Allied War Crimes in World War II

James Bacques. Other Losses: An Investigation into the Mass Deaths of German Prisoners at the Hands of the French and Americans after World War II. Bolton: Little, Brown, 1999.

Searching for Allied war crimes in World War II is a popular activity among those who, while not wanting to cross over into actual Holocaust denial, still want to point out that the Allies fell somewhat short of white knights of justice. There's plenty of material to work with on that front -- although it's also perilously easy to go a little bit too far:

In Other Losses, Canadian novelist and writer James Bacque makes the disturbing accusation that the Allied prisoner-of-war camps after World War II deliberately killed over a million German prisoners-of-war (POWs), mostly through intentional starvation. It's a frightening claim: after all, if it's true, it would mean that our side engaged in some of the great cruelties that the Axis powers themselves did. We would, in short, be guilty of war crimes. And those war crimes were never investigated and prosecuted. But the claim is more startling than it is supported. There just isn't enough evidence to make me fully persuaded of what Bacque says in this book.

Read the rest of this review on Bukisa.