Ostfront was overrated

[mustang19]

Hi Mustang19,

You appear to have missed my not inconsiderable earlier post, so here it is again:

"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.

The broadest definition, point is that Germans let others do everything.

We know two things:

1. There were 2.7m Volksdeutsche
2. They were conscripted

So at 25% conscription you get 500k.

"Self-identifying pole" is a technicality, the poles who supported Fascism called themselves something else.

[Richard Anderson]

The other thing is that "suicide battalions" are a fantasy. Those people had their jail term expired so they were full-fledged citizens not different from the others.

Shhhh! Art, you're going to spoil the fantasy if you start bringing in facts. As it is, we have the very definition of what the sound of one hand clapping makes right now in the interplay between ljadw and mustang19.

[ljadw]

Sergei Maksudov criticised Zemskov strongly .
About the Gulag : what happened to the other 1.15 million :Nasedkin said that 2.1 million left the Gulag of whom only 975000 were taken to the Red Army .

[ljadw]

Zemskof gave a number of 350000 Gulag inmates for 1944 and 550000 for 1945 .
The reason that Applebaum and Zemskov are not reliable is their political opinions : Zemskov worked together with Arch Getty ( a stalinist ) who downplayed the terror and Stalin's role in it .
Applebaum gives a false picture of the Holodomor,saying that the famine was intentionally started by Stalin to crush the Ukrainians .
It is obvious that their political opinions have influenced.determined and distorted their historical work .

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Mustang 19,

So, by "broadest definition" you are including as "Poles" all citizens of pre-war Poland (including not just ethnic Poles but millions of more or less unwilling ethnic Germans, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Jews, Kashubes, Gorals, Masurians, etc., etc.) and all Alt Reich German citizens of Slavic descent, be they of Polish immigrant stock, or local Wends, and all people of mixed Polish-anything else descent?

If so, it strikes me as such a generalised and unselective list as to be functionally almost totally meaningless!

However, it does have the useful side effect of highlighting how ludicrous Nazi pursuit of ethnic purity was, be it for themselves or others.

Cheers,

Sid.

[mustang19]

Hi Mustang 19,

So, by "broadest definition" you are including as "Poles" all citizens of pre-war Poland (including not just ethnic Poles but millions of more or less unwilling ethnic Germans, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Jews, Kashubes, Gorals, Masurians, etc., etc.) and all Alt Reich German citizens of Slavic descent, be they of Polish immigrant stock, or local Wends, and all people of mixed Polish-anything else descent?

If so, it strikes me as such a generalised and unselective list as to be functionally almost totally meaningless!

However, it does have the useful side effect of highlighting how ludicrous Nazi pursuit of ethnic purity was, be it for themselves or others.

Cheers,

Sid.

None of them were German, they were just whatever person signed up for free food.

Cheers,

Mustang

[gracie4241]

It was-other than casualties-as Germany, industrially and from an over all manpower allocation-put surprisingly little towards the East."Germany and the Second World War" Vol 5;O'brien ,"How the War was Won".The across the Board Air,Naval, and Ground effort and threat,and Lend Lease contribution of the West is frequently greatly underrated here.

[ljadw]

The OP ''Ostfront was overrated '' starts from the wrong POV that it is possible to rate the Ostfront, to give it points,to compare the importance of the Ostfront to the Allied front,while the truth is that the Soviets could have defeated Germany without the active intervention of the Allies and that the Allies could have defeated Germany without the active intervention of the Soviets .

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Mustang 19,

You post, "None of them were German, they were just whatever person signed up for free food."

So, your definition of "Pole" is ".....whatever person signed up for free food"?

Please tell us more about the "free food". I thought Germany had rations that had to be paid for. Were these "Poles" somehow privileged above ordinary Germans in that they alone got "free food"?

Cheers,

Sid.

[gracie4241]

There is ZERO chance-literally-that the Soviet Union could have avoided a Brest-Litovsk Treaty(at best) alone.Such a fate threatened in summer 1942(see Stalin, July 27, 1942) when Germany had 2.8 million men in the East out of 9 million men in uniform, and 2,600 tanks out of 5,600, and barely half the Luftwaffe.The Soviets received 30-50% of their explosives/ammunition, copper, aluminum, machine tools,high octane aviation gasoline from the west, and nearly 2/3 of their motor transport .Germany could easily have had an additional 2,000,000 men(pretty much just from Luftwaffe Flak and the Naval arm if need be) or 120 more divisions;their submarine program ate up 10% of their armament industry to less than 4.7 % for their total AFV program in 41 and 42.This isn't close;As Albert Seaton said in the" Russo'German War 1941-45", without the Allies Germany would have CRUSHED(his word) the Soviet Union".I'm merely saying a second "Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ".The idea that Russia, bled dry by 1945 anyway(see the math),could have won the War by itself is a Putinesque fantasy claim".

[ljadw]

Easily have 2 million men more for the Ostheer ???
Less submarines does not mean more tanks .
Albert Seaton is totally obsoleted, he is a man of the Cold War . A man of the past .He is an American Paul Carrell writing about the war in the East (in 1970 49 years ago ) without using Soviet sources .

[ljadw]

East Germany had a lot of industry . And to say that fascism became NATO is nonsense . Fascism died with the death of Mussolini .

[Sam Wren]

I am letting everyone in on a little secret: if you ignore the trolls they turn into stone and no longer plague the DG with their (at best) woefully uninformed or (at worst) fanboy-delusional arguments.

[Terry Duncan]

A post from mustang19 that contained reference to modern politics was deleted by this moderator. Mustang19, please avoid making such references as they are against the forum rules due to the likelyhood they will end up in flame wars and are far from the purpose of the forum in the first place.

Terry Duncan

app.php/rules

[Terry Duncan]

A further post from mustang19 has been removed by this moderator.

Mustang19, as you clearly cannot refrain from delving into making modern political statements, consider this the only warning you will get. ANY further repeat of such comments, even if dressed up as an apology in order to repeat the same statement, will result in a ban.

Terry Duncan