough lines (Eisenhower maintaining Truman’s previous nuclear threats) and made military incursions, until China signaled its willingness to cooperate with UN proposals on POW repatriation. The talks on that issue became, in due course, peace talks.
In his book, “Other Losses” James Bacque claimed that Ike killed over 750,000 German POWs. According to Bacque, Ike reclassified the POWs so that the Geneva convention rules woudn’t have to be followed.
What would you say if today if the US were killing the terrorists at that rate and in that manner, BJ?
A) If we were killing terrorists at that rate, we would not have been in Iraq longer than we were in WWII. We are creating new terrorists through our occupation, unfortunately.
B) The Bacque claims about Ike “killing” captured Germans are wrong. Stephen Ambrose: “When scholars do the necessary research, they will find Mr. Bacque’s work to be worse than worthless.”
C) Ike did reclassify the POWs after the war to Disarmed Enemy Forces in order to feed them through the postwar food shortage. This is not the same kind of gripe that any of us have heard related to post 9/11 allegations of prisoner abuse. On the Bacque charges, Ambrose writes:
In short, Mr. Bacque is wrong on every major charge and nearly all his minor ones. Eisenhower was not a Hitler, he did not run death camps, German prisoners did not die by the hundreds of thousands, there was a severe food shortage in 1945, there was nothing sinister or secret about the “disarmed enemy forces” designation or about the column “other losses.” Mr. Bacque’s “missing million” were old men and young boys in the militia.
Nevertheless, Mr. Bacque makes a point that is irrefutable: some American G.I.’s and their officers were capable of acting in almost as brutal a manner as the Nazis. We did not have a monopoly on virtue. He has challenged us to reopen the question, to do the research required, to get at the full truth. For that contribution, he deserves thanks.
Good try Bobby. Problem for your argument is that we lost over 292,000 American soldiers in that short war. Hell we lost 12,000 in Okinawa and another 7,000 on Iwo Jima. Of course that doesn’t fit in to your BDS agenda, so you’ll not want to discuss what a great job our military, under Bush, has done in Iraq.
I wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock in what Ambrose says, I’ve read a lot of people who say his work is bunk.
Either way, the number of German POW deaths is fact.
So why did the German POWs in US care die at a rate 400% higher than those in British care?
AND AGAIN...What would you say if today if the US were killing the terrorists at that rate and in that manner, BJ?
We’re not doing a very good job creating new terrorists through our occupation because al qaeda is having to beg for supporters to help them in Iraq.
Looks like you’re wrong on all counts...again.
Either way, the number of German POW deaths is fact.
I don’t agree with your premise. There were no bodies to back up Bacque’s theory.
Then you mention Al Qaida recruiting terrorists, and claim that proves they are not using Iraq as a training ground. It proves no such thing, and could very well illustrate the opposite.
Either way, the number of German POW deaths is fact.
I don’t agree with your premise. There were no bodies to back up Bacque’s theory.
Then you mention Al Qaida recruiting terrorists, and claim that proves they are not using Iraq as a training ground. It proves no such thing, and could very well illustrate the opposite.
This guy claims to be a witness and disagress with you;
It would be possible for me to remain skeptical about reports of German prisoners of war being starved to death after World War II, as Stephen E. Ambrose advises in his essay, if I had not witnessed this myself. I can confirm that numbers of prisoners were dropping dead in the summer of 1945. My Air Force squadron, in which I served as a navigator with the rank of Second Lieutenant, was transferred after V-E Day to a giant air base at Istres in the south of France, where we helped ferry American troops home.
Beyond the makeshift tents in which we lived, prisoners of war were working at restoring the damaged runways (for the Germans had wrecked everything when they left). They slept in the open air and were fed two bowls of soup a day, which seemed fair to us at the time, since the prisoners in their concentration camps had received a similar ration. These were scrawny, undersized men, nothing like what we had expected German soldiers to look like. I have no knowledge of a million of them dying of starvation, but under the blazing sun on the stony airfield that summer, and with such a minimum diet, it was not surprising that two or three dropped dead every day. There were luckier prisoners who worked in the kitchens, where they ate out of the garbage cans, though that was forbidden and the punishment was severe.
I do not feel ashamed of our role in the war to defeat Hitler, but it cannot be denied that in the passions that struggle aroused, we sometimes slipped over the boundary of civilized behavior and resembled to some extent what we were fighting against. EDWARD FIELD New York
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE5DF143BF937A25757C0A967958260
So does this guy…
Stephen E. Ambrose’s assertion that the terrible events involving German prisoners of war in 1945 were the result of circumstances beyond control is flippant and shows reckless disregard for historical facts. I was a German prisoner of war in Rheinberg in April 1945. I survived this camp only because of my youth and the fact that the British took control of the camp from the Americans and Eisenhower, who, according to James Bacque, denied the Red Cross access to us.
I found it ironic that during the Persian Gulf war, the Americans challenged the Iraqis to allow the Red Cross access to American prisoners of war. If only German prisoners had been afforded the same privilege in 1945. GUENTER SOEGTROP Toronto
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE7DC173BF937A25757C0A967958260
and this guy…
Having been a prison officer at an American P.O.W. camp in late 1945 and early 1946, I was well aware of the poor treatment accorded the German prisoners and the resulting deaths from malnutrition and dysentery.
For 45 years I have lived with the memories of prisoners collapsing in formation and of dead bodies being carried past my office. I have no idea how many died where I was, and a recent visit to the campsite gave no indication of where the dead were buried.
I was saddened that Mr. Bacque pinned the responsibility squarely on Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mr. Bacque pointed out the failure of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin to come to any consensus on what to do with Germany after the war. The results were evident in how unprepared the United States Army was to deal with the millions of prisoners and displaced persons that became its responsibility. Added to this was the political pressure applied by Congress to “get our boys home,” leaving undermanned P.O.W. camps and untrained personnel to screen and accommodate refugees and prisoners alike.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE6D6163BF937A25757C0A967958260
and this one…
I witnessed the atrocities Stephen E. Ambrose tries to deny or gloss over in his essay. In the spring of 1945 I was a United States Army prison guard at Andernach, on the Rhine.
Mr. Ambrose mentions in passing that German prisoners of war “were beaten, denied water, forced to live . . . without shelter, given inadequate food rations and inadequate medical care. Their mail was withheld.” But then he focuses only on the alleged food shortage. He doesn’t address the other deprivations: were there also tent, blanket, clothing, medical and mailman shortages? There was certainly no water shortage; we were right on the Rhine, yet we denied the prisoners sufficient water. Maddened with thirst, some of them crawled under the wires and ran toward the river in open fields in broad daylight while American guards machine-gunned them.
A friend in the camp kitchen showed me our abundant supplies and admitted we could feed the prisoners more. When I threw some of my surplus rations over the wires to them, I was threatened with imprisonment. I protested to my officers, and they said the starvation diet was ordered by “higher-ups” and was general policy. MARTIN BRECH Mahopac, N.Y.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE4DE173BF937A25757C0A967958260
