For example, the total losses on the Eastern Front for the 10 days ending 30 June 1944 are listed as 18,679, which is remarkably low when you look at other 10 days. The losses for the 10 days ending 5/20/44 are listed as 62,982 (almost half from 1st PzA). Operation Bagration started on 6/23/44 or so, so why aren't the losses reported? If, as I expect, the loss reporting is delayed, then doesn't that call into question come of Zetterling's conclusions, since he looks carefully at these reports as indications of heavy fighting in particular times?

Another thing about losses. Do these OkH reports include losses in the Waffen SS and Luftwaffe ground troops?

And lastly, it seems to me that the when German losses and Soviet losses are compared to arrive at a loss ratio of 1:4 or whatever, what is frequently left out are the losses among the German Allies, which were not insignificant, especially in 1942.

1. From which channel are the numbers you have looked at?
2. As I recall, the 10-day losses overview report for July-September reproduced in the book is a corrected one.
3. LW/SS inclusion - this varied, apparently.
4. Axis minors casualties are clearly not included.

A bit of a tricky problem that one actually. One the one hand, they should not just be ignored, but on the other hand, if we might reasonably expect that their casualty exchange rate differed a great deal from the Germans, it becomes problematical to simply combine their losses with that of the Germans (if one is looking at casualties from the point of view of combat efficiency). Doing so would in effect produce a quite artificial figure that says only erroneous things about therelation between all three combatants. Just as an example to illustrate what I mean:

Case A (losses inflicted/losses taken)

Axis allies (10,000/30,000)
German (90,000/20,000)
Soviet (50,000/100,000)

Soviet casualty exchange rate: 1:2

This however obscures both the fact that the Red Army had a much better exchange rate than this against the minor axis forces, and that they had a much worse exchange rate against German forces.

Case B

Axis allies (100,000/300,000)
German (45,000/10,000)
Soviet (310,000/145,000)

Soviet casualty exchange ratio: ca. 2:1

Note that the ratios for both the Germans and the Soviets are exactly the same as in case B - what radically changes the overall ratio is that the axis minors casualties are a much greater proportion of the axis casualties. Again, the overall ratio says nothing meaningful.

Since I think it is likely that there was a very large difference in relative casualty infliction between German and Romanian/Hungarian/Italian units, my opinion would be that they are too different to meaningfully exist within the same construct.

Unfortunately, we of course do not know how many casualties were caused by axis minors and how many by German forces, so it is not a feasible option to calculate two separate ratios.

For most of the war though, minors made up a comparatively small proportion of axis forces on the EF, and was almost certainly responsible for a significantly smaller part of Soviet casualties than this again.

Given all this, I think the least inadequate approach is actually to continue to compare the German and Soviet casualties - while noting those of axis minors and bearing in mind that a limited portion of Soviet casualties were inflicted by them.

regards,

quote:

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Originally posted by Gary Dickson:
I've looked at German 10-day reports at NARA and see some strange things. I've read Niklas Zetterling's KURSK 1943 and what he has to say about these reports, but the reports titled "Gefechtsausfalle Sowjetfeldzug vom 22.Juni 1941..." from OkH Generalquartiermeister show heavy losses which, to this lay person, do not correspond to times of heavy combat or, vice versa, show light losses at times of heavy losses.

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Gary, Niklas addressed the answer to this to me some time ago in an email after I had remarked as to the same problem with some reports in Italy. His reply was:

"....but previously I have done some analysis on the data for the German defeat in Byelorussia during the summer 1944. It turns out thatthe Heersartz reports are not finally corrected until November 1944. I have written about this in an article in Journal of Slavic Military Studies, March 1998 (in particular pages 181-2). The discrepencies are considerable. The Nachmeldungen in September and November 1944 add 257,738 casualties. This means that these Nachmeldungen increase casualties by 182%, compared to the original 10-day reports."

Hope that helps.

I respectfully dispute this statement. In light of my experience in researching the history of the East European armed forces (particularly Rumania and Hungary), I believe the casualities inflicted/own loss ratio of these smaller Axis armies are comparable to those of the German Army. Therefore I would add the numbers of these smaller Axis armies straight to the general numbers related to the Wehrmacht.

Interestingly, the topic of irretrievable losses inflicted by the Germans and the Soviets upon their respective enemies was discussed at lenght on an English language forum dedicated to the Russian military. After a very heated debate, the end result was approximately 1:2 in favour of the Axis (taking in account the entire June 1941- May 1945 time span and only the European theatre of war).

Dénes

If you are correct, then yes, this would be the right approach. But I am frankly quite surprised by your conclusion - I would be very grateful if you had some data you could share?

"Interestingly, the topic of irretrievable losses inflicted by the Germans and the Soviets upon their respective enemies was discussed at lenght on an English language forum dedicated to the Russian military. After a very heated debate, the end result was approximately 1:2 in favour of the Axis (taking in account the entire June 1941- May 1945 time span and only the European theatre of war)."

I suppose that would be the RMZ. Do you have a link? I Personally think "Irretrievable losses" is a pointless construct from almost all perspectives, as well as exceedingly difficult to source in a comparable way for both sides. If the discussion concerns the ability of the two sides to inflict damage on each other, I cannot really see any argument why "Irretrievable losses" is a more relevant measure than casualties. There seems to be an irrational idea in some quarters that IL are the only losses that really count, somehow . Often you see that judgment tied to Krivosheev, but Krivosheev in fact makes no such judgment - without exception, he just provides IL as one subcategory of overall casualties. And if you compare overall casualties, the ratio is somewhere between 3:1 and 4:1.

Best regards,

KA

If you will read all the posts, can you post here the final result, so we can debate it?

As for data on smaller East European Axis losses and casualties inflicted upon the enemy, I need some time to find the pertinent data in my files (I am not at home). However, some of my info was already posted on the aforementioned forum.

FWIW, total casualties on the Eastern Front as of the 6/30/44 report were 4,222,916.

If the 1944 reports had such a long delay, why do we assume that the '43 reports were any better? As I said, Zetterling and Frankson are counting on their accuracy in Appendix 10 to make the case that Citadel did not significantly add to the overall pattern of German losses.

"If the 1944 reports had such a long delay, why do we assume that the '43 reports were any better? As I said, Zetterling and Frankson are counting on their accuracy in Appendix 10 to make the case that Citadel did not significantly add to the overall pattern of German losses"

Well, I would say two things to that.

1. There were several reporting channels operating, and the peculiarities of each needs to be considered. To some extent, they yielded different kinds of information.

In your case, it seems possible that the figures pertain to blutige Verluste only. Do they include LW ground forces? SS? Are they just tabulated 10-day reports, or are they corrected?

2. The appendix 10 table is from the Heeresarzt channel, which generally seems to be regarded as the most dependable. And part of the point with it is that it provides a comparative framework. If the Zitadelle casualties should be unreliable due to any general problems with the 10-day reports, the same would be true for, f.e., 1st Pz Army casualties in late Sptember. And what table A.10.2 demonstrates is that the casualties during Zitadelle, while high, are far from unique when compared to losses suffered by other armies during the period. Also, since it is a corrected report covering July-September, there should at least be a higher likelihood that the Zitadelle casualties are accurate than that losses in September are, which further strengthens this aspect!

I have many things to add to this discussion.

1. Overmans figures. 5.3 million refers to ALL German fatalities - not just on the Eastern Front. Overmans' figure for the EF is 2,742,909, plus 363,343 dead in Soviet captivity. Additionally, he calculates 1,230,045 deaths during 1945, but this is on all fronts.

2. I have severe doubts regarding the feasibility of directly comparing Overmans' figures with Krivosheev's. It is entirely clear that the two have employed vastly different methods in arriving at their figures, and it is also clear that these differences are such as to make Overmans' figure effectively the highest conceivable number, which is far from the case with Krivosheev. Very simply put - Krivosheev's figure is fundamentally based on soldiers identified as dead, whereas Overmans' is based on men of miltary age not identified by German authorities as alive by 1949.

If you compare Overmans' figure to overall German casualties, this produces a fatality rate (deaths relative to overall casualties) that is much higher than the Soviet on the basis of Krivosheev's figure. This is IMO a clear sign of anomaly - I can not see any plausible reason why this should be so, particularly given the extremely high death rate among Soviet POWs. I would tend towards the conclusion that they cannot possibly both be accurate, and thus there are grave risks involved in comparing their figures.

3. A further anomaly is that while you get roughly a 2:1 ratio if you compare Overmans with Krivosheev (on deaths only), you still have a 3:1-4:1 ratio if you compare overall casualties. It is no good pretending, as some seem apt to do, that this is something that can be just ignored, particularly when the overall casualty figures are so well documented and apparently largely consistent with other elements of reporting (replacements, returning wounded, strength figures and so on)- and given that the deaths figures,- Overmans' and Krivosheev's - stand on a far more debatable basis than this.

In short - to get a 2:1 ratio, you have to ignore the main mass of casualties and focus only on one specific aspect of them, and to compare figures who are not only more shakily based than the overall numbers but who are also unlikely to be comparable.

regards,

quote:

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Originally posted by Gary Dickson:
If the 1944 reports had such a long delay, why do we assume that the '43 reports were any better? As I said, Zetterling and Frankson are counting on their accuracy in Appendix 10 to make the case that Citadel did not significantly add to the overall pattern of German losses.

Gary

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Der Heeresarzt
Oberkommando des Heeres
Generalquartiermeister
Nr. I/4451/43 g.Kdos.
(the 4451 part changes with each report and the 43 is the year)

I see no indication whether or not Luftwaffe or SS troops are included. On the bottom left there is a distribution list (Verteiler), which, to my inexperienced eye, does not seem to include anyone in the Luftwaffe or SS. How would one know if the report is the final (corrected) say on the issue?

Andreas, thanks for pointing out the encirclement issue. That makes perfect sense. I don't imagine that getting documents out of an encirclement was a priority. Does anyone know how long it took for official reports to recognize the losses at Stalingrad?

Sorry for my apparently quite inattentive reading of your first post!

"Andreas, thanks for pointing out the encirclement issue. That makes perfect sense. I don't imagine that getting documents out of an encirclement was a priority. Does anyone know how long it took for official reports to recognize the losses at Stalingrad?"

The Germans set up a special ad-hoc commission to determine the losses at Stalingrad (and also in later similar cases, such as Tunisia). I do not remember when this finished, but I doubt if its findings would show up in the ten-day reports.

best regards,

quote:

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Originally posted by Gary Dickson:
Kjetil, I suspect that this report is not corrected. For example, the 10-day report ending 10 July 1943 is dated 14 July 1943. The reports are just spreadsheets, with the armies listed in a column on the left and the columns to the right of that broken down by killed (Gefallen), wounded (Verwundet), missing (Vermisst), and total (Gesamt), with sub-columns for officers (davon Offz.) in each category. The numbers are cumulative totals for losses in that army since 22 June 1941. As I said, the top left corner of the page says:

Der Heeresarzt
Oberkommando des Heeres
Generalquartiermeister
Nr. I/4451/43 g.Kdos.
(the 4451 part changes with each report and the 43 is the year)

I see no indication whether or not Luftwaffe or SS troops are included. On the bottom left there is a distribution list (Verteiler), which, to my inexperienced eye, does not seem to include anyone in the Luftwaffe or SS. How would one know if the report is the final (corrected) say on the issue?

Andreas, thanks for pointing out the encirclement issue. That makes perfect sense. I don't imagine that getting documents out of an encirclement was a priority. Does anyone know how long it took for official reports to recognize the losses at Stalingrad?

Gary

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Gary,

The 10-day report you refer to is one of the "theater" (Ob.West, Sued, Suedwest, AOK 20, Ostheer, and so on) reports that were then assembled as the "Personelle Ausfaelle des Heeres" reports found in T78, R414, F3182-3371. These were the immediate 10-day reports and usually were filed within a few days of the end of the reporting period. In turn, the "theater" reports were assembled from the corresponding army reports, and the army reports from corps and division reports. They were later "corrected" (often that simply meant adding reports of units that had not previously been reported) by "nachmeldung", which unfortunately were not filmed for NARA. However, as my post above indicates, Niklas for his chapter included the various nachmeldungen found in BAMA for summer 1944, so his totals are "corrected."

I had to do much the same to come up with German casualty totals for the results of DIADEM in Italy 13 May-6 June 1944 and then for June and July, since the AOK 10 and 14 MIA reports bear absolutely no relationship with the Allied EPW counts, which is unusal since they normally show about a 90 percent correspondence. In fact this was the original subject of my email to Niklas, part of whose reply I posted earlier inthis thread.

Similar too is the German experience in France in 1944, where the rapid Allied advance disrupted normal reporting channels. Again a large discrepency exists between German MIA and Allied EPW counts. And that discrepency caused by late reporting was further exacerbated by the large numbers of "German" Kriegesmarine, Luftwaffe (non-Fallschirmjaeger), para-military and civilian occupation personnel that were captured by the Allies and counted as EPW. But there again by mid November corrections had been incorporated into the reporting and by January 1945 it appears that the system was pretty much back in sync with reality.

Hope that answers some of your questions.

Since Rumanian troops operated almost always within a German higher unit, it's hard to identify the losses inflicted to the Red Army purely by the Rumanians.

One unique case might be the siege and capture of Odessa, in the Fall of 1941, operation conducted without sizeable German support. However, this operation wasn’t typical to most events on the Eastern Front, as it was rather a W.W.1-style siege of a fortified city, than a mobile offensive. Also, for the Rumanian Army, it was only less than the fourth month of combat action, thus there was not much experience gained. Nevertheless, the case of Odessa can give us an idea of how the Rumanian soldiers fared against the somewhat more experienced Red Army, in defence of a key objective.

Statistics give conflicting information, but the following data seem to be close to reality:
Between Aug. 2 and Oct. 16, the 4th Rumanian Army – largely responsible for the operation – with the help of the Air Force (in a few cases the Luftwaffe, too), inflicted an estimated 60,000 casualties to the Red Army, I addition to 16,000 POWs (mostly deserters) and 20,000 wounded. The Soviets officially acknowledged the loss of 16,578 men dead or missing and 24,690 wounded (RE: Krivosheev). Most soldiers of the Odessa garrison could be evacuated however, and later took part in the fight for Crimea.

In turn, the 4th Army lost 18,730 dead, 67,935 wounded and 11,471 missing during the 2 ½-month-long operation.

And if you use Krivosheev's Soviet figures against the Romanian figures for own losses - well, then the ratio is better than 2:1 in the Soviet favor. And among these figures, that's the set of figures I most certainly would regard as the appropriate and relevant ones.

In any case - even a casualty exchange ratio of 1.3:1 is very markedly inferior to the overall German/soviet casualty exchange ratio for 1941, even taking into consideration the nature of this particular operation. So all in all, I am not much inclined to reverse my earlier judgment on the basis of these figures.

regards,

K.A.

I've seen some strange threads on casualties, but this one I think gets the prize. There's Oleg Sheremets, generally a far from stupid man, trying to work backwards from the total figure of mobilised manpower and arriving at a conclusion that the Germans had about ten million men in the East in 1945. "Groping in the dark" about sums up that discussion I think .

What compromises the discussion is that there is

a) Little to no data in it that is both relevant and accurate
b) No familiarity, except for Andreas Forsberg apparently, with how the German reporting system worked and what the various figures flying around actually imply
c) Little to no precision in the use of terms, with inevitable resulting multiple confusions
d) Generally a whole lot of reckless extrapolation and wild speculation.

regards,

quote:

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Originally posted by Kjetil Aasland:
What compromises the discussion is that there is
d) Generally a whole lot of reckless extrapolation and wild speculation.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kjetil Aasland:
Denes - I had another look at your RMZ link, and realised that you must have referred not to the first and relatively brief thread, but to the much longer one further down.

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Yes, that's the thread I was referring to.
I only mentioned it, because it's the only significant discussion I was involved in, trying to ascertain the actual Eastern Front losses of both sides.

quote:

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I've seen some strange threads on casualties, but this one I think gets the prize. There's Oleg Sheremets, generally a far from stupid man

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Dénes

[This message has been edited by DenesBernad (edited 03-18-2004).]

Thanks

quote:

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Originally posted by Gary Dickson:
...does anyone know if the Germans preserved the original Soviet documents they captured and if they're in the archives, either in the US or Germany?

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Gary, the only thing I've seen is maps. In particular, there were a group of marked up captured Soviet maps from 1941 in what used to the old NARA Map Archives. I have no idea where they are located now.

quote:

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Originally posted by Gary Dickson:
Anybody know if Russian docs are in the Bundesarkhiv?

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