Erich Maschke

Personal

Vocation

Traits

German Nazi, a historian and history professor who taught most recently at the Ruprecht-Karls-University in Heidelberg. During the Nazi era he promoted racist and nationalist ideology. After the war he led the so-called Maschke Committee which claimed German prisoners-of-war during World War II were mistreated by Allies. From 1962 to 1974 he was the editor of a 22-volume series, Zur Geschichte der deutschen Kriegsgefangenen des Zweiten Weltkrieges (The History of German prisoners of war in the Second World War). This series was the report compiled by the Scientific Commission for the History of the German Prisoners of War, set up to investigate the killing of Germans captured as prisoners of war. The commission was headed by Maschke and was more popularly known as the Maschke Commission or Maschke Committee. Maschke's commission report accused Allies of atrocities against Nazi Germany's soldiers taken prisoner. Today Maschke's views in particular towards Eastern Europe and alleged German identity are discredited by modern historians in Germany. He died on 11 February 1982, aged 81, in Heidelberg, West Germany. Link to Wikipedia biography