The Russian side

[SovietEurope]

Losses in the east: 6,8 million KIA Soviet soldiers, militia whatever. We have another 3,6 million died in Nazi POW camps, that is why the Soviet losses were so high.

4,2 million Axis soldiers. 300,000-600,000 died in Soviet labour camps (food was lacking everywhere in USSR due to loss of Ukrainian and Western Russian grain-fields).

http://www.youtube.com/user/38602#p/a/u/2/DjB14ouLQrA

Watch the "great war" vids. Here is the first one, op. Barbarossa. Russian documentary was aired on May 2010, Channel 1.


Decide yourself if you think this video is biased, but usually it isn't the Germans that think so, but Swedes, Finns and Americans.

[Michate]

e have another 3,6 million died in Nazi POW camps, that is why the Soviet losses were so high.

Poppycock.

[Oleg Grigoryev]

e have another 3,6 million died in Nazi POW camps, that is why the Soviet losses were so high.

Poppycock.

well I probably will have to move this thread into HW section, but you would have to elaborate a bit.

[Panzermahn]

Losses in the east: 6,8 million KIA Soviet soldiers, militia whatever. We have another 3,6 million died in Nazi POW camps, that is why the Soviet losses were so high.

Yeah, not forgetting Stalin's on internal war against USSR citizens and soldiers as part of the reason for such high casualties.

[Michate]

Well, there are already many discussions of the issue, and I see no reason to rehash, but the original poster could do worse than have a look at http://ww2stats.com/pow_ger_dead_sov.html and the adjacent pages.

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Well, there are already many discussions of the issue, and I see no reason to rehash, but the original poster could do worse than have a look at http://ww2stats.com/pow_ger_dead_sov.html and the adjacent pages.

Do you know if the POW that died in custody of German allies on EF were included in German stats? I am think mostly of Romanians and Hungarians. Also you are aware that analogical Soviet data for German POWs deaths is considerably lower that estimate made by Germans themselves.?

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Losses in the east: 6,8 million KIA Soviet soldiers, militia whatever. We have another 3,6 million died in Nazi POW camps, that is why the Soviet losses were so high.

Yeah, not forgetting Stalin's on internal war against USSR citizens and soldiers as part of the reason for such high casualties.

what is " internal war" and how is it related to WW II Soviet causalities?

[Panzermahn]

Also you are aware that analogical Soviet data for German POWs deaths is considerably lower that estimate made by Germans themselves

Perhaps Oleg would be kind enough to supply us copies of the official English translations by Soviet Union on The Great Patriotic War literature since Malaysia only has diplomatic relations with Soviet Union back in 1967 and Soviet Union existed until 1991 so Soviet-era books are understandably quite rare in Malaysia.

what is " internal war" and how is it related to WW II Soviet causalities?

Mikhail Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich, both insightful historians of USSR, argued that Russian history died on 7 November 1917 and that the history of "Homo Sovieticus" (New Soviet Man) began on that same date; they called it "year zero". With Lenin's and Stalin's notorious secret police in the vanguard, the machinery of repression murdered and enslaved millions of Soviets from 1917 to shortly after the end of WW2 and sustained a 73 year hideous and cycnical experiment in reengineering the collective memory of an entire nation. That year 1941 holds a strong second place for the honor of being dubbed "year zero".

Stalin's Secret War: Soviet Counterintelligence against the Nazis 1941-45 by Robert W. Stephan, University Press of Kansas 2004

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Also you are aware that analogical Soviet data for German POWs deaths is considerably lower that estimate made by Germans themselves

Perhaps Oleg would be kind enough to supply us copies of the official English translations by Soviet Union on The Great Patriotic War literature since Malaysia only has diplomatic relations with Soviet Union back in 1967 and Soviet Union existed until 1991 so Soviet-era books are understandably quite rare in Malaysia.

what is " internal war" and how is it related to WW II Soviet causalities?

Mikhail Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich, both insightful historians of USSR, argued that Russian history died on 7 November 1917 and that the history of "Homo Sovieticus" (New Soviet Man) began on that same date; they called it "year zero". With Lenin's and Stalin's notorious secret police in the vanguard, the machinery of repression murdered and enslaved millions of Soviets from 1917 to shortly after the end of WW2 and sustained a 73 year hideous and cycnical experiment in reengineering the collective memory of an entire nation. That year 1941 holds a strong second place for the honor of being dubbed "year zero".

Stalin's Secret War: Soviet Counterintelligence against the Nazis 1941-45 by Robert W. Stephan, University Press of Kansas 2004

I repeat the questions "what is " internal war" and how is it related to WW II Soviet causalities?"
In so far as my kindness is concerned - there is a website called Amazon.

[Panzermahn]

[quote]I repeat the questions "what is " internal war" and how is it related to WW II Soviet causalities?"[\quote]

When you have secret oppressive police like NKVD, Stalin has free hands in his reign of terror against Soviet citizens, hence internal war against Soviet citizens who either are real or perceived enemies against the ruling Soviet class

How it relate to WW2 Soviet casualties? Well, the NKVD executed almost a division worth of soldiers and officers during the battle of Stalingrad (Beevor, Stalingrad, 1998), not to mentioned the incompetence of certain Soviet generals resulting in higher Soviet casualties (including Winter War) and you have the Strafbatallions as well as the notorious and infamous Soviet blocking detachments loyally upholding Stalin's Not A Step Back Order. Did Krivosheev sanitized this all in his work about Soviet combat losses of the 20th Century?

And of course, the Soviet POWs liberated from German POW camps. Either put straight back into battle as cannon fodder or a one-way ticket to Gulag or if lucky, were exonerated

[Oleg Grigoryev]

When you have secret oppressive police like NKVD, Stalin has free hands in his reign of terror against Soviet citizens, hence internal war against Soviet citizens who either are real or perceived enemies against the ruling Soviet class

Marvelous. Change NKVD to Gestapo Stalin to Hitler and you’ll get what – German internal war?

How it relate to WW2 Soviet casualties? Well, the NKVD executed almost a division worth of soldiers and officers during the battle of Stalingrad (Beevor, Stalingrad, 1998),

What is the division worth exactly? Considering the general scale of the casualties at Stalingrad that would make for what 1 or 2 percent at most?

not to mentioned the incompetence of certain Soviet generals resulting in higher Soviet casualties (including Winter War)

So military incompetence part of the “internal war”? Was France waging “internal war” on themselves then?

and you have the Strafbatallions

The entire losses of which would probably make less for the fraction of 1% of the entire Soviet losses. You do know that Germans also had penal units –right?

s well as the notorious and infamous Soviet blocking detachments loyally upholding Stalin's Not A Step Back Order.

which were disbanded in 1944- but do share - how many Soviet deaths blocking detachments are responsible for.

id Krivosheev sanitized this all in his work about Soviet combat losses of the 20th Century?

Have you actually even seen his book?

And of course, the Soviet POWs liberated from German POW camps. Either put straight back into battle as cannon fodder or a one-way ticket to Gulag or if lucky, were exonerated

Actually they were put straight into filtration camps, where they usually spent several month before their future was sorted out.
To sum it up, the “internal war” is a strange mix of the half facts, facts, and fiction with no solid figures to back them up (as in you have not provided any) that you put together for no apparent reason.

[Art]

Mikhail Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich, both insightful historians of USSR

Heller as far as I remeber is known for his calculation of losses on the Eastern Front in WWII (21 millions dead Soviet soldiers vs 1,4 million German) and another calcualtion of statistics of purges (100 thousands officers purged). In both cases the orgin of these numbers remained somewhat vague. Nekrich wasn't much better. In general Soviet era dissidents (and Heller and Nekrich were dissidents) were organically incapable of detaching themselfs from their ideological views and critical assesment of information. In other words the main thing for them was whether a certain thesis was anti-communist enough rather then whether it was correct. Not surprising that they created as many myths as the Soviet propagandistic machine did (although these were myths with the opposite sign) and in modern Russia with free acces to information their views were quickly discredited and became completely marginal. That is the reason why one should be very careful when dealing with pre-1991 dissident literature.

[Panzermahn]

Heller as far as I remeber is known for his calculation of losses on the Eastern Front in WWII (21 millions dead Soviet soldiers vs 1,4 million German) and another calcualtion of statistics of purges (100 thousands officers purged). In both cases the orgin of these numbers remained somewhat vague. Nekrich wasn't much better. In general Soviet era dissidents (and Heller and Nekrich were dissidents) were organically incapable of detaching themselfs from their ideological views and critical assesment of information. In other words the main thing for them was whether a certain thesis was anti-communist enough rather then whether it was correct. Not surprising that they created as many myths as the Soviet propagandistic machine did (although these were myths with the opposite sign) and in modern Russia with free acces to information their views were quickly discredited and became completely marginal. That is the reason why one should be very careful when dealing with pre-1991 dissident literature.

Hi Art

Thanks again for your thoughtful comments on Soviet historians like Heller and Nekrich. I am not familiar with Soviet-era historians apart from Dimitri Volkogonov (who wrote an excellent biography of Stalin) but rather with new generation of Russian historians that researched regarding the controversial Icebreaker thesis such as M.I. Meltyukhov, Constantine Pleshakov.

However apparently there are still some hardcore hardliners such as O.A Rzheshevsky who still subscribed to a Stalinist viewpoint of the history of WW2

Panzermahn

[Panzermahn]

Marvelous. Change NKVD to Gestapo Stalin to Hitler and you’ll get what – German internal war?

Thank you . Well you could say so in a different viewpoint. You have the German resistance (Unternehmen Valkyrie) trying to overthrow Hitler. You have the Feldgendarmerie as well as Gestapo hanging German soldiers and civilians for so-called cowardice in the face of enemy. You have the socialists Germans of the NKFD as well BDO together with their Soviet genossen trying to start a revolution in Germany. The Gestapo is as repressive and oppresive like NKVD.

What is the division worth exactly? Considering the general scale of the casualties at Stalingrad that would make for what 1 or 2 percent at most?

Around 10,000 men. It's still part of the statistics right? Or if you think life is cheap in Soviet Union during that era so 1 or 2 percent does not really count much.

The entire losses of which would probably make less for the fraction of 1% of the entire Soviet losses. You do know that Germans also had penal units –right?

Yes, the German penal units existed but not as 'famous' as those Soviet penal battalions which include running over minefields as part of their repertoire (I couldn't recalled if Sonderkommando Dirlewenger unit had its men running over minefields)

Have you actually even seen his book?

Waiting for the Great Patriotic War literature. Amazon.com is such a capitalist, plutocratic and bourgeoisie tool!

Actually they were put straight into filtration camps, where they usually spent several month before their future was sorted out.

Apparently Antony Beevor did not say anything that sort in his Berlin, The Downfall. He wrote that once liberated, they were giving weapons and put back straight into battles especially since there weren't enough Soviet manpower fighting.

To sum it up, the “internal war” is a strange mix of the half facts, facts, and fiction with no solid figures to back them up (as in you have not provided any) that you put together for no apparent reason.

Yes, fiction for those who apparently still living in the glories of Soviet Union

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Around 10,000 men. It's still part of the statistics right? Or if you think life is cheap in Soviet Union during that era so 1 or 2 percent does not really count much.

It is a part –only very small. So the question is, if it is small, why did you bring it up?

Yes, the German penal units existed but not as 'famous' as those Soviet penal battalions which include running over minefields as part of their repertoire (I couldn't recalled if Sonderkommando Dirlewenger unit had its men running over minefields)

They are not famous because you are not interested in them and you knowledge on Soviet penal battalions is marginal at best ( and I am being generous here).

Waiting for the Great Patriotic War literature. Amazon.com is such a capitalist, plutocratic and bourgeoisie tool!

So it is “no” then? Assailing something that you had no test of again? Some things just don’t change.

Apparently Antony Beevor did not say anything that sort in his Berlin, The Downfall. He wrote that once liberated, they were giving weapons and put back straight into battles especially since there weren't enough Soviet manpower fighting.

– Beevor is wrong????????????? Oh no, could that really be? ???????????? Here http://www.amazon.com/My-Just-War-Memoi ... 0891416455
Read up on the experience of the person who actually went through the system. While at that pick up this one too: http://www.amazon.com/Penalty-Strike-Co ... 895&sr=1-1

Yes, fiction for those who apparently still living in the glories of Soviet Union

No for those who actually care about the subject.