The Rhine Meadows Camps - What Really Happened? 

My grandfather, who was born 1921, was one of the prisoners at the Rheinwiesen Camp Remagen; one of the camps mentioned in this highly interesting video by Mark Felton. My grandfather (not often and without too much detail) sometimes spoke about the several month he had spent near Remagen in 1945 without shelter and with little food and how starved he had been when finally coming home again after being released. When he finally fell mortally sick in 1992 (he died in 1993) I still remember him saying that this illness was as bad an experience as his time at Remagen. This was his way to express that it was really really cruel. But on the other side I do not remember him speaking ill about the Americans or the British and as far as I remember he never expressed anything in the line that it was some kind of deathcamp intentionally starving the prisoners systematically. There was just not enough food, not only in the camps but everywhere. So the information provided by Mark Felton here fits perfectly with what I remember from my grandfathers telling. - It was, on a personal level, touching for me to see pictures from those Rheinwiesen Camps for the first time. I did not know that such pictures existed and I wondered if somewhere there in the crowd behind the wire there might be a glimpse of my young grandfather in 1945. It is a pity I cannot ask him anymore. Thanks for this video!

This is what history sounds like when presented by someone with a doctorate in history- not the "Curse of Oak Island" tripe we are used to being fed.. Well done sir.

My father, a Polish reserve officer, was made a prisoner of the Germans in 1939 and kept in the Woldenberg camp for the entire war. The camp was under the control of the German army, not the SS. While conditions were very unpleasant, he was not mistreated. The prisoners ran the camp under German supervision. They observed Polish military discipline, had a university, an orchestra, theatre and arts groups. They received packages via the Red Cross. As the war was ending, there was the real threat of being killed as the whole system fell apart, but it didn't happen. My father, a wonderful man, became a prominent diplomat after the war, but he almost never talked about his experiences at Woldenberg. I learned about it later, on my own.

My grandfather who was a farmer was task to watch over German POW's in Mississippi working in the fields. According to my grandfather and my mother who was a young girl at the time, the POW's live in barracks with no fences or barb wire and even though they worked hard in the fields they were treated well. My grandfather said they weren't concern about them escaping because where would they go? I remember a story my grandfather told about one English speaking POW asking if another young POW could ride on a tractor for his birthday. Supposedly many of them stayed after the war because Europe was in shambles and they just stayed and integrated in US society.

I had a nice chat with an old German woman years ago .She said she met her Scottish husband when a tank pulled up outside their house.The hatch opened and he jumped down .Politely asked if they could fill his kettle to make a pot of tea .They got chatting and the rest is history .Got married further down the line and they settled in Scotland for the rest of their lives...

My grandfather was 17 years old when he was captured by british soldiers in early 1945. To his surprise they treated him as a human beeing, giving him tea and cookies. He had to work in a coal mine in Belgium for two years after the war. It was a hard time for him, but he didn't have to starve and he was rather happy that he got captured by the Brits and not by Soviets!

My grandfather surrendered to the British in Italy. He said that they used it for a tea break and gave them tea and biscuits, plus the best and worst cigarette he had in his life, he hadn't had a smoke for two weeks. He spoke very highly of the " harassment " by allied forces behind the lines, calling them the ' mountain ghosts '. He never spoke much of the war and went very quiet if anyone mentioned the Americans. He was eventually shipped to England ( Gloucestershire), then he was moved to Lincolnshire and saw the rest of his life here calling it ' his paradise '.

I was at Catholic mass one Sunday about 25 years ago. The priest, of Filippino descent, described how as a 10 year old boy in the Philippines he watched as the Japanese executed his father. He never said a harsh word about the Japanese. I have never forgotten that church service.

My dad at 16 was forced into the German army in Latvia , he decided it was better to keep going west and not east, that’s why iam here

No special effects, no animations and no sound effects. Just the raw facts explained to you by one and only Mark Felton!

The hills at 6:07 look familiar, as I spent three years stationed near them. I met some Germans at a pub who took me to a place outside a little village starting with a "W," about 2 kilometers West outside of Bad Kreuznach. There is a plaque there in front of a field (farm?). They told me that this is where the German POW's were kept. They were enclosed with barbed wire. They had to dig holes to live in; they had to use their rations lids sown together as any kind of roof from the elements. The place was called, I believe, The Field of Sorrows (Feld die Jammers)? I went there in 1999 when I first was stationed there in B.K. Thanks for reading.

If this was true it would have surfaced long before 1989.

You're a gift to the world. We sorely need more fact-based, non-sensationalist channels like this.

Honestly one of the best channels on RU-vid. Literally what the History Channel should be.

Thank you, Mr Felton. This clears a lot of things up. My father was a prisoner in one of Rheinwiesenlager camps after WWII. He was a Hungarian, affiliated / folded into a German unit during and after the conquest of Budapest. His unit actually was fighting a rear-guard action into the Western part of Austria as it retreated from the oncoming Soviets. He eventually surrendered some days before the end of WW2 to an American platoon outside Linz. This would be some time around May 4th, 1945. He told me a number of anecdotes about his time in the prison camp. He said the guards were harsh - I was very young, and I don't recall if he said the guards were actually Germans - but I do know he did not care for the Americans, either. He didn't hate them; he just didn't like them. His anecdotes were mostly about exposure and the lack of food.

One of my grandfather's lifelong best friends was actually a German soldier his unit had captured. Both where machinist and struck up a friendship talking about their jobs.

I genuinely love how much this man's voice reminds me of older WW2 documentaries I watched as a child

My Grandfather was a German soldier. He surrendered to U.S. troops at the end of the war. He spoke of hardships, disease, and shortages of food for all. Soldiers and civilians alike. Many did die, but not like that. He said even U.S. troops were hungry and shared some of their own rations with the prisoners sometimes, but he made no mention of being treated badly or tortured at the hands of the U.S. Just the opposite. He immigrated here (USA) in 1951 with his wife and kids. One being my 5 yr old father.

My Dad spent 4 years in German occupied Lille France as a youngster age 12 to 16. Food was always scarce. Sometimes the family ate cats. In 1951 he immigrated to Texas, then New York, and then to California where he died in 2007 at age 79, with a French/California accent (Yes, I was always amused by that). He drove VW's Bug all his life. He had no hard feeling toward the Germans. We should all be so fortunate in life!

One of the issues with the book, Other Losses, is it's steeped in hyperbole, and oversells its thesis. Somehow the scant support for Baque's hypothesis is spun out into an entire book, complete with padding, suggestion, inference, but little in the way of compelling evidence.

My grandfather was there and he told my father that it was a horrible and chaotic place. He was a printer and got a position in the administration where he printed for himself a letter of discharge and just walked out of the camp with it.

Unfortunately we live in an ‘alternative fact’ world now, this channel is a rare and valuable resource now.

I would love it if you covered the Dutch Famine (1944-5). My Mother’s family barely survived it. She told me it was such a severe winter that there was ice on the ground until May.

I was shocked more didn't die. Going from a war machine to a caretaker of that many people? That's a total logistic nightmare.

Mark my friends father was in the camp in Passau Germany and escaped with another , he was a soldaten in the Galicia Div. Waffen SS. A natural born Ukrainian he joined up in an Opera house in Lviv after the Russians entered his village killing all including his parents. When he escaped a German farmer took them in and told them that his sons were killed in the war and they were welcome to stay, work the farm and it's theirs after he dies. His father stayed until 1950 and found his way to Phila. Pa. until his passing just a few yrs. ago.

Thanks for setting that particular record straight Mark. That is without a doubt the most anger I have ever heard in your voice, and with good reason. Excellent work.

I have also heard of Sherman POWs sent to the Midwest to work on US farms and they were overjoyed at good honest work outside then they would sit down with the farm families and eat with all their meals with the families and they said they were fed more than they could eat at the farm meals which they loved.

War is beyond horrible. My friend, James Forsythe, was in the 106th division when they were overrun by the Germans on Dec.16th, 1944 at the start of the Battle of the Bulge. He is gone now but he did write his memoirs of that time for me. He was one of only 12 men from his company that survived the initial assault. He watched as German soldiers systematically shot any American prisoner who was not ambulatory. And yes, many begged for their lives or cried for their mothers. When finally liberated in May he weighed less than 100 lbs. His conditions of confinement were horrific. He held no grudges against the Germans although some were very brutal. I personally knew some American soldiers that were outraged by the German treatment of people in concentration camps they liberated. They outright killed any guards they could find. War is hell. I am a student of WWII history and I've never heard of any ex-soldier speak of starving or seeing 1 million German prisoners to starved death. On the Russian side that is very different and with good cause. The Russians lost 17 millions citizens to the Germans and were not too happy with the German invaders. Over a million died in prison camps in Siberia.

My father served in Northern Europe from 44-46, I remember him telling me that that towards the End there were so many Germans surrendering that they didn't know what to do with them. he also said that in regards to food they didn't have enough food everyone. The amount of prisoners, displaced persons, Germans, POWs was unbelievable. They didn't even have rations from themselves.

My father, a WWII vet, worked with a man who was a veteran of the German Army. After the war this fellow emigrated to the U.S. and joined the U.S. Army and saw action during the Korean War.

This is a real, valuable contribution to the record, not the revisionist garbage that seems to be overflowing these days. Thanks for putting it together, Mark.

The war changed my grandad he was lovely before he went in then came home as an alcoholic and beating my grandma his mind had gone completely and died 3 years after getting home there was no reason for him to die and doctor said it was probably due to what he had seen and died of a broken heart and stress. The worst thing about war is not only do you fight on the battlefield but your own war starts when you get home.

My grandfather was there, he landed on the beach 6-8-44 as a young M.P. , I remember him telling us they weren't allowed to touch their prisoners much less abuse or treat them harshly, according to him, he had to march them to the same mess hall that the US soldiers used after our solders finished, he stated they were always unrestrained very polite and obedient and never cause any trouble for the most part, he was only 5'7" but one hell of a young man back then, I don't remember which region he said he was stationed at and sadly I lost him almost two years ago just before his 96th birthday, he outlived 3 of his 4 children and his wife of 72 years, always honest and truthful even if it hurt his cause, so I will continue to believe his version of events concerning that terrible time in history.

“Note I say novelist and not historian.” As well as being a history expert, Dr. Felton is also an expert at throwing shade

My Great Uncle was an officer in the German army and was captured by the Americans. He was latter turned over to the Russians and spent 2 years after the war had ended in a Russian POW camp. He had a deep hatred of the Russians not only from his imprisonment but how they destroyed everything when they got to Germany.

As per usual Mr. Felton, you've brought such an interesting topic forward, through a very well polished piece. Your documentaries continue to teach me an immense amount of facts about the war. Thank you for your hard work!

my great-grandfather had received a German prisoner to help him on his farm, he hadn't eaten much but he regained his strength by eating cooked chestnuts. He explained to him that he had been part of the last flight of the stalingrad pocket.

My grandfather survived the Rhein-Camps. He survived but walked away weighing only 50kg at 1,90m height. The reason he survived was because he and some comrades managed to „build“ a burrow in the ground, covering it with a tent plane. They managed to find a Cook pot and survived by boiling their water ration. He wrote that per day they got one tablespoon of milk powder and one tablespoon of egg powder. Because of the relatively clean water they had, they survived on these rations, while others died of diarrhea

My father was a POW in one of these camps at the end of the war. He was drafted into the Wehrmacht in Dec 44 at 18 years old, basically in time to join the retreat. He caught pneumonia because they spent a lot of time in cold damp cellars and gardens, because they were bombed constantly, and was in hospital in Leipzig at wars end. Once he recovered, he was taken to one of these camps, he never said a lot about it, other than there was not a lot of food, but clarified that by saying there wasn't enough food anywhere after the war. They noticed that groups of 5 men were often instructed to take papers to an office a distance from the camp unguarded, and that these men never returned. One day he was selected, upon delivering the papers, they decided not to return. He found civilian clothes, burned his papers, and didn't go back. I think its understandable; the Americans didn't have enough supplies to care for them all properly, and could see that the younger soldiers were unlikely to be war criminals. They probably wanted to go home and get on with their lives as much as the germans did. So they essentially just released them. Whether he was recorded as released or not I don't know. I wish I had asked him more about it, he didn't talk a lot about it, probably thinking it would be upsetting.

Guilty as charged. It’s only a matter of time before these perpetrators masked in pseudo-religious ceremonial tosh are brought before a human court and sentenced... as charged.

Both my grandfathers were in two different French POW camps. The French darn near starved them to death. The Americans finally stepped in and saved them. One was released after 18 months. The other in 1948. Both were plain Wehrmacht infantry and of no importance. The atrocities committed by the allies rarely get told.

I remember reading a quote from a German officer at the end of the war when his men knew it was all lost and they saw no reason to keep fighting. He knew that what was coming after the surrender was going to be potentially far worse than what they were currently going thru, due to the chaos and lack of any organization in the aftermath of the end of the great conflict. I may be paraphrasing but he said something along the lines of, “enjoy the war boys, because the peace is going to be hell”. It sounds like he wasn’t far off.

You never fail to deliver with substantive history, Mark Felton. Well done.

We can literally see there are no living quarters.

I recently watched a documentary where Mark Felton was a key historical source. TBH I screamed with joy. Thank you for all of the incredible knowledge you share with us, Mark

My grandfather was there (Lager Heilbronn) when he was 18 years old. He almost died because of a sickenss he got in there. He told his sons only one time in life very emotional about the conditions in the Rheinwiesenlager. There was way too less water and it was very hot and no shelter. All the big strong men were ahead in queues for especially water. The weaker ones, like my grandfather, almost died of thirst when it got hotter and hotter in summer of '45. One day, the authorities said they would let all under the age of 18 go home. My grandfather already was very sick at this moment, and he tricked the gurdians by scratching a part of a number on his ID so he appeared to be 17, not 18 (and he was always looking younger). A friend from Reicharbeitsdienst took him home to northern bavaria and he said, without this friend bringing him home he probably would have died. It was a different time back then, but my father and his brothers remind my grandfather of having heavy social anxietys and developed anxiety disorder all his life; he only once told his boys about that incident in the Rheinwiesenlager and he was so emotional during his tale that the boys back then were quite confused, but they all remembered this situation. My grandfather was a quite but tough guy, as all men of this generation, but my father and uncles think, that his expierence in Rheinwiesenlager left deep scars on my grandfather. (My grandfather apart from that was no soldier, he was too young and was forced to labour in Reichsarbeitsdienst).

I know 100% who was responsible for this and his initials were: A. H.

My grandfather was in a US POW camp for five years.He got tv and was released. My dad said he was no longer himself. Just sat in the livingroom not saying much. Died 6 months after he was released. He was forced to go and my grandmother ended up hiding in the woods with another family. Apartment was bombed, she had no money and 2 kids. They were starving and the US Army fed them. They later became us citizens and my dad was in the Army national guard for 10 years. Spoke no English.

Not long after D-Day my grandfather was captured by the British troops in Normandy. As a Fallschirmjäger he and his comrades were kept in several camps in the UK. The Brits didn't want them to have enough time to plan and execute an escape, so they were always sent to another camp after a short stretch of time. However, in 1945 he and his comrades were handed to the US troops and kept in one of the "Rheinwiesenlager". As far as I can remember it was the one in Remagen or Sinzig. I still don't know why this happened. He was happy as a POW in the UK and he was thinking of trying to stay, like his famous comrade Bert Trautmann. His view of the Americans wasn't overly positive, since they didn't have shelter and were often fed rotten potatoes the first couple of weeks, but he NEVER said that there were 1,000,000 deads. The number he talked about was similar to what you stated in this video. He also knew that German civilians didn't have more or better food, so he wasn't that furious anymore once he was released. His time in the Rhine meadow camp made him appreciate good and a lot of food for the rest of his life. He died aged 91 in 2006.

My Grandfather was born in 1926 (died 1987) and was after the end of the war a prisoner in Bad Kreuznach, he nearly died there only a few months after he survived the destruction of Dresden. He later wrote everything down in a small book. I found that book when we moved into a new house, after just reading a few minutes i was crying like i never did before, i couldnt stop, i was feeling so empty inside. Then my Dad came in and asked whats wrong with me, when he saw the book he was shocked like he saw a ghost or something like that. He took it from me and said "You will never read this again as long as im alive, forget about it." Its 20 years later now and he is still keeping his promise, i never saw it again. Dr. Felton, as much as i love and most of the time enjoy your videos, i wasnt able to enjoy this one. It just hurts... Besides that i still want to thank you that you bring things like this up and keep them away from being forgotten.

Imagine the world where people shouted less and cited more of Mark Felton

Yeah, the victors always write history....

Sir Felton's calm demeanor and cold facts disarming novelists and revisionists like it's '45.

I'm a 49 year old American who lives in Holland, MI. Some German POW's were sent to our town to work at the Heinz Pickle Co. After the War, they were told they could return to Germany but they refused to go back sighting there was nothing to go back too.

There is only one true historian on RU-vid that I trust and love to listen to and watch…THE ONE AND ONLY MARK FELTON‼️

My dad was in a British POW camp in Italy. He was assigned to help out in the kitchen and used his position to steal food. One day the commander of the camp had him taken to his office and my father knew the jig was up. He had him strip and then placed the food on his desk. Then he divided it up and gave some back to him and said next time he was to go straight to his office. Seemed food must of been scarce enough for both the prisoners and the commander.

My grandfather was at one of the Rheinwiesen Camps, not sure which. When he heard there would be some early releases for those soldiers from Baden & Württemberg (largely agrarian regions at the time) so they could work in their fields, he told an American soldier where he was from. The GI looked at a map that clearly showed my grandfather's home town being right on the border, but actually in Hesse, disqualifying him for an early release. He always said he was not sure if the GI didn't see it or didn't want to see it, but he issued him release papers and he could go home. He always wondered if it was a random act of kindness or an honest mistake. Either way, he was glad to be out of there, as he described it as the most miserable time of his life. He never mentioned a huge death toll, just awful conditions and a terrible stench. Anyway, he was incredibly happy to finally go home and never wear a uniform again.

Great video, thanks. My late father worked in a German POW camp in Ontario one winter. As low German was his first language Dad was able to listen to their conversations and converse with the men. He said that many if not most wanted to stay in Canada after the war, but it's my understanding they had to return first to Germany and then many came here. As well I worked with two German POW's in the early '80's. Herman had been held first by the US, then the French and said the French treated them worse than the US troops. They were used as labor to rebuild France for several years after the war. Bill - Wilhelm - was captured by the Russians and spent 5 years in Russian camps after the war. He would tell me horrific stories sometimes of what he'd survived. When he was released to Germany, he found his wife and left for Canada as soon as he was able to. Anyways, a couple stories from men who are now all gone. Thanks again for your well researched videos.

Thankfully you are free to debate the true death toll. If you made a video questioning the statistics of other concentration camps you could end up in prison.

Thank you, Mark. The only way to battle wrong ideas and revisionist history is with the facts and with logic. I hope you will dispel other historical myths.

Oh this is a tough one. Thanks for not shying away from it Mark.

Spoke with my downstairs neighbor in Fulda (German) one day, and he brought this up. A survivor of Stalingrad (Pioneer) and the Western Front, he was sent to the one of the Rheinwiesen camps after his capture and described his treatment there as "Nicht Korrekt". That one term told me everything about the situation there.

it really is not cool to treat captured soldiers badly on any side, I'm willing to bet A lot of them did not have much of a choice, just like how I am sure many americans didn't have much of a choice, and many russians didn't have a choice, and of course EVERYONE THINKS THEY ARE THE GOOD GUY.

Germany lost 2/5th of its territory between 1914 & 1945. There were mass deportations from Memel & Strasboug. When will they get these lands back?

I was a career military man. I went to war twice and was wounded once. War crimes happen because combatants are drawn into a state of hopeless despair. Soldiers will often go weeks or sometimes even months, without any relief from the rigors of combat. Feelings of despair often bring about (collective) feelings of hopelessness, anger and even thoughts of suicide, as a means of escaping the painful existence of life on the battlefield. I have seen soldiers perform acts of tremendous courage, simply because they were too exhausted to do anything else. People sometimes commit war crimes, not so much because they are bad people, but rather because their day to day existence becomes one of pain, sorrow, fear and hopeless despair.

My great grandfather was a Luftwaffe soldier during the war. He was silesian, so when Germans took over and annex Silesia he was forced to declare german nationality and serve in their armed forces. He served as a blacksmith, because german logistics were run mainly by horses. He avoid service on the eastern front as Fallschirmjäger by his luck and german beaurocracy. Later, he survived fighting in Normandy when his division was nearly entirely wiped out by american air force. When Germany surrender, he became a POW in a french camp. There were fed by one can for four men a day and treated badly by guards to force them to join into French Foreign Legion. Some of the younger guys joined, but he already had a family and kids, so he returned to Poland after the war. As a result of his captivity until his death he hated blacks because how french colonial guards treated them. He also never took money from german pension despite having right to do so, which was a ridiculous amount of money by the polish standards of the time. Unfortunately, he passed away two years before I was born, so I never had a chance to know him. All of the information I have about him is from my father who, of course, never listened when he was speaking about the war.

The amount of research that Mark must do is truly amazing. Almost every story he tells, is one I haven’t heard. And I always thought of myself as a fan of WWII information. Please keep up the great work.

German authorities today do not allow any excavations in the area of the former Rheinwiesenlager. I wonder why that is ...

Getting food and equipment to our own troops was difficult. Thanksgiving Day, 1944 before the battle ensued that seriously injured my Dad, they got one piece of bread and one cup of coffee before the battle began. The wars were living hell for everyone who fought them, and the civilians caught up in the ugly web.

My uncle was a medic in WW2 and at the end of the war his unit was in Germany. He told me that Germany was wrecked, there was no electricity, no water, no fuel and the roads pitted with shell holes and the bridges were wrecked. Things had been bleak even before the war ended, and then it got worse. Everything was in short supply; trucks, tents, stoves, blankets, food and of course his main concern: medical supplies. Added to this was the question of would they go home or to the Pacific to invade Japan. The American officers were thinking that there was a possibility of die hard soldiers still wanting to fight, plus they had to guard against thief. That it was all eventually sorted out has been compared to the planning of D-Day!

Whoosh, you're now disarmed enemy forces and not prisoners of war. James Bacque was a historian. Trying to devalue his work by calling him a novelist will not work.

I was born & raised very close to one of the largest of these former camps. So close in fact, I go out running through the area sometimes. Many soldiers did probably die, but 1 million dead bodies (and efforts to dispose of them) would have been noticed - and they weren't by any of the german people who lived around those camps. There's no way this figure is even remotely true.

Something tells me those who complained about harsh treatment at the hands of the Allies would have likely slit thier own throats as opposed to being in the hands of the Soviets.

My father was a Colonel in the U.S. Army Infantry, and at the end of the war, was a county governor in an area of Germany near Cologne. He told me substantially the same stories as Mark Felton. Mr. Felton is, in the broad sense, correct.

My grandfather was in one of the German POW camps ran by the Americans and he noted in his diary while life was not great or it had its downsides he did survive. He was sent into France in one of the labor groups where him and a few other guys escaped since they were Waffen SS and wanted to avoid being caught. When he surrendered him and a few others were wearing Wehrmacht uniforms. For several years after the war he lived in the south of France and later returned back to Germany under a new name.

My grandfather was a psychologist with the SS administration during WW2, and although already approaching his 50ies, was forced to bear a gun in the last days of the war, which he never used but still held when apprehended by US troops. That, together with the revealing tatoo under his arm, earned him a prolonged stay of several years in an american POW camp. He reports that in this camp, occasionally prisoners would not return from their visit to the open air latrine because some guard was having fun with shooting exercises from a watchtower. I have no reason to doubt his report, because it was all in private, and because I also dont doubt that there were unfriendly blokes among the americans just as among any crowd.

I have watched many of Mark Felton Productions. They are always balanced and facts-based. The reason why they are so accurate and balanced is because Mark Felton has a very good philosophy and fundamental understanding on the history and justice, I believe. Thanks a lot to Mark.

Mark Felton: uploads Me: clicks video before even reading the title because I know I'm about to learn something awesome

I would also mention that the allies had to feed, provide medical treatment and, if needed, repatriation to concentration camp survivors and, given shortage of resources, it made sense to prioritise them.

Will the truth finally come out. We the American was the bad people and didn't even know it. The dep state in dep

These episodes of World War II need told in a professional manner. Who better than Dr Felton to deliver this tale from the early post war days of Germany.

I am constantly amazed by your ability to produce such high quality content, and so bloody often! Thank you Mark! I’m pleased to count myself among your Patreons!

While stationed with the U.S. Air Force in Germany in the 1980s, one of my neighbors, an elderly gentleman, told me that he turned himself and his squad into American forces at war's end, as apparently instructed by his C/O. He said the American officer took their names, asked some basic questions about their service, held them for only a day, then released them; telling them to return to their family homes, because they couldnt accept them into the camp system due to overcrowding of supply shortages. However, the Americans fed them prior to release, which he said was surprising, considering they were only held for a day. No camp at all. They all simply hitched a ride back their home city, believing they'd be picked up at some point by American or Brittish forces, but concerned that it could also be Russian forces, who they knew would be much less accomodating. He said that the conversation with the American officer was the very last contact he ever had with anyone concerning the war. He got a job, married, and settled into his postwar life I cant vouch for the veracity of his claims. He seemed a nice gentleman (in his late 60s at the time I knew him). His English was fluent and sort of ironically, his wife was Jewish, so probably not likely to have been a card-carrying member of the Nazi party or Einsatzgruppen... We maintained contact via letters for several years following my tour there, but typically, we eventually lost contact. I can only assume he has since passed away.

James Bacque was a notorious anti American sentimentalist, plain and simple. It enrages me that his book Other Loses Crimes and Mercies is listed as non fiction and it gained the notoriety, acceptance, and acclaim of the literary and academic community. It's clear evidence that anyone with the power of the pen can distort history and make a convincing case out of conjecture.

Thank you for this video. To all those with a ww2 ancestor, I'm one of you. Here in the Philippines, both my grandparents -not just grandfathers- were ww2 veterans.

I'm not downplaying the misery but 1500 calories a day is something my Ukrainian ancestors did not see for 2 decades under Stalin. RIP.

Are there something about Hamburg and Dresden bombing by the allied forces?

Living in Germany I can tell you that I heard about the Rheinwiesenlager in school from a schoolfriend in 1985 and he heard it from his grandfather at home.

Dr. Felton video, released 46 minutes ago, over 21k views already. Need I say anything more? Thank you from Chicago for all your hard work providing the FACTS objectively and non-biased on this subject and all the others.

My favourite WW2 History Teacher...I wish he could be my History teacher ❤️

I remember speaking to my mother about the war crimes of the allies, like bombing German cities etc. She served as a RAF secretary in Hamburg just after the war. She told me that even though she felt sorry for the German women she worked with and frequently helped them out by giving them some of her rations, the prevailing feeling was they deserved it.. I have an amazing photo of her posing in a swimsuit on the banks of the Rhine with the backdrop of Hamburg in total ruins.. She had every reason to hate the Germans because my uncle was shot down and killed as a Hurricane pilot..

Died fighting on the western front is short for , they were most likely hunted down and tortured for as long as possible until they finally were allowed to die or murdered by Russians while the woman were assaulted to death or until suicide. Thats also something not taught in school.

My grandfather was in such a camp. He had to lay on the bare ground, very little food...(what he said didnt sound like 1500 calories). He was sick afterwards for all his life. He never complained about it, but you could tell that it changed him, broke him. The camp from the french. Other grandfather was forced to work in a mine for years. Soviet zone.

My grandfather surrendered to the Americans and was a POW for a few months. He was captured just south of Stuttgart. On his return, he had nothing bad to say about the Americans and he felt he was well treated considering the fate of the Germans captured by the Russians. The Americans left such a positive impression, that many years later, his son (my father) emigrated to America and became a US citizen. My father, impressed with his newfound homeland decided to name his first born son a real All American name so he could easily blend into this new land. Ok, I'm kidding about the last part.

Never stop making content Mr. Felton. You actually use legitimate sources unlike a lot of history channels on here who spread half-truths and misinformation

My grandfather fought with the 78th Lightning division and was stationed in Germany in the Ruhr after the war until the unit was deactivated in May, 1946. He told many war stories, but I never remember him harboring any hatred toward the Germans.

My mother ran the family farm in Arizona while my dad dropped bombs on Japan. She was given several German POW's from the nearby prison camp to help out. I still have her records showing that she paid each man a weekly wage. They were allowed to shop in town and go to the movies once a week. Mom would tell me of how almost to a man they would say we love Americans and we must fight Russia together. I once asked my mom what her response to that would be ... "Oh I don't know," mom said. "I suppose I just said well, it's too late for that now."

Another interesting well-done vid. That story has circulated for years with little evidence to support it. I think many well intentioned folks thought it at least feasible due to the factual history of 14 million Germans forcibly displaced from eastern and central Europe after the war - the largest forced human migration in history - with ~2M dying from various causes. If civilians could be treated so brutally just because they were German it could seem at least feasible that German POWs could be as well.

Thank you Mark Felton. As the expression goes, "the truth usually lies somewhere in between". I'm glad to understand better that the American High Command weren't exactly barbaric if overly concerned about conditions

This guys voice is just perfect for these documentaries. It is timeless and has that kind of Pathe feel to it. I don't know how that is done but well done.