Editing Other Losses (section)

=== Plausibility of avoiding repercussion ===
Overmans states that, comporting with the most basic matters of common sense, "if indeed 726,000 soldiers had died in the American camps (Bacque's number excluding those who supposedly died in French custody or after discharge), what became of the bodies?"<ref name="overmans168"/> Given that the Rheinwiesenlager stretched along 200 kilometers of the Rhine river, "Bacque's 726,000 dead would mean roughly 3,600 dead per kilometer or 5,800 per mile – better than one corpse per foot. Yet despite the widespread construction work carried out after the war, not a single one of these legions of dead was found."<ref name="overmans168"/> However, the sites where the camps were located are considered war graves where excavation is officially forbidden making such research problematical.<ref name="Debate">[http://www.swg-hamburg.de/Geschichte/Gegen_das_Vergessen.pdf Public debate]{{Dead link|date=May 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} on DEF camps held in [[Bohmte]] by the [[Osnabrück]] branch of the State and politico-economic society of Hamburg. pdf (In German) {{Dead link|date=April 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Prof. Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann.</ref>

Villa states that, by Bacque's reasoning, [[George C. Marshall]], who gave SHAEF as much or more attention to detail than did Eisenhower, would be similarly guilty, perhaps more so under his reasoning, though "Bacque" who cares little for exploring the context, does not even raise the question."<ref name="villa54">{{Harvnb|Villa|1992|p=54}}</ref> Villa states that "It is a virtual impossibility that Eisenhower could have executed an extermination policy on his own" and "a near absolute impossibility that Marshall would not have noticed it, let alone that he would ever have tolerated it" and "what about the scores of officers and millions of soldiers who served under Eisenhower?"<ref name="villa55">{{Harvnb|Villa|1992|pp=54–5}}</ref>

''Other Losses'' argues that Eisenhower's staff must have been implicated, charging "[t]he squalor of the camps came from the moral squalor polluting the higher levels of the army."<ref name="Bacque 1989 62"/><ref name="villa55"/> Villa states that "[p]erhaps realizing that he already has a thesis involving a massive American conspiracy, Bacque is careful to exclude British officers from any participation or even knowledge of the crime. Although in his vast indictment, Bacque has included virtually Eisenhower's entire staff, all the doctors and personnel running the camps, the press who failed to uncover the monstrous crime and a whole generation of knowing but silent Germans, he has included not a single Briton."<ref name="villa55"/> Villa notes that Bacque ignores that SHAEF was a fully integrated Anglo-American command, and many of Eisenhower's top officers were Britons who would have also had to cover up the conspiracy.<ref name="villa55"/> Villa states that Bacque did not even need to read books to realize this, "all he had to do was to look at the pictures: in slightly more than half the portraits contained therein, the staff officers wear British uniforms. Bacque, one understands, wants a villain in the piece. A complicated modern military bureaucracy such as SHAEF, is a tedious subject to study, unlikely to yield the insidious conspiracy apparently sought by this ex-publisher."<ref name="villa56">{{Harvnb|Villa|1992|p=56}}</ref> Villa stated regarding the plausibility of the claims in ''Other Losses'' that "The impossibility of Bacque's selective crime thesis—[that the poor treatment was solely carried out by Americans]—becomes all the more evident when one examines the basic decisions affecting occupation policy."<ref name="villa56"/>

Regarding the impossibility of a conspiracy on the scale purported by Bacque, Villa states that "[i]n truth, had Eisenhower committed the crimes Bacque alleges, someone surely would have gossiped, ratted, leaked, or even just hinted. None did. Not even Field Marshal Montgomery. Certainly, if there had been a holocaust, it could never have been covered up."<ref name="villa57">{{Harvnb|Villa|1992|p=57}}</ref> Regarding the overall bureaucracy within which Eisenhower had to operate, Villa stated that "Although the average reader of ''Other Losses'' would never know it, there was a constellation of authorities to whom Eisenhower had to report his actions. Examining the situation as of May 8, 1945, when his murderous policy is said to have gone into full gear, no responsible historian could ignore the many limitations on Eisenhower's authority that made it impossible for him to carry out an independent policy in Germany."<ref name="villa53"/>