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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
[...] German claims can be off, and vary somewhat...there does appear to be some correlation with Soviet losses and the claims are in the ball park. On the other hand, Soviet claims are almost invariably well in excess of German losses, and appear to have no correlation with German casualties. They do appear to have some correlation with Soviet losses (meaning the Soviets tend to claim more kills than they lose).

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Originally posted by Samuel:
What are the coefficients of correlation between those different sets of data?

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Didn't bother to calculate. Pattern was pretty obvious.

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Originally posted by Frederick L Clemens:
Not only that, I was talking specifically about the INTENDED distortion of reporting for political reasons and the hiding of those records. I believe I showed greater motive and capability for doing such on the Soviet side as opposed to the German side. Addtitionally, what we are talking about here, is to what degree a researcher can see through any distortions or errors in reporting. If you what a comparative example of this, just look at the difference between Holocaust research and research of the Katyn massacre. On the one hand, it is the German records themselves which provide the best evidence of what occurred during the Holocaust, and on the other hand, the Soviet system actively fought against a clear perception of Katyn, not to mention blocking access to records of it. This same modus operandi is overwhelmingly evident in East Frontground operations. Who here can even start to guess as to the extent of Soviet WW2 military records, including what they captured and interrogated from the Germans? This is the reality, we are only fed what they want us to know.

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Originally posted by Samuel:
Katyn is very poor example. Had the Soviets records been available the case would have been settled much sooner. It is not because records have not been made available that there are unreliable...

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As I read your post and see you use one of MY points as a counter-argument, I have to grind my teeth and wonder if I'm wasting my time, but I'll try once more and keep it as simple as I can for you.

There are two elements to the comparison between German and the Soviet records:
- reliability
- access
The Germans score higher in both categories.

I'll give you one more chance to understand an example, taken from the subject at hand, namely Kursk.

During the engagement at Prokhorovka, people shot at each other, lives were lost, and tanks burned. How many? We will never know with 100% accuracy. What have we been told by the German and the Soviet accounts?

From the Germans we can read that they lost some tanks and men, but since it was a favorable loss ratio for them, things seemed to still be going well enough for Manstein to want to continue his part of the offensive.

From the Soviets we have heard that it was the death ride of the German panzer arm as Rotmistrov's boys shot and rammed their way through the cream of the Waffen SS. The Soviets had heavy losses, but oh, those Hitlerites were crushed in the process.

Which version is closer to the truth and why?

- reread my methodology post and think carefully before you answer
- and one last hint...this has nothing to do with which side was "good" or "bad", this is about the obstacles which stand in the way of an historian getting to the truth

tick...tick...tick...

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Originally posted by Frederick L Clemens:
As a follow-on, it occurred to me that the issue of the Waffen-SS may come up. Some might be tempted to draw a parallel there with the Soviet side. I'd have to say that it would be weak to compare the political control within the W-SS to that of the Soviet Army. The W-SS certainly had a higher rate of party membership among officers, but there was no comparable level of party activity/control within its ranks.

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I doubt that the Soviets were more politically controlled and brainwashed than the Waffen-SS. Perhaps the Red Army political controls caused more problems because their system was clumsy and less efficient, rather than being corrupted by sheer numbers of military politicans.

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As such, the W-SS may have been more loyal to Hitler than the Army was, but it still did not subject itself to the kind of strongly centralized party-based "thought control" which would have warped its military reporting...the subject which concerns us most here. As with any others, the W-SS records must be scrutinized for personal biases, but any political influence seems minimal.

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Every military organization including the German Army has politically motivated individuals with a selective memory and an active imagination. I'll guess that you've never read 'Comrades To The End' by Otto Weidinger. This book was chock full of errors (too many to list) and the author was very much politically indoctrinated. There is no doubt in my mind that this colored and influenced his reporting.

He was not alone in that respect. There is evidence that some German soldiers liked to think every engagement they lost in Northwest Europe was decided by air attack. I read some recent remarks to that effect made by veterans of Fallschirmjager Regt. 6. At least one of them who served in Normandy said he didn't like American paratroops because "they carried too many knives" and "always called down airstrikes on us at the first sign of trouble". In reality, the US paratroops who jumped into France had no capability to call down or control air attacks against German troops. They did not have the special radios and technicians needed to contact USAAF planes or the air support signals network. Another FJR.6 man criticized the US Army for the scattered night drop around Carentan, apparently forgetting the daytime German parachute drop on Crete was widely dispersed. A condition repeated during the disastrous German night drop in the Ardennes in 1944 which was led by their own regimental commander, von der Heydte.

In other words, German soldiers were/are just as liable to ignore the facts and not be swayed by them. Instead they remember things the way they want to.

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on the other hand, the Soviet system actively fought against a clear perception of Katyn, not to mention blocking access to records of it. This is the reality, we are only fed what they want us to know.

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What about Oradour-sur-Glane?

I do not believe that the Waffen-SS was more honest than the Soviets. The Red Army may have been loaded with spies and Communist political functionaries, but the Allgemeine SS and Waffen SS would have liked every one of their members to act as a spy and National-Socialist political functionary. They expected all ranks to work together in making sure the entire herd was acting in accord with the military and political ideals of the SS. Otherwise the Germans would not have bothered mixing so much politics into their training programs.

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Originally posted by Frederick L Clemens:
As I read your post and see you use one of MY points as a counter-argument, I have to grind my teeth and wonder if I'm wasting my time, but I'll try once more and keep it as simple as I can for you.

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It is no my fault if the example you choose shows exactly the oposit of what you wanted to prove about the Soviets records.

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There are two elements to the comparison between German and the Soviet records:
- reliability
- access
The Germans score higher in both categories.

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You are simply mixing up subjects. You don't make any difference between memoirs, as we can see in the last part of your post, and units records. Soviets memoirs are as accesible as German memoirs. You may consider Soviet memoirs unrelible but German general lied in their memoirs. You can just check what von Manstein wrote on the issue of the comissar order.

The supposedly high losses suffered by the Germans panzer units during the battle of Kursk can also be find in German memoir.

Soviet archives are less accessible than German records this does not mean they are relaible. I gave you two example of reliable archives.

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- reread my methodology post and think carefully before you answer
- and one last hint...this has nothing to do with which side was "good" or "bad", this is about the obstacles which stand in the way of an historian getting to the truth

tick...tick...tick...

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Originally posted by Dan Stevlingson:
What about Oradour-sur-Glane?

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Yes, what about it? From an historian's point of view, we can be fairly confident that it can be determined what happened there...if not in every detail, then at least in most. The ethics and motivations are subjects of debate, but the basic event is known. Determining the same for Soviet war crimes has been considerably harder and not by accident has it been so.

What I am talking about is a German - Soviet comparison, where we are trying to determine how close we, as historians, can get to the basic facts of the situation. The approach of uncritically blending accounts from both sides, in my opinion, can be like blending honey (German records) with horse manure (Soviet propaganda) - it is theoretically "balanced", but I don't care to swallow it.

Concerning the Waffen-SS - if you confine yourself to W-SS vet commentaries on war crimes, you certainly will have a skewed view of what can be learned from W-SS sources on military operations. Also, my research into W-SS records has shown me an organization which was considerably looser in its "thought control" than perhaps you realize. As I pointed out in my side-by-side comparison, this is undoubtedly a consequence of the immature nature of the Nazi state as opposed to any greater level of good will among the Nazis. Given time, the Nazis probably would have pulled even with the Soviets in totalitatrian controls, but we here are dealing with what happened, not what MIGHT have happened.

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Originally posted by Samuel:
I read your methodology post; it is based on your opinion on how each regime should have been not on facts...

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Originally posted by Samuel concerning Clemens post on Katyn:

It is no my fault if the example you choose shows exactly the oposit of what you wanted to prove about the Soviets records.

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I can't see that Katyn proves "exactly the opposite" of what Clemens argued.

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Originally posted by Samuel:

The supposedly high losses suffered by the Germans panzer units during the battle of Kursk can also be find in German memoir.

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I have not seen any such thing except vague generalizations. The few hard figures I have found are wrong, but not by a wide margin.

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Originally posted by Samuel:

You faild to mentioned that studies have shown the the infulence of the Nazi on the Army was far from being negligeable.

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That there was some Nazi influence has been evident for long. The issue is whether this, or to what extent, this affected the accuracy of the reporting of combat actions. If you know any study that shows this, please let me know.

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Originally posted by Samuel:

I read your methodology post; it is based on your [Mr. Clemens] opinion on how each regime should have been not on facts.

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Not entirely. The fact that the Soviet records have been in Soviet hands have given them more possibility to manipluate them, compared to the German records, which were largely captured by the allies after the war. This is hardly an opinion.

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Originally posted by Samuel:

Soviet archives are less accessible than German records this does not mean they are relaible. I gave you two example of reliable archives.

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Originally posted by Niklas Zetterling:
I may be a poor reader, but I failed to find the two examples of reliable archives you have mentioned.[/B]

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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
Samual, I am not sure what your point is in the discussion with Frederick. I hope you are not trying to argue that Soviet-era post-war accounts and memoirs are equally reliable (or equally unreliable) as post-war German accounts and memoirs?

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Originally posted by Samuel:
The 1937 census and Katyn.

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Yes, I saw you mention those two cases, but I did not see that you showed the Soviet records to be reliable in those two instances.
And also, incidentally perhaps, the documents are produced by agencies not connected to the reporting by military formations, which I thought was the issue on this site.
Furthermore, I think no one has claimed, or even mistakenly inferred, that all Soviet records are wrong and all German records are accurate. Thus it might be reasonable to ask for statistics. However, for that, it might be better if you suggest a field to gather statistics on.
You yourself has not exactly providing much statistics. Claiming that Soviet records are correct on two issues (out of almost innumerable issues) is hardly any statistics.

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Originally posted by Niklas Zetterling:
Yes, I saw you mention those two cases, but I did not see that you showed the Soviet records to be reliable in those two instances.
And also, incidentally perhaps, the documents are produced by agencies not connected to the reporting by military formations, which I thought was the issue on this site.
Furthermore, I think no one has claimed, or even mistakenly inferred, that all Soviet records are wrong and all German records are accurate. Thus it might be reasonable to ask for statistics. However, for that, it might be better if you suggest a field to gather statistics on.
You yourself has not exactly providing much statistics. Claiming that Soviet records are correct on two issues (out of almost innumerable issues) is hardly any statistics.

[This message has been edited by Niklas Zetterling (edited 11-23-2002).]

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The 1937 census was made of thousands and thousands of parts. This amounts to more than two. I did not show it be reliable but if you are interested you can check the work of Alain Blum "Naître, vivre et mourir en URSS, 1917-1991".

Military formations are not exclusively concerned here. Chris Lawrence and Frederick L Clemens have argued that the distortion was a product of the Soviet system.

I sugested one field to begin with, the memoirs.

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Originally posted by Samuel:
The 1937 census was made of thousands and thousands of parts. This amounts to more than two. I did not show it be reliable but if you are interested you can check the work of Alain Blum "Naître, vivre et mourir en URSS, 1917-1991".

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I have not seen it and my French is not good enough to encourage me to read it. But if you have read it you could perhaps describe the methodology that leads to the conclusion that the archives are reliable.

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Originally posted by Samuel:
Military formations are not exclusively concerned here. Chris Lawrence and Frederick L Clemens have argued that the distortion was a product of the Soviet system.

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So they have, and I don't find anything surprising with that, do you?

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Originally posted by Samuel:
I sugested one field to begin with, the memoirs.

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That is far to wide I think. It has to be more specific to begin with. Not only has the literature to be limited, but the topic too.

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Originally posted by Samuel:
By the way do you know of any study that showed the accuracy of the reporting of combat actions in the Red Army was strongly altered by the Soviet ideology.

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I have not heard of one, and given the brief time Soviet archives have been accessible to independent researchers, I doubt that any study of the kind has been made.
But before anyone makes such a study, he'd better clarify what is meant by "ideology", which by no means is self-evident.

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Originally posted by Samuel:
I think German memoirs contains many errors.

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This is no question that they contain errors, slants, biases, leave things out, etc. That is the nature of any memoir. Still, the German memoirs were written at a time and place where the writer could say what he wanted, so the bias and slant is an individual one, which always exists.

On the other hand, the Soviet memoirs were written in a system where the truth was carefully and officially defined. There were many things you could not say, and there were certian things that had to be said in certain ways. This was well understood by the writers, although in many (most?, almost all?) cases, the memoirs were ghost written by the Soviet Army's professional military historians. This certainly helped ensure the party line.

These distortians are famous...the lack of any reference in Rokkosovskii's memoirs to his several years spent in prison camps (and the loss of a couple of teeth)....eleven editions of Zhukov's memoirs with various passages changing over time, including obligatory references to Brezhnev's role in WWII, etc. This was all under watch of the Soviet propoganda machine.

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I don't have statistics comparing the number of errors in Soviet memoirs and German memoirs. Since you seem to think that Soviet memoirs are less reliable I hope you will be kind enough to tell me where I could find such a statistic.

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I do not know of any one who has assembled such statistics although I certianly could do so for Kursk. I do point out some of these errors out in my book (in particular Getman's memoirs, VI Tank Corps) but the continuous mind-numbing stream of propoganda, factual errors and distortions presented in these Soviet memoirs would have forced the addition of many, many pages to the book to refute them all. This was not a very productive use of ink.

If the German memoirs were written under that watchful eye of Goebbels and the Nazi party...then one would certainly have an arguement that they were equally distorted. As this was not the case, then there appear to be no basis for such a position.

As you seem to reject the idea that the Soviet memoirs are not as reliable (or more unreliable) than the German ones, then you must either beleive they have equal validity, neither has any validity, or that the Soviet memoirs have more validity. Do you have any arguement to support any of these three positions(I won't bother to ask for statistical data)?

Final note, we actually do see some German WWII era propoganda peices showing up in some people's writing. For example, in Patrick Atge's description of the fighting around Prokhorovka in his book on Peiper. This is, of course, as erroneous a methodology as uncritically accepting Soviet-era propoganda pieces.

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Originally posted by Frederick L Clemens:
Oradour-sur-glane? Yes, what about it? From an historian's point of view, we can be fairly confident that it can be determined what happened there...if not in every detail, then at least in most. The ethics and motivations are subjects of debate, but the basic event is known. Determining the same for Soviet war crimes has been considerably harder and not by accident

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Partly because the Communists prevailed and the Nazis collapsed. Which means that the Nazis were no longer in a position to edit, destroy or withhold paper reports after the bulk of the known surviving documents were seized by the Allies.

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Concerning the Waffen-SS - if you confine yourself to W-SS vet commentaries on war crimes, you certainly will have a skewed view of what can be learned from W-SS sources on military operations.

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Which sources? I haven't looked at many official documents (with the exception of a massive KTB from 17th SS Panzer-Grenadier Division) but I have read about Waffen-SS military operations as viewed by Otto Weidinger, Kurt Meyer and Hubert Meyer. All three were experienced officers and politically slanted in their views. Do you recommend someone else?

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Also, my research into W-SS records has shown me an organization which was considerably looser in its "thought control" than perhaps you realize.

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You seem to be dismissing the unrealistic dreams of certain German officials, when compared to concessions they made later. The Waffen-SS was forced to recruit foreigners who did not fit the specifications of a so-called Aryan race. Not all of them were volunteers. Others appear to have joined the Waffen-SS because they were anti-Communists and the Germans were willing to give them weapons and training. These people were not necessarily interested in Nazi politics and I don't think the Germans could do much about it, short of discharging them from service.

There is a difference between intended policies and forced compromises.

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The approach of uncritically blending accounts from both sides, in my opinion, can be like blending honey (German records) with horse manure (Soviet propaganda)

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Of course the known differences should be carefully examined in depth. But the fact is, Soviet soldiers and politicians were still living in a police state after the war. They could not always record their experiences freely so there is little to be gained from pounding the table in favor of West Germans who were freed from living in a police state. Unless you want to extol the advantages of their release from Nazi control.

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Originally posted by Dan Stevlingson:
But the fact is, Soviet soldiers and politicians were still living in a police state after the war. [This message has been edited by Dan Stevlingson (edited 11-24-2002).]

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With Soviet memoirs we can generally discern propaganda from truth. Not in all cases especially with numbers, but when compared with numerous other sources they can be found out and a pattern recognized. But the bottom line is that it is assumed that Soviet era material contains politically-based propaganda.

With German memoirs, the extent of propaganda is not so easily recognized. One, it is not entirely political in nature, and two, it was written during a period (the early 1950s) where certain Nazi political beliefs fit in very nicely with western democratic political beliefs. The end of WWII brought on the Cold War, a time when the Soviet Union was seen by the western democracies in very biased terms due to conflicts of political ideology. And one must remember that the Soviet State wasn't just a typical totalitarian state, but a communist totalitarian state, which held special, almost horrific, emphasis with western democracies. If anyone wants to dispute this there are enough events from the 1950s to dispel them - McCarthyism, for one. This level of bias within western democracies was very similar, politically, to Nazi beliefs of the "Jewish-Bolsheviks" as they liked to refer to the Soviet State before WWII. But, the Nazis also had a strong racial bias with the Soviets, labeling the Soviets as untermenschen, or "subhumans," and this was not a bias generally held in western democracies at that time.

The first German memoirs started coming out in the early 1950s during a time when the fear of world communist domination was reaching all-time levels of paranoia in the West. That these ex-German officers were aware of this charged atmosphere is very evident from passages that have an almost "don't fall for the same trick we did" air. Thus, there are German memoirs that take advantage of the strong anti-communist environment in the West, and use it for their own gain with posterity.

Another interesting point is that few, if any, of the Germans who wrote memoirs make any mention of their own affiliation with the Nazi Party. For example, though Guderian was quite comfortable with Nazi ideology, you would not get that impression from reading his memoirs. You generally do not see that sort of evasion from ex-Soviet veterans of WWII in their interviews or memoirs that have been published since the 1990s.

So, what am I driving at? Namely, that German memoirs contain biased views of Soviet military capabilities and abilities. To what degree of bias these memoirs contain is difficult to determine, because it could've been motivated for a number of reasons:

1. Self-aggrandisement.
2. Political beliefs.
3. Racial beliefs.

This has made it very difficult to separate fact from fiction where Soviet capabilities and abilities are concerned. Even with the availablity of secondary Soviet sources, a better understanding of the Soviet military has begun. And because even secondary sources were often restricted or classified to the Soviet public, their veracity can be counted on to a better degree than previous public Soviet sources.

While German memoirs offer keen insights into the conduct of German military operations, they do little to reveal to the reader the Soviet military that actually defeated them.

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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
[B

Page 9, first line: "The Germans quickly recovered their nerve and their mobility, fighting the first Soviet winter offensive to a standstill by February 1942."

I question whether the Germans lost their nerve in the first place.
.][/B]

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A sample of the problems I spotted with Glantz -

German side (all silly mistakes showing simple lack of proof-reading)
- incorrect identification of a General and/or Oberst (I guess he had "mood" rank!) Lauchert as commander of PzBde 10. Actually, Lauchert was a Major subordinate to PB10.
- two different starting strength figures for the Ferdinand unit
- physical description of Kempf (which is actually the description of Halder!) in an asinine attempt to divine someone's personality from a single photo

Soviet side (generally errors of bias)
- Soviet officer bios right out of the official histories with no sign of any attempt at content verification, typical "son of a coalminer" credentials
- while Hitler is constantly refered to as "the dictator", Stalin gets soft treatment, almost to the point, but not quite, of calling him "Uncle Joe"

Seems mr Glantz is using Soviet sources unabridged.

If you read his Siege of Leningrad book you will not find any data about how the Finnish border ran in relation to the city before the war. Or about the demographics of the region the city was built into. These are IMO very significant omissions when you take into account the fact he does give a rundown on the city history from its creation onward.

With Soviet memoirs we can generally discern propaganda from truth.

Yes. If you know what you are looking at.

Not in all cases especially with numbers, but when compared with numerous other sources they can be found out and a pattern recognized. But the bottom line is that it is assumed that Soviet era material contains politically-based propaganda.

The Soviet ere material DOES contain politically based propaganda. From blatant distortions of facts and timelines to intricate references like "Vyborg (etc), an old Russian town" which are used as a cue to bypass uncomfortable facts pertaining some issues.

With German memoirs, the extent of propaganda is not so easily recognized. ....This level of bias within western democracies was very similar, politically, to Nazi beliefs of the "Jewish-Bolsheviks" as they liked to refer to the Soviet State before WWII.

What is more some (most?) of the memoires were written for the non-German audience. If used archives they used the ones in the hands of the Western Allies which in turn meant that any "hidden agendas" vis-a-vis defence budget expenditures did coincide with the "story line" of the memoires. The memoires were one part in the bolstering of the Cold War attitude in the west. And a very subtle part at that.

But, the Nazis also had a strong racial bias with the Soviets, labeling the Soviets as untermenschen, or "subhumans," and this was not a bias generally held in western democracies at that time.

I wonder..... the Ameicans had gone against the Japanese during WWII and against the Chinese during the Korean war. The general mood against the Asian continent was not far from the "subhuman" characterization.

That these ex-German officers were aware of this charged atmosphere is very evident from passages that have an almost "don't fall for the same trick we did" air. Thus, there are German memoirs that take advantage of the strong anti-communist environment in the West, and use it for their own gain with posterity.

Not forgetting the political testament Hitler left behind.

You generally do not see that sort of evasion from ex-Soviet veterans of WWII in their interviews or memoirs that have been published since the 1990s.

And the reason for this is they have nothing to be ashamed of. In their own opinion. They were the victors and as such they have been hallowed as heros for the past 60 years. And they like to keep it that way.

For example, there has been much controversy lately over here in Finland about the war crimes the Soviet partisans commited against Finnish civilians during the war. The Soviet records show univocably the partisans embellished their after action reports concerning these actions but so far the official Russian line has been to ignore the proof against these war criminals who have been Heroes of the Soviet Union for the past 60 years.

Namely, that German memoirs contain biased views of Soviet military capabilities and abilities. To what degree of bias these memoirs contain is difficult to determine, because it could've been motivated for a number of reasons:

1. Self-aggrandisement.
2. Political beliefs.
3. Racial beliefs.

This has made it very difficult to separate fact from fiction where Soviet capabilities and abilities are concerned.

We must not forget the secondary purpose of these memoires was to reinforce the "Red Menace" factor so fiction was sometimes preferred.
Even with the availablity of secondary Soviet sources, a better understanding of the Soviet military has begun. And because even secondary sources were often restricted or classified to the Soviet public, their veracity can be counted on to a better degree than previous public Soviet sources.

And this is why it is very dangerous to lift men like Glantz on pedestal. I have read a couple of his books and I have been dumbfounded by his use of unabridged and unverified use of Soviet sources. Especially when it comes to portitions of the front which are Soviet source heavy. It seems he totally unwilling to use other than German and Soviet sources. If there are no German sources available he presents the facts fromn the Soviet POV only and leaves it at that.

While German memoirs offer keen insights into the conduct of German military operations, they do little to reveal to the reader the Soviet military that actually defeated them.

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Originally posted by Tero:
For example, there has been much controversy lately over here in Finland about the war crimes the Soviet partisans commited against Finnish civilians during the war. The Soviet records show univocably the partisans embellished their after action reports concerning these actions but so far the official Russian line has been to ignore the proof against these war criminals who have been Heroes of the Soviet Union for the past 60 years.

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IIRC, most of the Soviet partisan reports are about destroying Finnish garrisons, when in fact rural civilian houses and their inhabitants were destroyed.