"How three million Germans died after VE Day" Topic

"Giles MacDonogh is a bon viveur and a historian of wine and gastronomy, but in this book, pursuing his other consuming interest – German history – he serves a dish to turn the strongest of stomachs. It makes particularly uncomfortable reading for those who compare the disastrous occupation of Iraq unfavourably to the post-war settlement of Germany and Austria.

MacDonogh argues that the months that followed May 1945 brought no peace to the shattered skeleton of Hitler's Reich, but suffering even worse than the destruction wrought by the war. After the atrocities that the Nazis had visited on Europe, some degree of justified vengeance by their victims was inevitable, but the appalling bestialities that MacDonogh documents so soberly went far beyond that. The first 200 pages of his brave book are an almost unbearable chronicle of human suffering.

His best estimate is that some three million Germans died unnecessarily after the official end of hostilities. A million soldiers vanished before they could creep back to the holes that had been their homes. The majority of them died in Soviet captivity (of the 90,000 who surrendered at Stalingrad, only 5,000 eventually came home) but, shamingly, many thousands perished as prisoners of the Anglo-Americans. Herded into cages along the Rhine, with no shelter and very little food, they dropped like flies. Others, more fortunate, toiled as slave labour in a score of Allied countries, often for years. Incredibly, some Germans were still being held in Russia as late as 1979…"
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Amicalement
Armand

As one of the reviewers at Amazon wrote:

"What I found particularly disturbing was the author's attempt to have us believe that the Nazi death camp Auschwitz was the same Auschwitz the Allies used as a POW camp for arrested Nazi leaders and subordinates. It may have been physically the same place, but the POW camp was obviously not a death camp where Nazi perpetrators were gassed and burned."

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I think it sums up pretty well what we can expect.

A rather more balanced view was a fairly recent BBC documentary- whose title evades me at the moment. Sad all the same, but magnanimity when your oppressors become losers is hardly likely in all cases.

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"Savage peace" if you can find it somewhere.

Beware.

Long ago read Innocence Lost a story of a young German girl during and at end of the war. The Victor's were not merciful, Pole's confiscated property and Russian's whole scale besides all other atrocities took German citizens ( men and women)for slave labor afterthe war.

Il you read a lot of books on the argument, you can think that MacDonogh makes mistakes but certainly does not overestimate the numbers. Obviously, the BBC can not provide a more objective point of view.

I don't have to read a book, I had relatives that still lived in Germany after the war. I've heard the stories.

When you try to take over the World, and eliminate, through the most evil tactics ever imagined, entire races of people, what the Hell do you expect? And we learn nothing…

you can think that MacDonogh makes mistakes but certainly does not overestimate the numbers

That is what he needs to prove, but doesn't. He uses anecdotic evidence and then extrapolates to get a number that is based on nothing but hearsay and personal narratives. That is sloppy analysis and highly suspicious of dilettantism, not just a mistake.

Mind that personal narratives and reminiscences might be excellent historical sources. However, they must be treated with great caution by the historian, trying at every step of the analysis to contrast them with other sources, both direct, as generated by the occupation armies, as indirect, like taxes returns, population census, claims for housing help, school enrolment, abortions, marriages, ecc. Then, and only then, you can propose a number. That is not what MacDonogh does. He takes diaries and letters at face value, which diminish them as tools of analysis. His book rather than an analysis of the Germans plight in the first years after the war is a narrative of how the Germans who suffered the trauma of defeat and occupation remembered those years.

Agree with Ceterman – Germany never paid for her crimes – Western Allies should have stopped at the Rhine River and let the Russians enact their revenge.

The Amazon reviews seem to confirm that the book makes some good points, but is badly written. Can anyone recommend a book on the same topic that is better?

I want to learn more about this, but am still concerned about
"the poor Germans" thing, given that my family is Polish and experienced "the poor Germans" up close and persona.

A lot of the Germans' victims were Germans too.

"When you try to take over the World, and eliminate, through the most evil tactics ever imagined, entire races of people, what the Hell do you expect?"
I guess that doesn't apply if your a Soviet.
I disagree with the matter of personal narratives. I would take the word of someone who lived it before a "historian". Too many tend to leave out what they don't want to hear. And too many have a personal axe to grind.
I'd say several million old ladies and young girls would disagree with you Torokchar. I think they paid a pretty high price. I think the POW's that never left Siberia paid a pretty high price. If FDR had his way they would have all paid that price. But I guess you'd be in favor of that.

And while we are giving victims their shot at revenge perhaps the Poles and all of the other Central and Eastern Europeans get their shot at the Soviets.

Of course if you let them go first, there would be a lot fewer Soviets to conduct their revenge.

I disagree with the matter of personal narratives. I would take the word of someone who lived it before a "historian".

Really? Regardless of how memory distorts past experiences or the agenda of the narrator? And mind that I am not saying that a memoir should be disregarded. What I am saying is that it should be contrasted with other sources, to clean it up as much as possible of the bias of the narrator. Check how sir Richard Evans uses personal memoirs in his monumental history of the Third Reich; or how uses them Nicholas Stargardt in his brilliant "The German War". Both are excellent examples of how memoirs and personal narratives must be used by the researcher.

"I disagree with the matter of personal narratives. I would take the word of someone who lived it before a "historian". Too many tend to leave out what they don't want to hear. And too many have a personal axe to grind."

Theres a bloke I go for the odd pint with who crossed the Rhine in a Sherman tank, as a radio operator. After a beer or two is very happy to tell the story of his experiences during the war. When the War Museum sent someone round to interview him he was very happy to tell them his story too.

I have a recording of the War Museum interview- the story he tells them is very different from the one he tells his mates in the pub. The truth is that everyone edits the story they tell to suit their audience, often without realising it.

Antony Beevor's 'Berlin: The Downfall 1945' is very good on the topic of the immediate atrocities of the Red Army, and so is Nikolai Tolstoy's book 'The Victims of Yalta' regarding the fate of Russians and White Russians post 1945 (hint: death, and suffering, mostly).

It's a topic that does tend to be glossed over, because apparently two wrongs make a right where the ethnic cleansing of, say, East Prussia, is concerned.

Beevor's book is very readable and very well written/researched. God it's a depressing subject though.

Regardless of sides and who did what, there is always a cost in the blameless and innocent.

"Ho visto morire Konigsberg. 1945-1948. Memorie di un medico tedesco." Hans Deichelmann " I saw Konigsberg die. 1945-1948. A German doctor's memories" could be a good start.

"Only a fool hates their own." Common and considered "intellectual" today?

Regards
Russ Dunaway

To suggest that any one person can have personally experienced the suffering of 3 million lost lives is rather an ambitious bit of recollection, don't you think?

That does not mean that the suffering of an individual is not meaningful to historical examination. But if you think that you can listen to 1, or 20, or 130 people tell you of their struggles, and from that accurately derive how many hundreds of thousands suffered, without all of that study and analysis of the documents and the demographics that fall within the work of historians, then I am saddened greatly. It is further evidence of a generation who prefer self-imposed ignorance over the hard work of learning.

It would be fair to suggest misinterpretations or bias in the writings of history. That is why historians continue to examine and consider periods of history that are already covered by historical accounts. If the popular history is missing something, make the case!

But to dismiss the work of historians on the premise that if you talked to a handful of people you know more about the reality and complexity faced by 100s of millions of people than those who have researched, studied, and analyzed the accounts and accounting of thousands and thousands … to me it is no different than the NBA star saying that the world if flat because, well, everywhere he looks it looks flat, so that whole earth is round thing just doesn't make sense to him.

Tragic …

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Here are two other books on the subject:

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This one concentrates on Eastern Europe,during and after the war:

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Mark -The problem is to listen to those voices that are not part of the choir (of the winners)

Personal recollections have their place but to suggest they some how are more relevant then well researched, objective study really puts the cart before the horse. Individual recollections begin to change almost immediately after the events they are supposed to recall. Ask any police officer who steps into a crime scene and and interviews the witnesses. Though they have just experienced the exact same event if there are 20 witnesses there will be at least 20 versions of just what happened. Further, interview those same 20 a week later and you will have 20 new remembrances.

Eye witness accounts can be invaluable, but only if taken into context. One thing they do especially well is add a human face to what otherwise may be a rather dry recitation of the facts.

so in hindsight starting a world war and murdering millions of innocents was a bad idea?

Is there a historians consensus on this topic?
When I see this brought up online, it's usually pretty agenda driven.

Mark -The problem is to listen to those voices that are not part of the choir (of the winners)

I disagree.

The "problem" is not "to listen to those voices that are not part of the choir". The "problem" is that too few people understand, know how to assess, and recognize the value in intellectual discipline.

If you have a story which is "not part of the choir", you can integrate that voice in to the choir if you present your case with some discipline. The vast majority of academics, of historians (in this case -- but also of biologists or physicists or doctors or chemists or …) will respond to well presented conclusions backed by assertions of well researched, independently verifiable facts.

That's how intellectual discipline works. If you want to influence the "intellectuals", don't offer your opinions and say "trust me I know what I'm talking about" or "I met a guy who told me and it seems to make sense to me".

I find it difficult to accept the hypothesis that this "voice" (about Europe in the aftermath of WW2) is "missing". I find many books written on the topic. Some of them are well researched and well written. If this voice is in fact "missing" from the choir, it is because we have a choir (the general public) that has too little appreciation for intellectual discipline, rather than too much intellectualism.

Some authors address this particular topic with notable intellectual discipline. Others do not. I have not read the books in question (yet -- although I might well pick one or two up after this thread). But I suggest looking at the differences in the editorial reviews to illustrate my point.

Review of the book in the OP, "After the Reich"

Journalist and historian MacDonogh … gives a gripping, if choppy account of the occupation while portraying Truman, Churchill and Stalin at Potsdam as squabbling over the spoils as feral children scrabbled through the ruins.

Review of the first of two links provided by Hafen von S, "Savage Continent"

Lowe's work, thoroughly researched and written with scrupulous objectivity, promises to be the year's best book on European history.

If the reviewers are to be believed, it is clear which author approaches the subject as a historian. And so I can see which author's conclusions I am more likely to believe.

Notice how neither review says "I don't believe the conclusions of this book because I don't trust the author" or "I believe the conclusions because this author is a good guy". Notice that the reviews look at the methods and material presented by the authors. That's the best way to assess whether the conclusions are reasonable.

If the BBC presents something, please don't tell me it's invalid because the BBC can't be unbiased. Tell me what's wrong with their analysis, or with their research. If there's nothing wrong with either, then their conclusions are worthy of consideration EVEN IF they are the BBC.

I have much respect for those who are willing to believe uncomfortable truths when they are presented with good evidence, and a grave concern for western culture that is coming to be dominated by those who believe what they find convenient or comfortable or easy to believe.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Intellectual discipline has steps that sometime can't be followed. When? When you search for facts that many interests seek to hide, having the means to do so, having time (70 years), having legions of historians or aspirants. The "method" of the researcher in these cases may, as an exception, be incomplete but always interesting. I would like to point out that certain truths are missing, according to the method, of all the necessary confirmations, for example we do not have any documents from the German State where it will explicitise the extermination of the Jews. The BBC is a television network of one of the countries considered responsible for those deads; I do not think it is the best point of view for objectivity, the more that the country does not prove to be in peace with its past as it keeps many documents secret.

for example we do not have any documents from the German State where it will explicitise the extermination of the Jews.

Are you not aware of the Wannsee Protocols?
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for example we do not have any documents from the German State where it will explicitise the extermination of the Jews.

Are you not aware of the Wannsee Protocols?

Or the Generalplan Ost?
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How about the blueprints for the Auschwitz Extermination Camp?
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Or a report written by SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Gricksch for SS-Col. von Herff and Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler, after inspection of Auschwitz camp on 14-16 May 1943?
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If there are not enough "documents from the German state", historians also have the documents from all of the "Ultra" decodes … the Germans were quite meticulous in reporting the activities of their Sonderkommandos on the Eastern Front in 1941 and 42, before the "death camps" were in full operation.

There are also the records of the German national railroad. And the records of US, British, and Russian army units that overran various camps, and of the US and British medical teams that rushed in to try to save the lives of the retched inmates. Then there are the reports of the evaluation teams that went over the facilities top-to-bottom to gather information.

Overall, the Nazi extermination campaigns are probably the most widely and completely documented "crimes" in the whole of human history. Some hundreds of thousands of documents, many (most?) of which are available to almost anyone who puts any effort into finding them.

But I'm sure you can find someone who says "yeah, but there's no documentary evidence" if you look hard enough.

And by the way, even if there were no "documents from the German state", following the disciplines of intellectual rigor does not mean accepting only one official source of information! It means examining MANY available pieces of information.

The key is not cherry picking only those sources that agree with your pre-conceived notions, or accepting only the limited observations of any one person or few people that you are "comfortable" with -- but examining many sources and basing your conclusions on the weight of credible evidence, rather than what you want to believe.

There will always be outlying data points -- there is ALWAYS someone who disagrees. The processes of the historian never resolve to "the only truth is contained in the official document, and no other voice will be tolerated". (If it did, then from that moment on all historians would be out of work!)

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Wannsee's protocols, if taken literally, give me a reason. The accusation does not have one document in which the will to kill is explicitly stated. The method of the historian, however, since it is the object of the discourse, seems to be not challenged.

Did you bother to read the supporting data?

"Despite the euphemisms which appeared in the protocols of the meeting, the aim of the Wannsee Conference was clear to its participants: to further the coordination of a policy aimed at the physical annihilation of the European Jews."

This was confirmed through a number of interviews with individuals, the exact same type of recollections which you place so much faith in.

Wannsee's protocols, if taken literally, give me a reason. The accusation does not have one document in which the will to kill is explicitly stated.

Did you bother to read the supporting data?

Whether he read the supporting data or not does not change his statement.

There is some validity to his point. It is a caution to those who have only select points of reference on the holocaust. If one looks only at the minutes of the Wannsee Conference, everything is stated in euphemism. There is no specific "official document" saying "kill them".

The method of the historian, however, … seems to be not challenged.

This is the other half. This is why I make reference to intellectual discipline. Let someone spoon feed you their selected references, and it is not difficult to distort reality. Follow up with some of the work of a historian, looking beyond someone else's narrative on history and investigating many sources, and notably as many primary sources, as you can access, and more the validity of the narrative may be revealed to you.

So for example, in the link I provided above about a report written by a report written by an SS Sturmbannfuhrer on the operations at Auschwitz, we have an effective "Rosetta Stone", an actual government document that helps us translate some of the euphemisms used during the holocaust:

They go down five or six steps into a fairly long, well-constructed and well-ventilated cellar area, which is lined with benches to the left and right. It is brightly lit, and the benches are numbered. The prisoners are told that they are to be cleansed and disinfected for their new assignments. They must therefore completely undress to be bathed. To avoid panic and to prevent disturbances of any kind, they are instructed to arrange their clothing neatly under their respective numbers, so that they will be able to find their things again after their bath. Everything proceeds in a perfectly orderly fashion. Then they pass through a small corridor and enter a large cellar room which resembles a shower bath. In this room are three large pillars, into which certain materials can be lowered from outside the cellar room. When three- to four-hundred people have been herded into this room, the doors are shut, and containers filled with the substances are dropped down into the pillars. As soon as the containers touch the base of the pillars, they release particular substances that put the people to sleep in one minute.

Note that this passage clearly describes the "cellar", and the concept that it is presented as a shower or both area. But it is all "substances" that are dropped into the pillars, and all it does it "put the people to sleep".

Selected spoonfeeding can make even this passage from a primary document seem innocuous, unless one does further investigation …

A few minutes later, the door opens on the other side, where the elevator is located. The hair of the corpses is cut off, and their teeth are extracted (gold-filled teeth) by specialists (Jews). It has been discovered that Jews were hiding pieces of Jewelry, gold, platinum etc., in hollow teeth. Then the corpses are loaded into elevators and brought up to the first floor, where ten large crematoria are located. (Because fresh corpses burn particularly well, only 50-100 lbs. of coke are needed for the whole process.)

So what were a bunch of people being "put to sleep" have not been identified as a bunch of "fresh corpses" that move up to the 1st floor where the crematorium are located. Oh. Yeah, now we can translate, with good credible source material some of the euphemisms.

This source is correlated by other primary source materials. Fore example in a letter from SS Sturmbannfuehrer Bischoff, dated March 6 1943, he discuses:

… order of 6/3/1943 concerning the delivery of a gas tight door 100 x 192 cm for cellar I of Krematorium III, to be produced to the identical pattern and dimensions as the cellar door of Krematorium II which is situated opposite…

So the cellars beneath the crematoriums can now be identified as having "gas tight doors."

There are multiple communications logs ordering shipments of Zyklon B (originally developed as an insecticide) to Auschwitz describing it as "material for special treatment" or as a necessary material for "resettlement of the jews".

So yes, there are ample government documents available. But those of nefarious intent can spoon-feed a select set of passages to build a narrative which does not reflect the actual events. The historian does not accept any one other person's interpretation, but rather goes to many sources, as many primary as he can access, to build as full a picture of the actual events in history as he can.

One of the things I find so alarming in today's populist discourse is the dismissal of this process, the enthusiastic adoption of anti-intellectualism by those who prefer to be spoon fed ideologically-driven narratives, and who do not have any inkling of how to judge it's credibility beyond whether they do or don't "like" the source.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

It seems that you are more interested in demonstrating the truthfulness of the extermination of Jews than not taking notice of a clear fact that greatly justifies the possibility that interesting arguments can not have all the verifiers normally required, for such apparent reasons.I have no intention of dealing with that argument, which I have just mentioned as an example. I've read enough to know what people are talking about and do not like.

Costanzo1 I am afraid you mis-interpret my purpose for posting.

As many others on this forum will attest, and as you can see if you examine my history of posting on many topics, I tend to be rather expansive (long winded?) in my postings. If our topic was Sherman tank production, or Panther tank reliability, or industrial production, or German vs. Russian operational art, I would similarly have presented a fairly long set of primary source materials, and shown how I interpret the linkage between them.

In this case, in this thread, I did not post with the intent of "demonstrating the truthfulness of the extermination of Jews" over the topic we were addressing at the time. Rather, I used the subject of the extermination of Jews (introduced to the discussion by others), to illustrate the meta issue of how the historian's discipline works, which was, I think, what we were discussing.

To do this I expanded, with primary source documentation, the reasonable perspectives offered in this posting of yours:

Wannsee's protocols … does not have one document in which the will to kill is explicitly stated. The method of the historian, however, since it is the object of the discourse, seems to be not challenged.

I accepted the first statement, that the Wannsee Prototols do not in fact make any explicit statement about killing.

I then provided an illustration of the second statement, why the method of the historian is not challenged by this.

To do that I followed the method I described earlier:

If you have a story which is "not part of the choir", you can integrate that voice in to the choir if you present your case with some discipline. The vast majority of academics, of historians (in this case -- but also of biologists or physicists or doctors or chemists or …) will respond to well presented conclusions backed by assertions of well researched, independently verifiable facts.

Since this subject (the holocaust) had been raised by others, I took the example and expanded, through examination of primary source documents, how a historian would reach conclusions that the "choir" would accept.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

I am not of your opinion, my example show as in a crime the assassin can not be determined without evidence and confession, but only with clues. Historical research is largely incomplete in that sense, but through clues historians come to a conclusion.

So perhaps it is I who have mis-interpreted you. I thought the injection of the holocaust into our discussion was merely an example to use in discussing the methods of the historian. Is there some further reason that you chose to add this topic to the discussion?

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

NO, there is not.