US apology for crimes against German prisoners

THE GERMANY-UNITED STATES-CANADA RECONCILIATION COMMITTEE

invites you and the whole world to the peace conference proposal now offered to the USA and its allies to END WORLD WAR TWO

AND TO HEAR THE APOLOGY OF MAJOR MERRIT DRUCKER UNITED STATES ARMY (RETIRED) for the US' maltreatment of German prisoners after World War Two

OCTOBER 13, 2011 12 noon.

An officer in the US army Major Merrit Drucker (retired) has apologized to the German army for the mass deaths of German prisoners in US army camps after world war two. Following extensive international investigations in the US and Germany, Merrit P Drucker has sent an e-mail to Lt. Col. Max Klaar head of the Verband deutscher Soldaten (German Veterans' Association) regretting the lethal conditions in the US camps where some 750,000 Germans died while they were denied available food and shelter. By order from the headquarters of the American commander, General Dwight Eisenhower, German civilians were forbidden on pain of being shot to take food to the prisoners. Drucker has also formed a committee of six people, in Germany, the UK, Canada and the US to pursue further investigations and make amends by way of apologies to the families of the dead, and veterans' institutions. Drucker's first e-mail letter has been posted on the veterans' website where there is also a questionnaire asking for details of prisoners’ internment. Thousands have responded.

Also present at the Marriott Hotel, 2d St Washington on October 2 will be Col. Dr. Ernest F. Fisher, formerly A Senior Historian of the United States Army Center for Military History who supplied an eloquent Foreword to Other Losses. In that Foreword, Fisher wrote, “Starting in April, 1945, the United States army and the French army casually annihilated about one million men, most of them in American camps.” Fisher has vigorously defended the book from many attackers and has agreed to attend and to speak.

The book Other Losses (Toronto, 1989) by James Bacque, which helped to set off the investigation, is being re-issued in an American edition in October. The launch will be held in Washington in the Marriott Hotel where Drucker plans to present a formal letter of apology to Klaar who is flying over for the occasion. Klaar will present in his turn a proposal for a peace treaty between the USA and Germany. It has 14 points. Two films about postwar Germany are included in the program.

Other Losses, a world-wide best-seller published in 13 countries, has been suppressed in the US for over 20 years. The new edition is being published by Talonbooks of Vancouver, whose editor, Karl Siegler is the son of a former prisoner in a US army camp. When his father told him what had happened to him in the US camp, Karl said, "I don't believe you." He changed his mind after reading Other Losses. Because of such sad events, Lt. Colonel Klaar has said that “Germany is a country of wounded souls.” Many Germans have already written to Major Drucker to thank him for taking a heavy weight of grief and guilt off their minds.

TIME AND PLACE Monday October 31, 2011 at the Courtyard US Capitol Marriott Hotel, 1325 2d St. Northeast, Washington DC 20002, tel 202 898 4000. The meeting is to be at 2PM in the Congressional and Monument Rooms.

REQUESTS FOR INTERVIEWS Please contact Talonbooks.

For further information contact Kevin@Talonbooks.com or James Bacque at 705 549 8148 or Merrit P. Drucker at 202 722 6716.

See also the websites Jamesbacque.com and talonbooks.com and the Verband deutscher Soldaten which is www.verband-deutscher-soldaten.de

The Forgotten Genocide: Conference in St Louis, April 28-9

For two days in St Louis, April-28-9, there will be a conference on the subject of the torture and enslavement of the German people by the allies after the second world war. Many survivors of the atrocities will be there, and students of the history will speak, including Dr. Albert E. Jabs and Mr Henry Fischer.

I will bring my short film entitled Crimes and Mercies, and reveal some of the methods which have been used by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the CIA, and British and French security agents to intimidate me and my publishers and the witnesses who originally told me their sad stories.

Ann Morrison, the energetic convenor, has made a 100 minute film on the subject which will be shown at the conference in the Holiday Inn, southeast St Louis, tel 314 821 6600

Hello Fort Liard and points north

Hello to you volunteers for Frontiers Foundation (FF) way way up in Fort Liard and points north. I want to read your blogs and to contribute, but I don't know how to post anything on your blogs. Can you either tell me or e-mail me via Don Irving (for safety's sake so no hacker gets my e-mail address.)You can check nme out on jamesbacque.webspot.blog

Elisabeth and I are heading north to Batchawana Bay on Lake Superior to meet some ex-volunteeers there including Olaf who has been building FF houses there for many years. While there, we expect to meet Brad Henry of CMHC in Ottawa who is inspecting CMHC houses to discover their durability/longevity. He and I and Charlie Catto of FF fully expect to find that the FF houses last longer than the CMHC, which is nice because they cost less to build and are easier to maintain.

All this is for my book tentatively entitled The Spirit Builders, about Catto and the Foundation since the sixties.

As for you, Colleen in Fort Liard, yes you are about to get a shock when winter comes. It gets so cold even down here in balmy Ontario that once in a while in a cold winter night, you can hear the trees exploding as the little humidity left in them expands. If you have a phone, please let Don know your number so you and I can talk, or call me at 705 549 8148 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              705 549 8148      end_of_the_skype_highlighting. I want to hear abut your experiences there, especially with people, to help me with the chapter in my book on you northern volunteers.

Have fun

Jim Bacque

the spirit builders

Hello all

Elisabeth and I have just returned to hot Ontario after a long visit to cool BC, and to many reserves there. We were interviewing some powerfully interesting people, including Chief George Muldoe at Moricetown. He is the chief of the Wet'su'wet people of the village and a survivor of the Canadian residential school system. He cooperated with Charles Catto of Frontiers Foundation/Operation Beaver in 1977-80 to rebuild or build new, some two dozen houses, badly needed in the village. The prospective owners, and or others in the village, worked with 38volunteers from around the world and of course Canada. At the end, the band graciously renamed the main street of the area Beaver Road.

At nearby Hag Wil Get we also talked to the brave and beautiful Chief Dora Wilson whose grandmother and mother both set her an example in 1945 by refusing to allow white people to take her away to be "educated" in the system that pained her friend George. Chief Dora also cooperated with Operation Beaver/Frontiers Foundation to build houses, but her greatest contribution was probably to lead the claim process for compensation for salmon lost because the Department of Fisheries and Oceans of Canada illegally dynamited part of the Bulkley River. This wrecked the salmon fishery which had sustained the band for hundreds of years. After years of litigation partly funded by the Government of Canada, Chief Wilson and the band won an enormous settlement--$21.5 million--with which the village has set up a trust fund to improve local life through education, recreation and the arts.
This almost miraculous result and the work of Frontiers Foundation have confirmed my thought that "Yes, there is hope for the white man."
Almost as miraculous is that Dora has planted and tended a pear tree which is yielding fruit despite the cold and high altitude of the region.

We were ably guided and safely driven through this area by the local representative of Frontiers, Don Irving--thanks Don.

Ths trip was part of the research I am undertaking for my new book, tentatively entitled The Spirit Builders, about the work of Frontiers Foundation in Canada since 1964--JB

poems written while waiting for a download

Sitting Here

I'm sitting here after dinner
Thinking it's nice to be sitting here after dinner
With most of my past behind me
Where it belongs.

Putting On Conrad: Introduction & Prologue

Click here to play the first installment of the podcast of James Bacque's Putting On Conrad: Introduction and Prologue

Putting On Conrad: Chapter 1

Click here to play Chapter 1 of James Bacque's Putting On Conrad