"Starting in April 1945, the United States Army and the French Army casually annihilated one million [German] men, most of them in American camps . . . Eisenhower's hatred, passed through the lens of a compliant military bureaucracy, produced the horror of death camps unequalled by anything in American history . . . an enormous war crime."Haven't read enough about Ike to really form an opinion, but he really sounds like WT's kind of guy.-- Col. Ernest F. Fisher, PhD Lt.
101 st Airborne Division, Senior Historian, United States Army
When Germany surrendered in May 1945, the American Military Governor, General Eisenhower, sent out an “urgent courier” with instructions making it a crime punishable by death to feed German prisoners. It was even a capital offence to gather food together in one place to take to prisoners. The message reads in part: “…Under no circumstances may food supplies be assembled among the local inhabitants in order to deliver them to prisoners of war. Those who violate this command and nevertheless try to circumvent this blockade to allow something to come to the prisoners place themselves in danger of being shot…”(1)
This was no idle threat. On July 31st 1945 Agnes Spira was shot by French guards at Dietersheim for taking food to prisoners. In effect this was a deliberate policy to starve the German prisoners of war. Many prisoners and German civilians saw American guards burn food that had been brought to the prisoners. According to one former prisoner who described it recently: “At first, the women from the nearby town brought food into the camp. The American soldiers took everything away from the women, threw it in a heap and poured gasoline over it and burned it.” (2)
(1) Crimes and Mercies, Bacque
(2) Ibid