Other Losses charges that hundreds of thousands of German prisoners that had fled the Eastern front were designated as "Disarmed Enemy Forces" in order to avoid recognition under the Geneva Convention (1929), for the purpose of carrying out their deaths through disease or slow starvation.
The title of Other Losses derives from a column of figures in weekly U.S. Army reports that Bacque states actually reflects a body count of German prisoners that died of slow starvation or diseases.
[2] Other Losses states that Eisenhower sought to sidestep the requirements of the Geneva Convention through the designation of these prisoners as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEF), specifically stating that "in March, as Germany was being cracked ... a message was being signed and initialed by Eisenhower proposed a startling departure from the Geneva Convention (GC)—the creation of a new class of prisoners who would not be fed by the Army after the surrender of Germany.
No agencies were allowed to visit the camps or provide any assistance to the prisoners,[13] including delegates from ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), which was a violation of the Geneva Convention.
"[17] The book quotes Dr. Konrad Adenauer (later Chancellor of Germany) stating that "The German prisoners have been penned up for weeks without any protection from the weather, without drinking water, without medical care.
"[18] Both J. P. Pradervand (ICRC French Delegation) and Henry Dunning (American Red Cross) sent letters to the State Department condemning the poor treatment of the German prisoners.
[30] It states that Eisenhower purposefully starved German prisoners given that "[t]here was a lot more wheat available in the combined areas of western Germany, France, Britain, Canada and the USA than there had been in the same year in 1939.
[39] In the introduction to a book later published containing each panellists' papers, Steven E. Ambrose noted that Bacque is a Canadian novelist with no previous historical research or writing experience.
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 Volkssturm (People's Militia) released without formal discharge and transfers of POWs to other allies control areas.
In short, Eisenhower faced shortages even before he learned that there were at least 17 million more people to feed in Germany than he had expected not to mention all of the other countries in war-ravaged Europe, the Philippines, Okinawa and Japan.
[41] Historians Gunter Bischof and Brian Loring Villa stated that a research report from the panel "soundly refuted the charges of Other Losses, especially Bacque's fanciful handling of statistics.
The eight scholars who gathered in New Orleans and contributed to Eisenhower and the German POWs: Facts against Falsehood (1992) refuted Bacque's wily misinterpretations of statistics and oral history evidence in detail.
The mountain of evidence has been building that Bacque's charge of the "missing million" supposedly perishing in the American (and French) POW camps in Germany and France is based on completely faulty interpretation of statistical data.
To sum up: Eisenhower was not a Hitler, he did not run death camps, German prisoners did not die by the hundreds of thousands, there was indeed a severe world food shortage in 1945, there was nothing sinister or secret about DEF designation or about the Other Losses column.
[44] Villa states that Bacque only adds two "novel" propositions: first, that the number that died was in the hundreds of thousands, and seconds, that these deaths were the result of deliberate extermination on the part of Eisenhower.
"[44] Bischof concludes that just the application of common sense alone refutes many of the most "fantastical charges" of Bacque, such as asking the question "How could a single man order one million men killed without being caught in the heinous act?
[43] Bischof notes that, in his later American edition of Other Losses, Bacque discredits the document as a fake "with a further fantastic twist in his convoluted cycle of conspiracy theories, he claims that Eisenhower and the army 'camouflaged' dead POWs/DEFs by listing them as 'discharged Volkssturm.
[55] Overmans states that Bacque's claim that the 800,000 to 1,000,000 missing prisoners were originally German soldiers that fled from the east into western hands contradicts Soviet POW evidence "well established that we can exclude the idea of an extra million hiding somewhere in the figures.
"[9][59] Villa states that "[p]erhaps realizing that he already has a thesis involving a massive American conspiracy, Bacque is careful to exclude British officers from any participation or even knowledge of the crime.
"[59] Villa notes that Bacque ignores that SHAEF was a fully integrated Anglo-American command, and many of Eisenhower's top officers were Britons who would have also had to cover up the conspiracy.
[59] Villa states that Bacque did not even need to read books to realize this, "all he had to do was to look at the pictures: in slightly more than half the portraits contained therein, the staff officers wear British uniforms.
"[60] Villa stated regarding the plausibility of the claims in Other Losses that "The impossibility of Bacque's selective crime thesis—[that the poor treatment was solely carried out by Americans]—becomes all the more evident when one examines the basic decisions affecting occupation policy.
"[65] Historian Gunter Bischof states that it is simply "outrageous to dismiss this vast and impressive body of scholarship as being designed to produce 'soothing conclusions' for the German public, as Bacque puts it.
"[67] As an example, Bischof states that Bacque charged that General Mark Clark's raising of caloric intake in the Ebensee camp was "trying to exculpate himself before history" of Eisenhower's scheme to exterminate Germans.
[49] Tent stated that Bacque also misleadingly cited only part of a June 1945 war report that 630,000 tons of imported wheat would meet the minimum German civilians minimum food requirements, leaving the reader thinking that the food shortage could easily be solved by United States shipments, without informing the reader of an accompanying report that the Allies brought in 600,000 tons of grain, and that it was quickly used up.
'"[80] Bischof states "the opposite is true", citing the large amounts of U.S. Army GARDA Aid, without which "German and Austrian civilians would have had a much tougher time surviving the hunger months of 1945 and 1946.
[84] Villa concludes that "[a]ll Bacque had to do was look for the EAC draft surrender terms mentioned in the cable—these can readily be found in the standard collection of printed United States Diplomatic documents.
When the KGB opened its archives in the 1990s, 356,687 German soldiers and 93,900 civilians previously recorded as missing were found to be listed in the Bulanov report as dying in the Soviet camps.
[102] The historian Niall Ferguson claims a significantly lower death rate of 0.15% for German POWs held by Americans, less than every other country except for fellow allied power Britain.