In the U.S. Army prison camps of Germany and France at the end of World War 11, almost four million German soldiers were held prisoner outdoors, in unsheltered barbed wire enclosures, with little or no food or water, for months on end. Of these captives at least 750,000 died of malnutrition and disease. Most were soldiers of the Wehrmacht who had surrendered to allied forces in May 1945, but scores of thousands were women, children, and old men. Most of these deaths were listed simply as 'other losses.'

The Canadian journalist, author and researcher, James Bacque interviewed hundreds of prisoners, guards and army officers' and has amassed extensive evidence to reveal the shocking story of a massive crime.

The tragic events reported in his book Other Losses are highly controversial and the author's accusations were for a time suppressed in the United States.

The Independent on Sunday says, "This is a great and grim masterpiece of investigative journalism, unmasking one of the most successful cover-ups in modern history.' The Jersey Evening Post was equally damning. "This is not a pleasant book and its revelations are so awful that many find them hard to accept . . . the book tells the dreadful story of prisoners of war who had outlived the war but did not outlive the peace."

Martin Brech who was a soldier in the U.S. Army and a prison guard for one of America's death camps situated along the Rhine, says. "I saw thousands of men crowded together, wet and cold, sleeping in the mud without shelter or blankets, eating grass because we fed them so little, dying. It was made clear that our deliberate policy was not to feed them adequately. They were begging, getting sick, dying before us. Gas would have been more merciful than our slow killing fields."

General Bernard L. Montgomery, commander of the British Eighth Army was very much a reflection of his 'desert fox' foe, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. He too was regarded as something of a maverick, a nonconformist who adopted his own dress code and was famous for leadership panache. Parallels have also been drawn between Montgomery and that other 'son of the desert', Lawrence of Arabia.

Like Lawrence, Montgomery had a keen nose for self-publicity of a hero-worshipping kind. He was adept at making 'off the cuff remarks' guaranteed to make the headlines back home. "Hit the enemy for six!" was a favorite. Another was 'Kill the Germans, even padres – one per weekday and two on Sundays."

Always uncomfortable with pomp and pageantry he had a sense of walking with destiny. Whether that was on the good or bad side is open to speculation.

To his credit he was instrumental in turning a Nelson's eye during the final days, which allowed tens of thousands of fleeing German civilians to escape Stalin's slaughter.

Of the notorious Nuremberg pseudo trials he was scathing. "The Nuremberg Trials have made the waging of an unsuccessful war a crime; the generals on the defeated side were tried and then hanged." - Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery June 9th 1948.

Winston Churchill suffered from an ambiguous sexuality and so was his choice of political allegiance. Upon his appointment as war leader of the coalition government Winnie surrounded himself with people of dual nationality and many Labour Party activists.

His wartime cabinet included no less than sixteen Labour Party members. The Labour Party, which had spent decades denouncing World War One as 'a senseless blunder of rival capitalisms' (correct) was now bawling for another capitalist war. The voice of their most eloquent agitator was none other than Harold Laski the prominent Labour Party mentor.

 

Between mid-1940 (The U.S. didn't enter the war until December) and late 1941 Congress appropriated an awesome $23 billion for the War Department. That was more than the combined total the U.S. had spent on the entire First World War budget.

The Second World War offered riches far beyond any mogul's dreams. Over half of Britain's Tory Members of Parliament had shares in armaments factories and stood to become mega-rich in the event of war.

The Comptroller General of the Unites States, Lindsay C. Warren testified before the House of Representatives in 1943 and 1944. He revealed that 'more than £50 billion of slush had already been skimmed off some war contracts, and that extensive lobbying on the part of war production firms was going on, conducted by officers after leaving the armed forces."

Congressmen were on a roll (or wad, whichever you prefer). They fell over themselves getting war contracts and sub-contracts to constituent entrepreneurs. In return they received lavish campaign contributions, votes and other back-handers.

Many British and American firms became international conglomerates as a direct result of war profiteering. Nondescript politicians emerged from the war with fortunes made from investments in the arms industry, paid for of course with the expendable blood of each country's youth. Rather reminds one of the words of Rudyard Kipling, who lost his beloved son in World War One.