All points sound ridiculous.ONE exemple:peak strength of the Red Armymustang19 wrote: ↑08 Nov 2019, 18:56Your post mostly confirms what I said. I mean, I'm saying that the collaborators were the same size as the red army.Richard Anderson wrote: ↑08 Nov 2019, 17:45Good luck on getting him to define what the Germans decided "Polish" meant. Aside from not being able to spell Volksdeutsche even when it is in the link he gives, he also has zero idea of what it meant to the Germans and especially the Wehrmacht. I also doubt he understands the difference between HiWi, Freiwilligen, Osttruppen, and "Turkisch-Truppen".Sid Guttridge wrote: ↑08 Nov 2019, 16:23Hi Mustang19,
There were no original sources in your links replying to me (though you do rather better later in other replies).
Furthermore, you have cherry picked the AHF link.
You only quote where it says, "In total up to 500,000 Poles served in the Wehrmacht during WW2." However, it concludes by saying, "The exact number of Poles who died while serving in Wehrmacht is still unknown, but is estimated (basing on partial data, fragmentary sources) as much more than 100,000." Why did you miss out the last bit?
We also need your definition of "Polish". Are you including people of Polish descent from the Alt Reich, most of whom were German speakers by 1939? Or all those with Polish citizenship in 1939, which includes millions of Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Jews, etc., etc.? Or those who chose to apply for recognition as German under the VOMI during the war? Are you including all the non-Polish Slavs such as the Gorals, who were in Poland in 1939? What about the Slavic Wends, who were inside the Alt Reich? What about those of mixed origin, which may have included much or most of the border populations? Etc., etc., etc.
It seems clear that there were not anything like 500,000 self-identifying Poles in the Wehrmacht in WWII. Indeed, self-identifying Poles would almost certainly have been automatically excluded from the Wehrmacht.
On the other hand there are all sorts of grey areas (as outlined two paragraphs above) that allow you some leeway.
So, who are you counting as Poles?
Cheers,
Sid.
P.S. The VOMI figures include all genders and ages. The men of military age would have amounted to at most a fifth of that, if Reich enlistment elsewhere is anything to go by. Furthermore, the last of the four VOMI categories (IV) were unusable.
P.P.S. 75% of the prisoners the Canadians captured at Dieppe in 1942 were former Polish citizens from Danzig-West Preussen. Unfortunately, as the total of prisoners was only four, this is not statistically significant.
P.P.P.S. Apparently only one German field division (60th Infantry/Motorised) was raised in Danzig-West Preussen by the German Army and none elsewhere in Poland. However, this division was essentially raised in Danzig, a city that was 95% German. Former "Poles" (dependent on your definition) from the area doubtless provided a certain amount of other-rank cannon fodder elsewhere in the German Army (as at Dieppe), but it is clear that they were not trusted in their own, locally-raised units and probably did not provide officers.
It is kinda interesting reading the thinly veiled neo-Nazi (excuse me, "Alt-Right") rhetoric though. It's helping me prepare for the 2020 election onslaught of such critters here in the States.
Let me know which one of these sounds ridiculous-
1. Peak strength of the red army was 6 million
2. Nkvd, penal and blocking units numbered around 4m and spent a lot of time killing other Soviets
3. Another 2-3m were Ostruppen, Hiwi, Slav SS, local occupation troops
4. Adding (2) and (3) together you get basically the same number of Soviets killing each other was about the same as the peak strength of the army
5. At the peak, about Half the axis forces in the east were Romanians, finns, poles, collaborators and other non-German ethnicities.
6. Even within the Wehrmact there were at least 500k foreign volunteers and the Wehrmact had a peak strength of 3m in the east.
7. 500k Wehrmact died in just two battles (Stalingrad/Leningrad). 200k in Barbarossa, 300k in Rzhev. There are also another 1m Wehrmact pow deaths probably at least partly included as KIA.
8. By (7), a third, more likely half, of the German Wehrmact losses occured in the first year of the war and the rest was mostly Germany running away and leaving things to other Axis. Ukraine, for example, was mostly defended by Romania, Poland had only 500k defenders which presumably included a lot of Volksdeutsche, Berlin had only 45000 defenders.
9. In conclusion the history channel understanding of ww2 is wrong. Soviets mostly killed each other, Germans mostly ran away.
December 1941 : 8.923.000
November 1942 : 10.609.000
January 1944 : 11.010.000
January 1945 : 11.409.000
Or take point 8 : German losses in 1941:824000 ( without Finland and LW ) ,in 1942 : 1.1 million, 1943 : 1.7 million
Point 6 :peak strength of the Ostheer (without LW ) was higher than 3 million ) some 3,3 million in June 1941.
Point 7 : POW deaths are included in the number of MIA, not in the KIA.