In response to you, The Macallan...
Let me say thanks for the site. It is still lacking in particulars though. I've seen stats before on the huge toll that typhus, cholera and other diseases took on non combatants during WWI. The influenza of that period was especially devestating. We also know that Typhus in particular breeds especially well in the cool climes of northern Europe.
Perhaps I should have been clearer in that I want the stats on civilian populations, as I find it BEYOND bizarre that this angle is never seriously discussed in any form in relation to the European theater.
I'm not up on my diseases...but are Cholera and Typhus cureable with pennicillin?
I remember reading that Ann Franks father was cured of Typhus in one of the camp infirmaries, which struck me as odd, considering the pictures drawn of the camps after the war.
It is also known that until the very last days of the war, Germans kept meticulous records of almost every aspect of the camps, even down to daily rations fed the camp dogs. It is because of this that we know that Anne Frank died of disease in one of the camps.
It would seem to me that if Allied forces were bombing the hell out of the German infrastructure TRYING to induce casualties through starvation and disease, then we can't very well lay all of the blame for civilian casualties at the feet of some sinister motive.
I have a suspicion that the death rates by disease in the German theater are not mentioned
so as to lend weight to more dramatic claims in which EVERY death was the result of Nazi evil.
In my mind, one can often learn more by what ISN'T said than what is.
If I'm not mistaken...those Zyklon B cannisters we hear so much about were a low grade fumigant to kill the very lice that spread Typhus.
In thinking about the situation, I become "curiouser and curiouser" about the omissions of this very real aspect of war.
I just can't believe that WWII suddenly saw the disappearance of the leading killer in every war, disease, just because the Nazis were too evil to allow disease to compete with their dastardly plans.
The analogy would be to assume that Southerners were practicing Genocide at Andersonville, when the local populations weren't faring much better.
Thanks...I'll keep looking. It's out there somewhere. If not, I want to know why.