Extent of German military and civilian losses

[Michate]

Speaking of Maschke Commission - how did it calculate number of POW deaths in Soviet custody?

Interrogation of several tens of thousands (would have to look up the figure they give) of returning German PoWs concerning such things as number and location of camps, number and nationality of PoWs inside camps, health status of PoWs, number of transports and transport trains, loss rates during transports and inside camps, and so on.

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Well I had, general idea before, but what I am interested in, is what did they think at the time, about their margin of error? Historically, data collected from the former inmates of Penal systems of any state tends to err on the upper side. Maschke Commission numbers seem to be much larger than presented by MGB internal documentation.

[michael mills]

In regard to German POWs held by the Soviet Union, I have recently received from Thorwald77 a couple of tables from Overmans's book showing the total number of POWs held by each of the Allies, and the average number of POWs held in each quarter of the years from 1941 to 1950.

As is to be expected, the timeline of POW holdings show the number being held between 1941 and 1945 increasing as prisoners continue to be taken, reaching a peak in the first half of 1945 with the surrender of the German armed forces, then a gradual decline as existing POWs are released while no further prisoners are taken.

One thing struck me as odd, however. In most cases, the number of POWs being held at the peak in the first half of 1945 came nowhere near the total held.

For example, the Soviet Union's holdings of German POWs peaked in the second quarter of 1945, at 2.0 million. However, according to Overmans the total number of POWs taken by the Soviet Union was 3.155 million, of which 3.06 million were retained after transfers to Poland and Czechoslovakia.

That leaves a gap of one million that I can see no explanation for. I could understand the number held at any point in time never reaching the total taken if there were ongoing releases at the same time as prisoners were being taken, or if a huge number of prisoners were released almost as soon as they were taken, such that they did not add to the total being held. But so far as I know no such releases took place during wartime, and there were no immediate releases, at least by the Soviet Union.

The same anomaly occurs with the POWs held by Britain. The peak number of POWs held was 2.4 million, in the third quarter of 1945, but the total taken was 3.7 million, of which 3.635 million were retained after transfers to france and some other countries.

By contrast, in the case of POWs held by the USA, the peak number held, in the third quarter of 1945, is the same as the total number taken, namely 3.8 million.

Can anybody explain this seeming anomaly? I could well believe that in the case of the Soviet Union it could be explained by a huge mortality in the POW camps before the end of the war, such that by the time of the Wehrmacht surrender most of the prisoners previously taken by the Soviet Union had already died.

For example, Overmans's figures show that in the last quarter of 1944, the Soviet Union was holding on average 560,000 German prisoners. In the first quarter of 1945 the number held jumped to 1.1 million, and then in the second quarter to 2.0 million; that is consistent with a huge number of Wehrmacht personnel going into Soviet captivity at the end of the war. Thereafter, the number held progressively declines, consistent with releases and further deaths.

But the figures suggest, prima facie, that before the huge haul of prisoners was taken in the first half of 1945, about a million prisoners who had already been taken before then had somehow disappeared.

On the other hand, there is a gap of 1.235 million between the total prisoners taken by Britain and the peak number it held in 1945, and there is no reason to believe that that gap was the result of mass mortality. So what is the reason? Some sort of statistical glitch?

[ljadw]

are you sure of the figure of 3.O6 million ?
My guess would be that the Russian (as the German) figures of captured POW are not reliable .
I think that there are no reliable figures of German POW before the capitulation .
The same for the number f Germans that became POW at the German capitulation :my assumption would be that these were inflated .

[ljadw]

to give one exemple (source :WWII stats com POW)
The Russian Army recorded on 31/12/44:1.837 million of POW,on 08/05/45:3.777 million and was giving a total of 5.368 million
The NKVD:on 31/12/44:0.969 million of POW,on 08/05/45:1.758 million and a total of 3.25 million .
The Germans recorded on the east front on 31/12/44 1.117 MIA,and their allies (Finland,Italy,Hungary,Romania) 0.5 million of MIA.

[ljadw]

An other exemple (also from WWIIstats com)
The NKVD registered 2.079.717 German POW,repatriated were 1.315.510,died 317.512 ,in captivity on 1-1 -1949 430670
For the Austrians ;the figures were :156.966,137.888,10.746,7.760.
You will note the difference of dead POW :
germans 16 %
Austrians :7 %
and of the number still in captivity in 1949:
Germans 22 %
Austrians :5 %

[thom]

Michael you wrote:

On the other hand, there is a gap of 1.235 million between the total prisoners taken by Britain and the peak number it held in 1945, and there is no reason to believe that that gap was the result of mass mortality. So what is the reason? Some sort of statistical glitch?

The data is from the Maschke commission. They calculated the average per quarter from the (often estimated) number of POWs at the end of each of the 3 months of that quarter. In June 1945, for example, there was a peak of 3.45 million German POWs in British hands (incl. 2.9 million "SEP" = surrendered enemy personnel), while with the figures for April and May 1945 the quarterly average is just over 2.3 million.

[michael mills]

Thom,

Thanks for this explanation.

So it was just a statisitcal glitch.

[Cerdic]

Can I ask what the evidence is for the 600,000 or 700,000 famine deaths mentioned earlier in the thread?

[Marcus]

thorwald77 who made the claim left the forum several years ago so I doubt he will answer.

----

For those who want to discuss the claims related to the claims from Bacque about mistreatment of German POWs please continue this in the thread at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27723 and discussions about feeding German civilians post-war in the thread at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=138574

/Marcus

[Cerdic]

Yes, that's true. In any case, are there sources other than Bacque which give a figure of famine deaths? Even taking Basque's 5.7 million figure and deducting the 4 million undercount of expellees that Bacque made, its still 1.7 million (one million more than the figure given upthread).

Though there is also an mention that this refers to 1945/46 only.

[thorwald77]

Krivosheev, has extensive figures on Soviet losses in his general staff study that presumably had a counterpart with the estimated German losses to be used in war games. Has there been such a compendium of German losses published?