Talk:James Bacque

message: I knew this guy and I think I should leave this to others, but Bacque was a much more important fiction writer and editor than this entry lets on. It would be far more balanced if there was more information on Bacque's life to balance the controversial material. Sportsman360 (talk) 23:23, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Bio

message: The bias against Bacque that is being permitted without adequate checks here at Wiki truly beggars belief and is a disgrace. Those who have properly studied James Bacque's latter work, "Crimes and Mercies" (which to this Oxonian's mind stands up admirably to expert scrutiny - and by the way is in no way "Holocaust denying"), will know that Bacque's research and conclusions continue to hold water.
That others have embraced this great and ground-breaking work of Mr Bacque, currently reprinting for early 2007, is of no surprise, for it reflects what many Germans experienced and recall. That individuals with their own agendas have found the horrific truths and research published welcome or unwelcome, is irrelevant. Bacque's work conforms to high standards of academic and historiographical methodology and accuracy. The attempted slurs that were earlier found on here are therefore appalling.
Many Germans will read "Crimes and Mercies" in English, if it is not translated into their mother tongue.
::No one implied that Bacque supports denial. The point is that deniers support Bacque. Richard Evans, for instance, quotes one D. Irving as referring to Bacque as "a very good friend of mine." And certainly on this talk page there has been no shortage of admitted deniers ranting about Jewish conspiracies. --Ggbroad 22:25, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anyone who implies that Bacque supports Shoah denial, is being defamatory. 

message: Dear Wikipedia editors.
Audiatur et altera pars is a rule that applies not only to lawyers but also to historians and sociologists.  I think that Wikipedia readers are entitled to know what James Bacque has to say, and not what people claim that he says. James Bacque has answered his critics on Television and in the Times Literary Supplement.  The reader should at least get a link to the relevant sites.
While it is true that a majority of historians reject Bacque's figures on POW mortality, "Other Losses" and "Crimes and Mercies" are books that address issues far more important than the statistics.  Both books draw attention to important subjects that professional historians have deliberately avoided, and when they have touched on the subject, have deliberately played down.
:::What evidence do you have that they were "deliberately" played down? And, in any case, there's a question of historical truth here: 1,000,000 POWs categorically did *not* die in Allied captivity, the phrase "Other Losses" did not mean deaths and deaths alone, as Bacque claimed, Bacque has deliberately  manipulated historical evidence and the testimony of witnesses, etc., and has refused to recant more than a decade after he has been exposed for what he is: a conscious, knowing fraud. You're back the wrong horse, sir.  --Ggbroad 20:19, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: His plagiarism is logically unrelated to whether or not Bacque's claims are true, which they are not. You're supporting a conscious charlatan. Does it not occur to you that that undermines the credibility of all else you are attempting to do? Do you not consider it significant that 99% of Bacque's major supporters are Holocaust deniers?  --Ggbroad 20:14, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please cite these "good reviews".  --Ggbroad 20:14, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  James Bacque 

message: No one denies that German POWs were treated very badly in Allied captivity at the end of the Second World War, but you - if you are who you claim to be - must of all people recognize that Bacque is not someone to be taken seriously. He claimed - on the basis of *no* legitimate evidence that that ONE MILLION German POWs died in Allied captivity, as the result of a deliberate policy of mass murder orchestrated by General Eisenhower. It is this claim which is in dispute. It did not happen.  Bacque is the perpetrator of an historical fraud, and supporting his claims does nothing to further the goal of giving proper historical attention to the mistreatment of German POWs. In fact, it undermines it. I don't quite understand why an historian of some standing can't get this simple point. 
--Ggbroad 20:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm very glad that Mr. Bacque gave a "push" to what you allege was a "hithertoo taboo subject." And I certainly agree that we have "the right to be wrong." But there are some important distinctions here that you don't get.  One, if we agree on a figure of about 70,000 dead German POWs in US hands, that works out to about 7 to 10% of the figure Bacque claimed. That's a very serious "error." Supposing I published a book which said that 50 million people died in the Holocaust? Would I be praised for furthering research? Of course not.  In addition, Bacque has never confessed to making any substantive error - and this more than a decade after this central claim: Other Losses=deaths=murders=1 million, has been exposed as totally incorrect. Why? Because all the signs point to someone who is, at best, a borderline conspiracy theorist, much beloved by the David Irving right and the extreme Chomskyite left.   Please note, as well, that Mr. Bacque has not be the subject of ad hominem attacks in the article - only on the discussion page.  Historians have one overarching duty: to the truth. We may not like what happened but we can't do anything about it. Bacque deserved the invective he receives. His devotion is to winning an argument and book sales, not truth.   --Ggbroad 12:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In the interests of compromise I have added a final paragraph to the article stating that Bacque has spurred further research into some important questions. But can we please have an end to the people who come to this page and rewrite the article as though Bacque's claims are established fact?--Ggbroad 12:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please sign your comments. Alas, this above only illustrates my point: a writer who alleges that he is an actual historian is caught making a very serious error and refuses to admit the error, which reinforces the position that, in fact, he's a conscious fraud rather than a sincere historian who made an error. --Ggbroad 11:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: =Sigh

message: I find the claim that almost all of Mr. Bacque's supporters are "Holocaust deniers or neo-Nazis" absurd.  Where on earth would anyone have found statistics (since this is an arguement that centers on statistics) to support that idiotic claim?  Where is the database of James Bacque supporters, replete with their political viewpoint and views on the Holocaust? What is your expert area, that you feel qualified to attempt to destroy an honest man's reputation?  That you attempt to smear as "neo-Nazis" all those who find his research convincing?
Mr. Bacque has uncovered documents that appear on their face to be true.  They are damning against my native land, and against a General (Eisenhower) who I grew up thinking was one of the finest military men our country has ever produced.  I think that decency demands that Mr. Bacque's findings be discussed, probably by an independant commission of human rights experts, to see exactly how close to the truth he is.  I fear, from reading his books and from speaking with many of the survivors of the military occupation of Germany and Austria, that his statistics will be proven to be accurate.  This, like his accusations, will be uncomfortable for me and my fellow Americans, but if they are accurate, then so be it.  Many of the accusations that have come out of the Iraq war and occupation are also uncomfortable to us, but we are a great people, and guilt for any attrocities is never collective, is personal and individual to the perpetrator. 
Calling Mr. Bacque and his supporters (of which I am one) "neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers" is an outrage, an attempt to win a debate by calling names: very dirty, unsubstantiated names. Grow up, discuss the facts, debate fairly.
KearnSchemm
::: I said that the majority of Bacque's supporters are Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis, a point John Keegan made about 10 years ago in his book "the Battle for History".  I can't empirically prove it, 
If you cannot prove a statement of that sort, and you admit that you can't, then stop saying/writing it!  It is dishonest and unfair.
of course, but I would say that the majority of people who discuss his work with approval on the Internet fall into that category.   David Irving, for instance, has referred to James Bacque as "my good friend".  
How/when did you make the study of those who discuss this on the internet?  The word "majority" is a lot less than your prior claim of "almost all."  I don't care who calls themselves Bacque's friend, does someones friendship damn Bacque? Do you believe in guilt by association? I for one do not, neither does the legal system in which we live.  
Go to the website of the "Institute for Historical Review" and you will find many positive references to Bacque.  For a time – until I asked them to remove it – I had a very negative review of "Other Losses" on Amazon.com to which I foolishly appended my real e-mail address and I received, on average, about four or five abusive e-mails per month and, invariably, they were from deniers, etc. It is well known that Bacque has many supporters among the community of Holocaust deniers, etc., and virtually none among the community of legitimate historians.  In fairness, Bacque himself has acknowledged much support from neo-Nazis, fascists, etc., though he emphatically denies being one of them, and I certainly apologize if I can across as suggesting that no one can be a sincere believer of his work without being a one.  But certainly his most vocal supporters are. 
I have no idea who his most vocal supporters are, my point is and remains that his charges, and the support that he gives for them, are prima facie proof that should be looked into by a neutral commission, to see what really happened to those missing million German POWs.  
It's curious. Bacque accused the entire community of historians of "decades of lying" (or words of that kind) in "Other Losses". He and his supporters can, apparently, dish it out, but not take it.  
Look, I don't know why I have to keep arguing this point. Bacque's work appeals to the ideological predilections of certain audiences who are generally not otherwise up on the historiography.  Bacque made a claim, almost twenty years ago, which simply isn't tenable and has long since been disproven: that the Allies deliberately murdered almost a million German POWs at the end of the Second World War and then covered the whole thing up except – darn it! – they forgot about this column in the charts labeled "Other Losses". Well, it didn't happen that way. Period. "Other Losses" weren't all or even mostly deaths and there's no other evidence that a million POWs died let alone were murdered. There's a substantial literature on this.   Bacque's numbers are off by about a factor of about 10 to 15, and that was revealed around 1990 or 1991. So, does he say, "ooops, I was wrong"?  No. He's never retracted. Instead he says there's a conspiracy against him – the community of historians is afraid to address "taboo" subjects the claim that every crackpot makes against every established field of inquiry: "They laughed at Galileo, now they laugh at me!" etc.  But for me, personally, I think what qualifies as "lowest of low"  is the blurb that appears on the current edition of his book, Ambrose saying "Bacque has made a major historical discovery" taken totally out of context from a downright negative New York Times review in which Ambrose refers to the book as "worthless". --64.231.167.162 23:08, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  James Bacque's Reputation 

message: I have added the NPOV template because, it seems, that whethter or not one agrees with Mr Bacque's assertions, the Wikipedia article itself is written in a decidedly biased tone against the author and needs to be reworked to a neutral point of view. Earpol 20:48, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a problem here, though. How does one write in a neutral manner about a hoaxer? I mean this question quite seriously. Is the entry on Holocaust deniers not written with a (quite deserved) bias against the deniers? --Ggbroad 21:14, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, re-reading this article, I dispute the allegation that it is biased. The claim that the overwhelming majority of professional historians dispute Bacque's claims is true, the quotations are verifiable and cited, it states Bacque's claims, it even concludes with a nod in Bacque's direction. Very often I find that by "neutral" Wikipedians have some notion of giving equal credence to two sides in a dispute. But what happens when two sides in a dispute are categorically *not* of equal merit - as is the case here? --Ggbroad 21:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV template

message: They keep their articles flowing, concise, and with a continuous thought that generates an opinion. Anything to do with the "Jewish Goals" is quickly diluted, side tracked, and dismissed. James Bacque, who is 100% correct, is being chewed up by these 'Professional Propagandist Jackals'. Rather than present a short, concise summary of his books, he is caught off guard and puts on a lengthy rambling defense of minutiae.
Holocaust denial laws are the oxymoron of free speech.  EVERYTHING can be debated that's what freedom is.
Even "professionals" can have an agenda.
2601:181:8301:4510:F556:9CE7:C5F9:FBB (talk) 15:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia's core is all professionals

message: Trying to understand the truth, I read the article and I find it strange. Bacque gives numbers, dates, references. Wikipedia only gives names of academic people saying that Bacque is wrong. So it is very clear that in the places of the power, academies and other institutions paid by government or economic powers, Bacque is not welcomed. But I remember Wegener, who was considered mad, when speaking of continents moving, and Galileo before, when saying of Earth moving around the Sun. Both were right, against the current ideas.
So wikipedia has more than one million of articles. I think some reference inside wikipedia and its data (people, statistics, events, ...) could be found, in the sense of common understanding, or in the sense of what Bacque affirms.
Truman Burbank 09:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Strange article

message: I have tried to give the article some balance. Bacque was actually an accomplished writer in Canada before Other Losses, but it is important to point out Other Losses was his first foray into history.
I think it's important to point out Bacque is talking about losses among German POWs held by the Western Allies. Certainly hundreds of thousands, and perhaps more that a million, German POWs died in Allied custody if the Soviet Union is included among the Allies. As well, tens of thousands of German civilians died in Soviet forced-labour crews.
Bacque does make a contribution, albeit flawed, to the historiography, one that has been built upon recently by Anthony Beevor and others, who have looked at the immediate post-war period, the state of Europe before the Marshall Plan, the European reconstruction period, the founding of the ECSC and the beginning of the Cold War.
I am not familiar enough with Bacque's books, especially the second one, to accurately describe them. I think someone who has read them carefully should, at least, give a bare outline of his argument before rejecting them out of hand.
I don't know why Holocaust deniers would embrace Bacque's work, since any neglect of Germans held as POWs by the Western allies does not negate the genocide against the Jews and other Nazi victims.
As for the plagiarisms committed by Ambrose: they are not relevant to this discussion.  Arthur Ellis 21:10, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Some Small Fixes

message: I have now added *seven* cited, highly negative reviews of Bacque from writers across the political spectrum: from Stephen Ambrose to Edward S. Herman. Before anyone starts shouting POV, consider: it is not POV to express the critical consensus on a work of art. If I state, for instance, that such-and-such a movie or novel received bad reviews, that's not a violation of NPOV. If anyone has peer-reviewed studies or reviews from refereed journals that support Bacque, by all means put them up. Having searched the JSTOR and America History and Life databases - over 100 journals - I can't find any. So don't go shouting about POV. It's not my fault that this is the way the scholarly consensus goes. NPOV does not mean "give equal time to crackpot theories."--Ggbroad 23:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Citied Criticism

message: Not two million and not during the expulsion but during flight and expulsion and deportations to the SU. Xx236 08:06, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  possibly up to two million civilians  

message: In light of some recent edits to this article (eg. people deleting other people’s edits), can I propose a more structured approach that should avoid ending up in an edit war –
1.	do not remove material that is sourced
2.	instead of removing material that is unsourced, request a reference 
3.	use this talk page to discuss before making major edits
4.	keep the article NPOV
As it stands the article does give too much weight to the critics of Bacque, in particular Ambrose. For instance, after a 5 line synopsis of the book “Other Losses”, there is a 9 line rambling diatribe from Ambrose criticizing it.
Bacque himself has claimed that he has received varying degrees of support for his books from the following historians -  Professor Ed Peterson, University of Wisconsin; Professor Hans Koch, University of York, England; Professor Ralph Raico, University of Buffalo; Otto Kimminich, University of Regensburg;  Professor Dr. Peter Hoffmann, McGill University; Professor Pierre Van Den Berghe, University of Seattle.   Logicman1966 (talk) 05:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent Edits 

message: Despite the fact the entry is entitled James Bacque, there really is almost nothing in it about him. Where was he educated? What degrees does he hold? Does he make his living writing or does he have some other job? Does he have a family? He's categorized as an alumni from several colleges, yet no mention of the degrees, if any, he holds. Surely someone has written a real profile on him that we might draw upon.Spoonkymonkey (talk) 15:50, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Who is James Bacque?

message: I just read the entry on Stephen Ambrose. I had not followed his plagiarism controversy. Apparently, evidence of plagiarism and sloppy work go all the way back to his dissertation in 1960. In the Wikipedia entry, he is quoted admitting his own failings as a researcher. I have therefore pared down his criticisms both in fairness to Bacque and for Wikipedia's own sake: we can't have one article saying Ambrose effectively was a fraud from the time he was a grad student, then use his words as a club to beat Bacque. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 16:06, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is not with Bacque's sources. The problem is that he misreads, misinterprets, misunderstands, and misuses them.--172.192.9.173 (talk) 19:27, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: All sources are open to each researchers own interpretaion and this is how the system works towards truth. Ambrose himself wrote I quarrel with many of your interpretations, [but] I am not arguing with the basic truth of your discovery. Claims of misuse require proof other than just saying it is so and Bacque's critics claims regarding his work are academically no more reliable than Bacque's own claims. Wayne (talk) 05:35, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Ambrose

message: The article says he has a BA from Upper Canada College. This is unlikely as UCC is a high school. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 01:30, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've checked his bio; he did indeed attend Upper Canada College. He then studied at the University of Toronto, and obtained a BA in 1952.
I will update the article. Logicman1966 (talk) 02:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Upper Canada College

message: The article quotes a Mackenzie as saying ""That German prisoners were treated very badly in the months immediately after the war...is beyond dispute. All in all, however, Bacque's thesis and mortality figures cannot be taken as accurate". Germans were treated badly for years after the war. My uncle was a German soldier and forced to work in French coal mines for years after the war. He and the other prisoners were treated terribly, not just for a few months, but for years. But he was released before German prisoners held in the Soviet Union were released. The last German prisoners the Soviets let go home were released in 1955, ten years after the war had ended. The ones that went home were lucky because hundreds of thousands of German POW's were murdered by the Soviets. At Stalingrad 90,000 Germans were taken prisoner and only 5,000 of these men were ever seen alive again.
What does the statement by one of the other people making a comment mean when he says Wikipedia can't censor Bacque. Sure they can. Bacque has attempted to correct something that he thinks is wrong in a wikipedia article and wikipedia removed his version and put their own version back. I have been censored several times by wikipedia and their editors have a definite consistency of thought regarding Germans and WW II. You can read the bias in every article they have either on an event or any German individual from the WW II period.
Wikipedia denies or downplays every atrocity committed against the Germans by the allies. The Soviets massacred all the people in the East Prussian town of Nemmersdorf. This is an infamous act that has been documented, the Red Cross were brought there and there is film of it. Its an accepted fact. National Geographic had an article a few years ago discussing the Nemmersdorf massacre. But if you look at the wikipedia article on Nemmersdorf they deny the Soviets committed this atrocity and even suggest the Germans were responsible for the murders themselves. Wikipedia makes these bizarre claims in several of their articles. In an article on Hanna Reitsch, the famous German female pilot, wikipedia claims at the end of the war her father murdered his family. This family was in a part of Germany that is now Poland and this area was brutalized with the expulsions of an estimated 14 to 20 million Germans and the mass murder of many of them - but wikipedia claims the famous aviator's father killed his own family. When I told the wikpedia editor how ridiculous she was for saying this and not even having a reference she said I would have to prove the father didn't kill his own family. Yes, that is what she wrote. When I told her that over 14 million Germans were brutally expelled from their homes and 2 million German women were raped by allied soldiers (these are documented facts) she said I would have to provide referenced material for what I was saying and that wikipedia doesn't allow unreferenced entries to be posted. She was hinting that I was just making things up. She was completely ignorant of the allied rape of 2 million German women and the brutal expulsion of up to 20 million Germans from their homes. When I sent her two articles from reputable sources on these events she made no further comments but still kept the entry claiming the man killed his own family.
It is not surprising to me people would call Bacque or people interested in his work "holocaust deniers". Wikipedia is filled with editors with extreme bias towards Germans. It doesn't want anything to take the spotlight off what was done to Jews in the war and doesn't want any reflection (or even admission) of what was done to the Germans by the allies.
The owners of wikipedia are Jewish and I think that fact is reflected in the editors they select and how the articles on wikipedia are written.76.193.117.1 (talk) 05:22, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Funny, I've always been struck by how many Wikipedia editors bend over backwards to bring Allied "war crimes" to the fore. Some are certainly legitimate, others are disingenuous efforts at some sort of historical "balance". Let me assure you, however, that Wikipedia is not a product of some conspiracy, rather it is merely the product of an almost grinding, slavish loyalty to consensus, the result of which is that every subject and every article is eventually edited down to (at best) mediocrity.172.190.241.144 (talk) 03:40, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: There's lots of PoMo people and unreconstructed Marxists who turn to Wikipedia to shape minds, since they can't do it any other way. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 13:56, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments 

message: This  constitutes use of primary sources. See WP:PRIMARY. We should also avoid block quotes.Volunteer Marek 14:09, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The blockquote is only used because it looked neater due to the length. Is the primary source a problem for his qualifications? I should be able to find another source if his qualifications are disputed.Ernest F. Fisher graduated from Boston University in 1941. In World War II he served in Europe as a lieutenant with the 501st Parachute Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. At the end of the war he participated as an investigator into allegations of misconduct by U.S. troops. Following his discharge, he returned to Boston University and received an M.A. degree in history in 1947. In 1952 he received a Ph.D. degree in History from the University of Wisconsin. He then taught history at the University of Virginia. From 1954 to 1959 he worked as a senior historian with the U.S. Army Headquarters in Europe. Since 1960 he has been a member of the staff of the Center of Military History. He is an author of military history books. He is a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. His qualifications are important because he is actually more qualified on the subject than any of Bacque's critics. Wayne (talk) 19:07, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I would prefer such discussion in German POWs after WWII or something. This is a biographical article.Xx236 (talk) 07:53, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not proposing to include Fishers entire bio. But his qualifications are indeed relevant for this article. Wayne (talk) 12:39, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

text: I agree. Since he's not famous like Ambrose, he should be explained. Same with the other well-qualified academic historians.Spoonkymonkey (talk) 13:55, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

text: To what incident? Hhfjbaker (talk) 19:57, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  primary 

message: "citation needed" rtaher than two million story.Xx236 (talk) 07:05, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crimes and Mercies 

message: you should take most of the content discussing bacque's two controversial books and place them where they belong: in their main articles. then you should acquaint yourselves with more detail of mr bacque's life, career, and personality and pass those morsels along to your readers. i won't be among them because it is quite clear that you intend to continue slagging him, unsubtly. 65.95.193.195 (talk) 20:24, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. If you're neither here to read nor to edit then there's not much of a discussion to be had, is there AntiDionysius (talk) 20:26, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  lopsided and unbalanced