Number of Soviet civilians directly killed by German forces?

[Cmyers1980]

Over 14 million Soviet civilians died as a result of WW2.

My question is exactly how many of these deaths can we attribute directly and explicitly to German forces whether Wehrmacht/SS/Waffen SS/Gestapo/auxiliaries.

What number of the 14 million+ deaths were the result of genocide as opposed to unintentional collateral damage?

How many were shot, burned, gassed, bayoneted, starved, beaten, worked to death, left to die from exposure to the elements and disease etc?

Is an estimate like this even possible?

From Wikipedia:
"The Russian Academy of Sciences in 1995 reported civilian victims in the USSR at German hands totaled 13.7 million dead, 20% of the 68 million persons in the occupied USSR. This included 7.4 million victims of Nazi genocide and reprisals; 2.2 million deaths of persons deported to Germany for forced labor; and 4.1 million famine and disease deaths in occupied territory. There were an additional estimated 3.0 million famine deaths in areas of the USSR not under German occupation. These losses are for the entire territory of the USSR in 1946 to 1991 borders, including territories occupied in 1939–40.[24] The deaths of 8.2 million Soviet civilians were documented by the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission.[25]"

Is 13.7 million an accurate estimate or should it be lowered?

[stg 44]

There is considerable debate about the number of Soviet civilian dead among Russian historians; many claim that the Soviets and official Russian numbers include millions of men that were part of the armed forces or used by them. There are plenty of stories about civilians being forced to run across minefields by Soviet soldiers to clear them before an assault or tamp down snow in winter, so there is considerable wiggle room there in terms of numbers. Plus of course partisan losses and who they targeted; apparently they were notorious for killing collaborators, some of whom just had stuff the partisans wanted. Then of course how do you tabulate Soviet citizens fighting for the Germans or those killed by the NKVD?

[Paul Lantos]

The Wermacht had a brutal scorched earth policy in the USSR and they lived off the land. Many more Soviet citizens died from starvation, exposure, and resulting diseases than from bullets and bombs. Whatever the number was it was enormous. 1-2 million Soviet civilians died during the Leningrad siege alone. The only thing comparable to it in all of WW2 was the number of civilian deaths in China.

[michael mills]

1-2 million Soviet civilians died during the Leningrad siege alone.

That is an exaggeration. One million deaths is the highest figure often quoted, but more recent Soviet research has led to the conclusion that a maximum of some 600,000 civilian residents of Leningrad died during the siege, either in the city or during or shortly after evacuation as a result of the privations they had suffered.

In any case, the deaths of civilians during the siege of Leningrad is largely irrelevant to the question asked in the first post, which related to the number of Soviet civilians directly killed by German action. The only civilian residents of Leningrad who fell into that category would be those killed by German bombardment of the city.

Most of the civilian deaths were caused by starvation, which was a result of the failure of the Soviet Government to supply enough food to the city, or to evacuate most of the civilian population on time, as it had done with other Soviet cities such as Kiev.

There was a period of some months between the beginning of the German invasion and the beginning of the siege of Leningrad, during which the Soviet Government could easily have evacuated the larger part of the civilian population, thereby greatly reducing the problem of food supply. However, it refused to do so for ideological reasons; since Leningrad had been the centre of Bolshevism, its population was expected to be strong supporters of the Soviet system and defend the city to the death.

When the Soviet Government changed its mind in the spring of 1942 and began evacuating civilians not needed for the support of the military defenders, it was too late; most of the deaths from starvation had already occurred, and many of the evacuees were so weak that they died in large numbers. The railway stations along the route of the evacuation were piled high with the bodies of evacuees who had perished en route.

In short, the deaths of some 600,000 civilian residents of Leningrad cannot be attributed to the German occupation, since the German invaders did not control the city, which remained under Soviet administration throughout the siege. The deaths were primarily the result of decisions by the Soviet Government, such as to restrict the supply of food to persons not actively engaged in the defence of the city.

[Sheldrake]

Over 14 million Soviet civilians died as a result of WW2.
My question is exactly how many of these deaths can we attribute directly and explicitly to German forces whether Wehrmacht/SS/Waffen SS/Gestapo/auxiliaries.
What number of the 14 million+ deaths were the result of genocide as opposed to unintentional collateral damage?
How many were shot, burned, gassed, bayoneted, starved, beaten, worked to death, left to die from exposure to the elements and disease etc?
Is an estimate like this even possible?

One reason for invading the Soviet Union was to seize control of the Ukraine so its food fed Germans rather than Russians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_Plan
The Germans had no plans to feed the population of the occupied areas.
With that as an objective, the distinction between "genocide" as opposed to "unintentional collateral damage" looks like hair splitting.

[Jan-Hendrik]

Please leave Wikipedia out....

Here is something more reliable:

Nationalsozialistische Nachkriegskonzeptionen für die eroberten Gebiete Osteuropas vom Januar 1940 bis zum Januar 1943

by Karsten Schulz

Jan-Hendrik

[michael mills]

In order to read the dissertation by Karsten Schulz, select the heading "Inhaltsverzeichnis", which contains the entire text. Other headings lead to "bad gateways".

[michael mills]

The Germans had no plans to feed the population of the occupied areas.
With that as an objective, the distinction between "genocide" as opposed to "unintentional collateral damage" looks like hair splitting.

It is by no means hair-splitting. The essential determining element of "genocide" is intentionality, the intention to destroy a population group as such, in whole or in part.

A plan to extract food from occupied Soviet territory in order to feed the German population does not have as its objective the destruction of the population of the occupied territory, even though there may be elevated mortality of that population due to resulting food shortages. Therefore, that plan does not constitute "genocide".

[Paul Lantos]

One million deaths is the highest figure often quoted, but more recent Soviet research has led to the conclusion that a maximum of some 600,000 civilian residents of Leningrad died during the siege.

Guess it wasn't that bad then.

[Sheldrake]

Please leave Wikipedia out....

Here is something more reliable:

Nationalsozialistische Nachkriegskonzeptionen für die eroberten Gebiete Osteuropas vom Januar 1940 bis zum Januar 1943

by Karsten Schulz

Jan-Hendrik

Thank you for the link. Unfortunately I cannot read German.
The Wikipedia article had little that was different to the argument laid out by Lizzie Collingham in her book on Foood strategy in WW2.. In taste of war
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Taste-War-W ... 0713999640

Do you disagree that there was an economic plan to divert food from Ukrainian and Russian to German mouths?

[Paul Lantos]

At the very least the short term plan was for the Wermacht to live off the land and not be provisioned from the Reich. There was economic planning for the agricultural potential of Ukraine, but it wasn't just for export, as over the long term Ukraine was to be settled by Germans (some of whom were indigenous).

[michael mills]

Do you disagree that there was an economic plan to divert food from Ukrainian and Russian to German mouths?

There was indeed a plan to extract the food surplus of Ukraine and the North Caucasus to supply the population of "Fortress Europe".

However, the amount of food extracted from those areas, an average of some three million tonnes annually, was no greater than the amount exported from those areas in the immediate pre-war years. Thus, the extraction of that amount of food would not necessarily have resulted in a reduction in the amount of food available for the population of the German-occupied Soviet territories of a magnitude sufficient to cause a famine.

And in fact there was no famine resulting in mass mortality in the occupied territories.

The main result of the establishment of German control over the food production of Ukraine was that the surplus produced was no longer available to the Soviet Government as a source of export income.

I have dealt with this question here:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... t#p1929271