Are Rüdiger Overmans’ figures of German military fatalities in World War II plausible?

[Panzergrenadier2967]

Sorry but i know that Germans killed in salerno were about 1000-1500 and at Ortona they were max.800

[Panzergrenadier2967]

probably Germans killed in Italy were 120.000, max 125.000

[Mori]

• Operation Veritable (8 February–11 March 1945): Allied forces suffered 15,634 casualties and inflicted 44,239 casualties, thereof 22,239 POWs and 22,000 dead and wounded.[62] Of the Allied casualties an assumed 25.52% or 3,990 are assumed to have been fatalities. Of the German dead and wounded 29.54% or about 6,499 are assumed to have been fatalities. The ratio of Allied versus German fatalities would thus have been 1: 1.63.

• Operation Grenade (23 February to 11 March 1945): US Ninth Army "captured about 30,000 Germans and killed an estimated 6,000 more while absorbing less than 7,300 casualties."[63] Assuming that 25.52% or 1,863 of Ninth Army’s casualties were fatalities, 6,000 dead on the German side would mean an Allies versus German fatalities ratio of 1:3.22. This is highly improbable considering both the Western European campaign’s overall ratio (assuming Marshall’s figure for German and MacDonald’s figure for Allied battle deaths) and the ratio in Operation Veritable at about the same time, so the German figure must be an overestimate. It will nevertheless be used considering the aforementioned purpose of this exercise. Stacey states that Ninth Army captured 29,739 prisoners during the operation, and estimated to have inflicted 16,000 other casualties on the German army.[64] 29.54% of 16,000 dead and wounded would be 4,727 fatalities, implying an also improbable Allies versus German fatalities ratio of 1:2.54 in Operation Grenade, so this estimate is probably also too high.

I kind I know a thing or two when it comes to Veritable and Grenade. Both operations must be considered together, as they become one and the same thing in March 1945.

You assume German casualties in Veritable-Grenade to reach 44,239 + 36,000 = 80,239, of which 22,000+6,000 = 36,000 dead. correct?

You are also surprised by the US/German ratio of dead in Grenade.

My comments:
- you did not make the effort of checking what operation Grenade was about. Otherwise you would accept the US/German ratio as obvious. The way you approach this operations nicely colors your work: you have a lot of pre-conveived opinions.

- the total German losses for Veritable-Grenade are ca. 123,000 men. This includes KIA+WIA+MIA/PoW.
Where do I get this number? By crossing-checking 2 types of sources: the Allies assessment, as they were drafted in the immediate aftermath of the operation (on March 18th, 1945, to be specific).
And the German data, by comparing the strength of each individual unit before and after the operation (status exist for Feb 8th - first day of the operation -, Feb 28th, and there is way to get estimates for what's left on March 10th).

Bottom line: your 80,239 assessment is actually too low, by 50%.

[Mori]

Thing is, Overman's figures are such that his methodology (random sample) is more robust for the whole war than for individual fronts, the higher the resolution desired, the higher is his margin of error: he took a sample of a few thousand soldiers, if in a certain front only 3% of the KIA happened like in the Western front in 1944, his sample is represented by only a few dozen soldiers.

True.

But mention of monthly casualties of 300,000 or so derives from a large enough chunk of his random sample. And that's where the discussion is, rather than the figures in the 10,000 range that would suffer from being "a few dozen soldiers only".

[Guaporense]

Overman's figures are consistent with OKW figures actually if you take the broad war averages.

OKW figures up to January 1945: 1,810,061 KIA + 1,902,704 MIA = 3,712,765 dead and missing. Overman's figures are 3,643,000 dead and missing up to the December 1944.

[Mori]

Also Overmans approach considers casualties whatever their cause. This includes air bombing, artillery fire, accidents, illness and any casualty out of active operations. I have no idea how much this could represent. It also includes casualties of personel not strictly in the armed forces, or not registered as such by the army adminnistration (ex: border patrol personel).

One the other hand, the bottom up approach by Roberto Muehlenkamp includes casualties to non-German personel, which cannot be included in the cards Overmans uses. And they were a significant number of them, either Hiwis of combat personel (esp. in the SS units).

[Guaporense]

The OKW figures also include deaths of natural cause, 191,338 to be exact. Adding up to these figures we get 3,904,103 death and missing up to January 1945.

[Richard Anderson]

The OKW figures also include deaths of natural cause in what I called "KIA".

Unfortunately though, KIA is an abbreviation for killed-in-action and thus do not in fact include deaths by "natural causes". Thus, including them skews the data.

Gefallen = death in battle
Gestorben = died (all causes)
Verwundete = wounded (i.e, in battle)
Verletze = injured (i.e., non-combat)
Vermisst = missing
Fahnenflucht = deserted

[Richard Anderson]

Overman's figures are consistent with OKW figures actually if you take the broad war averages.

OKW figures up to January 1945: 1,810,061 KIA + 1,902,704 MIA = 3,712,765 dead and missing. Overman's figures are 3,643,000 dead and missing up to the December 1944.

Up to when in January 1945? Which "OKW figures"? From what source?

[Hiryu-]

Overman's figures are consistent with OKW figures actually if you take the broad war averages.

OKW figures up to January 1945: 1,810,061 KIA + 1,902,704 MIA = 3,712,765 dead and missing. Overman's figures are 3,643,000 dead and missing up to the December 1944.

Up to when in January 1945? Which "OKW figures"? From what source?

Müller-Hillebrand
https://ibb.co/cLhT6k

Krivosheev quotes the exact same figures, source is "report from OKW casualty record department dated 22 May 1945".

[xsli]

I saw a second-hand report on the graveyard burials in France, Belgium and Holland, claiming number of dead German soldiers buried in France 230764, Belgium 45400, Holland 31513.

Two questions: how accurate is the graveyard number? are all buried soldiers?

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Guys,

One cannot look at the totals of dead and wounded in isolation from the prisoners and, indeed, other factors.

Dead and wounded were the price the Western Allies paid to gain the advantages that allowed them to pick up the far larger numbers of German prisoners in 1944-45 and to help over run their opponents' entire war-making capacity. Western Allied casualties therefore bore a several-fold return in direct attrition on their opponent's armies and many times more in terms of depriving him of the terrain and resources with which to continue the war.

By contrast German dead and wounded were expended without significant reward for their side except to buy a few months of ineffectually used time.

Cheers,

Sid.

[ljadw]

The answer on the OP is that his figures are totally unreliable and can be discounted .

[tramonte]

When following Western Allies own losses in 1944 and then 1945 we can find trend of almost opposite to more intensive combat losses. There is now great possibility that German personal military losses (KIA + WIA) are largely exaggerated by estimates of 1945. In west there was not something very special slaughter in 1945. Instead there was more likely large scale German surrendering process from Feb to May.

Eastern Front too should be re-examined. Part of German forces continued stubborn resistance causing heavy casualties to Soviet Union - these German troops were decimated totally. On the other hand there were quite a lot German forces withdrawing to west to hands of Western Allies. No way was there 410 000 soldiers combat deaths in west. And it's not sure at all did 820 000 German soldiers deceased in east during last 4½ month period.

Overmans has also exaggerated losses of German ground forces in Italy (gap likely 60 000 - 70 000 deaths). And his claims that German system didn't give right numbers of deaths even before 1944 is mostly untrue.

One example:

"The example given by Overmans does not suggest that the reports were inaccurate, rather it suggests a less than perfect understanding of the documents on his behalf. If the strength of the Fechtende Heerestruppe,Heeresversorgungstruppe and Sonstige Truppe is added to the strength of the Verbände, we reach the level given by other documents."

https://web.archive.org/web/20060219111 ... ermans.pdf

It's rather obvious that German military deaths passed 4 million mark. No doubt. But it seems to be quite sure it never reached even near 5 million. These low and up limits are guiding us to more realistic figures to 4.2 - 4.6 million. As Zetterling pointed also:

"Sweden did not participate in the war, but of all men born between 1900 and 1927, 18 408 died 1945-49. Since the German population was about twelve times greater than the Swedish population, it could be expected that well over 200,000 men in the age bracket died 1945-49. However, since Sweden was not devastated by war, the mortality in German can be expected to be markedly higher. After all, in Sweden food production and distribution was working normally, housing was no problem, supply of clean water was undamaged, health care was adequate and hygiene caused no particular problem. Thus deaths due to infections can be assumed to have been be higher in Germany. "

Of course we must remember that perhaps some 20% of those German men of that age group had already deceased so that 1:12 rate is not possible. 1:10 was more likely.But when German infrastructure was largely in very bad shape we have good reasons to estimate that at least 15 times more German men of that age group deceased after the war (1945-49) than Swedish men. That's about 270 000 post war non-combat deaths. Just that number will cut claims of Overmans to near 5 million German military deaths. Italian gap will put it under. The gap in western front of 1945 will put it to 4.7 million.

Is there any factors might increase numbers of Overmans? I guess the only possibility is there inside Soviet POW labor camps and especially on march to those labor camps. In fact as studies made in Finland about Finnish POW's deaths are showing much more than some 30% of Finnish POWs died in captivity. Soviet system counted just those POWs who survived the trip to force labor camps. When all deaths of captured Finns were counted the death rate was near 45%.

[ljadw]

4 million is not obvious ,it is a guess ,without proofs ,including deaths and missing .
The official figures give a maximum of deaths on January 31 1945
of 1782798 for the army
144984 for the LW
60029 for the KM
which is a total of some 2 million

The number of missing is some 2,04 million.


There is no way that in the last 3 months an additional 2 million soldiers have died .There is also no way to prove that the 2,04 million had died before 9 may 1945.
Thus the conclusion is 2 million of deaths + an unknown number who died after January 1945 + an unknown number of missing who died before May 1945.
The number of POWs that died AFTER the war can not be included,as Overmans was writing about German military losses IN WWII.