Ike was a great President

Most of us are babyboomers. I remember like it was yesterday when I was in second grade and when I looked at the president he reminded me of my grandfather who had just died. I remember as a kid the love I had for my President. It was not something my parents taught me......it was spontaneous. LIfe was very good for a kid in 1950s America, and people held our presidents in high regard. Life was simple, but Ike kept us safe, but from the eyes of a child I can see how far this nation has slipped. Simple respect has been replaced by a Saturday Night Live skits where we have lost our way. I think there are kids who are looking at our president the same way I did in second grade....but sadly.....probably not that many.

Ike was a great president but he was a brutal General. After the war Patton was letting German prisoners go home. Ike found out reprimanded him caught the prisoners and along with others, totaling over 100,000 men caged them inside a open area with guards and simply allowed them to starve to death. This story was brought back by the guards that held them there.

I am a rabid student of history, and I had not heard of what you have described. If you have some links which could give me some information, I would appreciate it. There most certainly were atrocities on all sides

http://www.netplaces.com/world-war-ii/the-horrors-of-war/prisoners-of-war.htm

However, if you read the link, you will see that folks faced court martial, and punishment. I would really appreciate links.

http://rense.com/general46/germ.htm

This article says it was a lot more than 100k men.....but that is a problem with history....the grass soon covers over the event and we are left with little proof...I am sure there were no pictures allowed.

The other account I read was a guard and in his camp 100k died.


"...it is hard to escape the conclusion that Dwight
Eisenhower was a war criminal of epic proportions. His (DEF) policy killed
more Germans in peace than were killed in the European Theater."

"For years we have blamed the 1.7 million missing
German POW's on the Russians. Until now, no one dug too deeply ... Witnesses
and survivors have been interviewed by the author; one Allied officer compared
the American camps to Buchenwald."

It is known, that the Allies had sufficient stockpiles
of food and medicine to care for these German soldiers. This was deliberately
and intentionally denied them. Many men died of gangrene from frostbite
due to deliberate exposure. Local German people who offered these men food,
were denied. General Patton's Third Army was the only command in the European
Theater to release significant numbers of Germans.

Others, such as Omar Bradley and General J.C.H. Lee,
Commander of Com Z, tried, and ordered the release of prisoners within
a week of the war's end. However, a SHAEF Order, signed by Eisenhower,
countermanded them on May 15th.

i get tired of typing the same shit... we did this conversation a few weeks ago and no one wanted to discuss results.

Ike was a progressive and came by right out and campaigned openly as such... i give him credit for honesty and toughness. but he was an interventionist... why does he get a pass for iran and nuclear proliferation? there is much more in objective history... i won't waste my time tho.

T, your source is bogus. Yes, there were deaths in American prison camps, and my link shows you that there were also cold blooded murder. My uncle Manfred served in the German army and was a prisoner at the end of the war. My uncle Art served in the American army. My daughter 10 years ago had my Grandmother's letters translated which were sent to my uncle, and my father. She had pure hatred for America because of the bombing of hospitals in Stutgard and the bombing of civilian housing. It was a huge divide in the family as my Uncle Art never reconciled with his brother, and he never saw his mother again as she died of breast cancer in the early 50s. Her letters were powerful and Retired Leo who also was one generation German would share his family views of the war......and yes America was brutal, but my Uncle's treatment was always good under his imprisonment by the Americans, and again, I think there are examples of mistreatment, but this is another huge conspiracy paradigm which is out of proportion to reality.

It was an eye opener to read my grandmothers words. She just kept repeating how could a civilized nation bomb hospitals. I never met my grandmother who died when I was two. I do know that the war created a huge family divide, and my Grandmother begged to see my Uncle Art's children who were older than me, and my uncle just would not have any contact with my Grandmother, and would not even send pictures of the Children and she died a painful death from Breast cancer living with my Uncle Manfred who owned a successful automotive painting company in Stutgard. My father did meet with her in Paris after the war, but his brother would have nothing to do with Manfred, or his mother.

So when I see this fraudulent blogs which extrapolate nonsense from real abuses, it makes me angry. It was a powerful revelation my daughter discovered in those letters, and I had always thought of World War II as a noble American cause.....but from the eyes of those civilians who saw the carnage of friends and family being killed in hospitals.....it is a somber discovery, but to have false nonsense passed as truth........sorry, My Uncle Manfred's experience was closer to the reality, but that is not to deny that cold blooded murder did happen.....it always does, but not on the scale your link suggests.

2seaoat wrote:T, your source is bogus. Yes, there were deaths in American prison camps, and my link shows you that there were also cold blooded murder. My uncle Manfred served in the German army and was a prisoner at the end of the war. My uncle Art served in the American army. My daughter 10 years ago had my Grandmother's letters translated which were sent to my uncle, and my father. She had pure hatred for America because of the bombing of hospitals in Stutgard and the bombing of civilian housing. It was a huge divide in the family as my Uncle Art never reconciled with his brother, and he never saw his mother again as she died of breast cancer in the early 50s. Her letters were powerful and Retired Leo who also was one generation German would share his family views of the war......and yes America was brutal, but my Uncle's treatment was always good under his imprisonment by the Americans, and again, I think there are examples of mistreatment, but this is another huge conspiracy paradigm which is out of proportion to reality.

It was an eye opener to read my grandmothers words. She just kept repeating how could a civilized nation bomb hospitals. I never met my grandmother who died when I was two. I do know that the war created a huge family divide, and my Grandmother begged to see my Uncle Art's children who were older than me, and my uncle just would not have any contact with my Grandmother, and would not even send pictures of the Children and she died a painful death from Breast cancer living with my Uncle Manfred who owned a successful automotive painting company in Stutgard. My father did meet with her in Paris after the war, but his brother would have nothing to do with Manfred, or his mother.

So when I see this fraudulent blogs which extrapolate nonsense from real abuses, it makes me angry. It was a powerful revelation my daughter discovered in those letters, and I had always thought of World War II as a noble American cause.....but from the eyes of those civilians who saw the carnage of friends and family being killed in hospitals.....it is a somber discovery, but to have false nonsense passed as truth........sorry, My Uncle Manfred's experience was closer to the reality, but that is not to deny that cold blooded murder did happen.....it always does, but not on the scale your link suggests.

Right so now you feel all better....don't cha ?..........Guess we fed them cream puffs and Lamb steaks until we could get them all a ride in a carriage home...We Americans would never do any thing wrong....

I just know the truth first hand. I cannot extrapolate and say all prisoners were treated fairly, but you simply have no feel for what was happening at the end of the war as Germans where moving as fast as they could to American zones so they would be captured by the Americans. This was a fact because they did not want to be captured by the Soviets.

I am not feeling good about bombing hospitals. Your world view changes when you read my grandmother's letters. You consistently try to make people aware of the cowardice of dropping bombs on civilians, and I have gut wrenching proof of the same.....not in some distant history book but letters in our family history.......but right is right........the link is bogus, and you should admit the same. That does not mean German prisoners were not abused or in my link cold blooded murdered, but to cast dispersions on Ike on something that did not happen lessens the truth of what did happen....war is brutal, and he was the commander of our military in Europe. The bombing protocols stop at his desk.........

Ike was indeed a very good President and a visionary who saw Americas need for a better highway system than the 2 lane system that comprised the bulk of our highways. Ike was always the gentleman whether in the company of modest or wealthy people. Fishing was one of his passions and he would often visit his friend Howard Young in the north woods and lakes of Minocqua, Wisconsin. Howard Young's estate was a vista, high on the banks of the Tomahawk River. As Ike health started to deteriorate, his friend Howard Young had a motorized chair installed from the hill top down to the boat house so Ike could still go fishing. Lastly, during those simple and prosperous years in America, the top income rate for America's wealthy was in the 90's percent.

I sometimes think my childhood and Ike was all some perfect dream of America.....a dream which never was as perfect as I remember. It was wonderful. Kids really did love the President. He was a golfer too......how can you not like a golfer.......I loved it when he tried to have a tree taken down at Augusta.....and they told him no......I can connect with his sentiments.....I have wanted a great many trees taken down....I have even threatened to sneak in at night with my chain saw......but the problem is they would figure it out.......so I am a big Ike fan.

i bumped the last ike thread in the politics section.

2seaoat wrote:I just know the truth first hand. I cannot extrapolate and say all prisoners were treated fairly, but you simply have no feel for what was happening at the end of the war as Germans where moving as fast as they could to American zones so they would be captured by the Americans. This was a fact because they did not want to be captured by the Soviets.

I am not feeling good about bombing hospitals. Your world view changes when you read my grandmother's letters. You consistently try to make people aware of the cowardice of dropping bombs on civilians, and I have gut wrenching proof of the same.....not in some distant history book but letters in our family history.......but right is right........the link is bogus, and you should admit the same. That does not mean German prisoners were not abused or in my link cold blooded murdered, but to cast dispersions on Ike on something that did not happen lessens the truth of what did happen....war is brutal, and he was the commander of our military in Europe. The bombing protocols stop at his desk.........

There are a lot more accounting of the starving to death of prisoners. I won't waste my time with cocksure people who already know it all because they knew somebody that told them different...

Let's fire bomb Tokyo and what the hell let's vaporize a couple other towns ..it saved lives......

War is good, war makes money ..look how swell things were after WW2 those were the glory days bought by the gory days.....

I won't waste my time with cocksure people who already know it all because they knew somebody that told them different...

On this subject I am far from cocksure, but simply politely asked you for a link. I then read the link. It was bogus. I am not saying that German soldiers were never mistreated by Americans, but that the claim that 100k German soldiers died from American abuse of prisoners after the war is not a fact that can be verified with any reputable source.

Now if you think war is nasty....we agree. If you think Americans did nasty things to civilians.....we agree. If you think that much of the prosperity of the 1950s was a result of our victories at war, we agree. However, if you think Ike in his anger at Germany put into place policies of abuse toward prisoners of war which resulted in 100k German soldiers dying, we disagree.

My answer to that is this poem, believe what you want it takes nothing from me or gives me no satisfaction.

GRASS

by: Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

PILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo,
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

Okay i got a little time while this program runs:....

http://library.flawlesslogic.com/ike.htm

As soon as Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, the American Military Governor, General Eisenhower, sent out an "urgent courier" throughout the huge area that he commanded, making it a crime punishable by death for German civilians to feed prisoners. It was even a death-penalty crime to gather food together in one place to take it to prisoners ... The order was sent in German to the provincial governments, ordering them to distribute it immediately to local governments. Copies of the orders were discovered recently in several villages near the Rhine ... The message [which Bacque reproduces] reads in part: "... under no circumstances may food supplies be assembled among the local inhabitants in order to deliver them to the 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...."


___________________________________________________________

.. The [American] army's policy was to starve [German] prisoners, according to several American soldiers who were there. Martin Brech, retired professor of philosophy at Mercy college in New York, who was a guard at Andernach in 1945, has said that he was told by an officer that "it is our policy that these men not be fed." The 50,000 to 60,000 men in Andernach were starving, living with no shelter in holes in the ground, trying to nourish themselves on grass. When Brech smuggled bread to them through the wire, he was ordered to stop by an officer. Later, Brech sneaked more food to them, was caught, and told by the same officer, "If you do that again, you'll be shot." Brech saw bodies go out of the camp "by the truckload" but he was never told how many there were, where they were buried, or how.

http://www.serendipity.li/hr/german_pow.htm

In Andernach about 50,000 prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire. The women were kept in a separate enclosure I did not see until later. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets; many had no coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for excrement. It was a cold, wet spring and their misery from exposure alone was evident.

Even more shocking was to see the prisoners throwing grass and weeds into a tin can containing a thin soup. They told me they did this to help ease their hunger pains. Quickly, they grew emaciated. Dysentery raged, and soon they were sleeping in their own excrement, too weak and crowded to reach the slit trenches. Many were begging for food, sickening and dying before our eyes. We had ample food and supplies, but did nothing to help them, including no medical assistance.

Outraged, I protested to my officers and was met with hostility or bland indifference. When pressed, they explained they were under strict orders from "higher up." No officer would dare do this to 50,000 men if he felt that it was "out of line," leaving him open to charges. Realizing my protests were useless, I asked a friend working in the kitchen if he could slip me some extra food for the prisoners. He too said they were under strict orders to severely ration the prisoners' food and that these orders came from "higher up." But he said they had more food than they knew what to do with and would sneak me some.

TEOTWAWKI wrote:My answer to that is this poem, believe what you want it takes nothing from me or gives me no satisfaction.

GRASS

by: Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

PILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo,
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

Wow, Teo! Quoting Carl Sandberg, a true Socialist. I'm proud of you.

T, you are smarter than this.....look at the web address....break it down.....this is someone creating a htm. file and posting it on serendipity....geez, are you kidding me. I could create in my frontpage websites a quick down and dirty claim that I saw you conversing with aliens at camp FEMA, post it and then have someone pick up my file and quote it as reality. There have been plenty of scholarly and peer reviewed articles and studies done on the abuses of prisoners of war in World War II and you can find plenty of sources which could be considered valid, but when you post a HTM file from a blog board as scholarly research and post it again and again as if saying it a great many times will make it true....well....I am going to speak up....and as usual you will think I am being a smart asz, but I come here to learn.....and a HTM file from a blog is not learning.

I'm half German on my dad's side, but I think most of my family left Germany either before or immediately after WWI. I can not imagine any of my family members participating in what you describe. However, I have heard first-hand accounts from one of my elderly German neighbors of the hatred directed toward her family here in Pensacola after WWII. I remember no such hatred growing up in South Texas, surrounded by extended family, all of whom were hardworking, friendly and extremely courteous.

Yes, Ike was a great President, Seaoat, but the 1950's were far from idyllic, especially for women and blacks.

I have no doubt that there were some incidences of payback from American GI's to German POW's, but Ike was too moral of a man to have done the things described in your article. I just don't believe it.

2seaoat wrote:T, you are smarter than this.....look at the web address....break it down.....this is someone creating a htm. file and posting it on serendipity....geez, are you kidding me. I could create in my frontpage websites a quick down and dirty claim that I saw you conversing with aliens at camp FEMA, post it and then have someone pick up my file and quote it as reality. There have been plenty of scholarly and peer reviewed articles and studies done on the abuses of prisoners of war in World War II and you can find plenty of sources which could be considered valid, but when you post a HTM file from a blog board as scholarly research and post it again and again as if saying it a great many times will make it true....well....I am going to speak up....and as usual you will think I am being a smart asz, but I come here to learn.....and a HTM file from a blog is not learning.

I was reading about this long before these websites existed.. where there's smoke there's fire. I am sorry to burst your bubble but we are not all that different from Muslims except our god is money and power along with hatred if it serves us. Glad you are doing your own Do Diligence as Margin would call it...

Seaoat brings up a very valid point about listening to the other side of WWII. One time when i was in Japan I was invited to a Japanese friends house. He was almost the same age as me. It was his birthday or something and I was invited for some reason. As we all sat around drinking and talking, it suddenly dawned on me. His Father probably tired to kill my father. I know my Father gave it a good go to get his dad. Here we were 20 years later the sons of 2 people who tried to kill each other and we are friends. I am not a disillusioned fool. I am well aware of the unbelievable brutality and cruelty the Japanese inflicted on others. But it was interesting talking face to face to people who at one time were trying to kill you. Just interesting,,,hard to put in words...

Floridatexan wrote:I'm half German on my dad's side, but I think most of my family left Germany either before or immediately after WWI. I can not imagine any of my family members participating in what you describe. However, I have heard first-hand accounts from one of my elderly German neighbors of the hatred directed toward her family here in Pensacola after WWII. I remember no such hatred growing up in South Texas, surrounded by extended family, all of whom were hardworking, friendly and extremely courteous.

Yes, Ike was a great President, Seaoat, but the 1950's were far from idyllic, especially for women and blacks.

I have no doubt that there were some incidences of payback from American GI's to German POW's, but Ike was too moral of a man to have done the things described in your article. I just don't believe it.

i can imagine you determining people you disagree with as being enemies of the State... taking away their right to arms and free speech. hell... the germans didn't instantly decide that hitler had it right... they were slowly indoctrinated to accept it. you wouldn't even be a challenge.

I have no doubt that there were some incidences of payback from American GI's to German POW's

Go to my earlier link. There are more than a few examples of outright murder of helpless POWs. Machine gunned and left to die like some kind of pest you squash. The court martial of some of the Americans who participated was a joke, and officers who ordered the same got off scott free. No there were abuses. As certain as they sun will rise, there are factual basis for temporary confinement which had prisoners exposed to the elements, without proper waste disposal, and without food.......but the key is duration and intent. The bogus articles extrapolate a little bit of fact into a big lie.....that America starved and killed 100k german prisoners of war.

I took my family twice to Andersonville. It is a moving experience. War is awful, and I am not trying to put whipped cream on crap and telling you otherwise, but I will tell you that Ike was one of the best presidents this country ever had, and because of his vision and hardwork, his leadership contributed to winning the war and bringing prosperity to 1950s America....which from my experience truely were happy days.

I about 1950 a German family moved in next door on K and Romano. He was a engineer for the paper mill. They had not been here too long and they went to the beach. Snow white German Yankees and Pensacola Beach was a disaster. They got severely sunburned. Back then hospitals were not set up for that sort of thing, so all the neighbors , my folks, and others took quits and such and made them a big place to lay on the porch on their house. They laid them all out and every one brough them food and drinks and Ice. I can remember the big blisters the Father and Mother had. No A/c back then. Mom. Dad and 3 children. I think my Mom used vinegar and Butter to treat their sunburn as that was the "in" thing to use. The war had not been over that many years. I dont ever remember anyone giving them grief for being German. One of the boys was my best friend for many many years until I went into the Army. It was only a few years ago that I thought about how soon after the war that all happened.

Another account broader in scope....

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10624.htm


Many of those who were actually taken prisoner may have soon wished they were killed. "Captured Germans held in France under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower were systematically starved," writes David K. Wright while another 676,000 or so German prisoners were shipped to the United States between 1942 and 1946.