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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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102389
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10238900.064
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1990-09-22
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LETTERS, Page 6POW Ordeal
As a former German prisoner of war, I dispute the claims made
by James Bacque, author of Other Losses, that the U.S. deliberately
mistreated German POWs (NATION, Oct. 2). After being captured on
April 11, 1945, I was an inmate of three different camps, all near
the Rhine. Yes, life was very tough for us during that miserably
cold, wet spring, as it was for millions of other soldiers and
civilians across Europe. Yes, we dug holes for protection against
wind, rain, sleet and snow, and we stood for hours and entire
nights ankle-deep in mud. But it was every German soldier's fervent
hope to become a prisoner of war of the U.S. Army. My experience
from those days tells me that the U.S. did its best to keep alive
the millions of Germans captured during the last weeks of the war.
W. John Koch
Edmonton, Alta.
At the very end of World War II, my unit was assigned to a site
in Germany that, it became clear, was to be a POW camp. As soon as
I arrived, in came a train loaded with about 2,000 German POWs. We
had no water. We had no food. We had no shelter or other supplies
for the prisoners. And every now and then, another trainload would
arrive. In a short time, several thousand POWs were in our charge.
It was cold and uncomfortable. We had no clothing or medical
supplies -- nothing that could assist these men. One has to
understand that the U.S. Army was faced with many thousands of
German soldiers anxious to stay out of the hands of the advancing
Soviet army. The Germans ran, not walked, to the nearest American
G.I. to surrender.
Virgil V. Becker
San Marino, Calif.
I witnessed cruel treatment practiced against German prisoners
by the Americans in Germany in World War II. As a U.S. sergeant,
I saw an American soldier kill a German officer because he did not
want to give up his watch and wedding ring.
Merrill W. Campbell
Pottsboro, Texas
From May through July of 1945, I was a prisoner of war in three
different Rhine camps. Conditions were very hard, as described by
Bacque, but his mortality figures are fantastically high. The death
of 960,000 POWs held by France and the U.S. would have been a
scandal that none of us could have missed knowing about.
Hans G. Strepp
Hamburg, West Germany
I was an American sergeant who worked as a blacksmith in 1945
in a camp that had many thousands of prisoners. We really did not
capture these soldiers; the remnants of whole armies walked to our
lines. They were a pitiful sight -- wounded, sick, hungry, scantily
clothed, exhausted. They died by the thousands because they were
in terrible condition when they came to us. At the same time, we
were also trying to feed liberated slave laborers from Eastern
Europe. I never saw POWs mistreated, and I do not believe they were
deprived of anything if it was available.
Robert C. Lohman
McHenry, Md.