Rhine meadows killing fields

The murder, rape and plunder of Germany post-WW2

- by John Hamer

Germany's defeat in May 1945 and the end of World War II in Europe did not bring an end to death and suffering for the already vanquished German people.

Instead, the victorious Allies ushered in a terrible new era of destruction, looting, starvation, rape, 'ethnic cleansing' and mass killing.

A recent edition of Time magazine referred to this period as 'history's most terrifying peace'.

The thoroughly devastated German Reich was systematically raped and robbed and many Germans who survived the war were either killed in cold blood or deliberately left to die of disease, cold, malnutrition and starvation.

Some three million Germans died unnecessarily after the official end of hostilities about two million civilians, mostly women, children and elderly and about one million prisoners of war in the Rhine Meadows camps.

British and American authorities denied International Red Cross representatives access to camps holding German prisoners of war. Moreover, any attempt by German civilians to feed the prisoners was punishable by death.

Many thousands of German POWs died in American custody, most infamously in the 'Rhine Meadows Camps', where prisoners were held under appalling conditions, with no shelter or sanitation and totally inadequate food.

In April 1946, the International Committee of the Red Cross protested that the U.S., Britain and France were violating Red Cross agreements they had solemnly pledged to uphold. They also claimed the American transfer of German prisoners of war to French and British authorities for forced labour was contrary to International Red Cross statutes.