{"product_id":"crimes-and-mercies-the-fate-of-german-civilians-under-allied-occupation-1944-1950-9780889225671","title":"Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation, 1944-1950","description":"\u003cp\u003eMore than 9 million Germans died as a result of deliberate Allied starvation and expulsion policies after World War II--one quarter of the country was annexed, and about 15 million people expelled in the largest act of ethnic cleansing the world has ever known. Over 2 million of these alone, including countless children, died on the road or in concentration camps in Poland and elsewhere. That these deaths occurred at all is still being denied by Western governments. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAt the same time, Herbert Hoover and Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King created the largest charity in history, a food-aid program that saved an estimated 800 million lives during three years of global struggle against post-World War II famine--a program they had to struggle for years to make accessible to the German people, who had been excluded from it as a matter of official Allied policy. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eNever before had such revenge been known. Never before had such compassion been shown. The first English-speaking writer to gain access to the newly opened KGB archives in Moscow and to recently declassified information from the renowned Hoover Institution in California, James Bacque tells the extraordinary story of what happened to these people and why. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRevised and updated for this new edition, bestseller \u003ci\u003eCrimes and Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e was first published by Little, Brown in the U.K. in 1997.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJames Bacque\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJames Bacque is a novelist, book editor, essayist and historian whose work has helped raise awareness in human rights issues associated with war crimes, particularly spurring debate on and research into the treatment of German POWs at the end of World War II. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHis fiction titles include \u003ci\u003eThe Lonely Ones\u003c\/i\u003e, 1969 (\u003ci\u003eBig Lonely\u003c\/i\u003e in the paperback edition, 1970); \u003ci\u003eA Man of Talent\u003c\/i\u003e, 1972; \u003ci\u003eCreation\u003c\/i\u003e (with Robert Kroetsch and Pierre Gravel), 1972; \u003ci\u003eThe Queen Comes to Minnicog\u003c\/i\u003e, 1979; and \u003ci\u003eOur Fathers' War\u003c\/i\u003e, 2006. His history titles include \u003ci\u003eCrimes and Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e, an immediate bestseller upon release, and \u003ci\u003eOther Losses\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Talonbooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50726522323218,"sku":"9780889225671","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_27711d24-be7a-457d-8b94-212ca0b2770f.jpg?v=1734872789","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/crimes-and-mercies-the-fate-of-german-civilians-under-allied-occupation-1944-1950-9780889225671","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}