Questions about Stalingrad

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Dann Falk
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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#16

Post by Dann Falk » 12 Feb 2017, 01:40

From the book by French L. Maclean, Stalingrad, The Death of the German Sixth Army on the Volga, 1942-1943
Vol #2 p.60.

"The German VI Army HQ reports to higher headquarters (Army Group B) that between 13 September and 14 November (three months) the VI Army has suffered the following casualties:

7,487 men Killed
30,313 Wounded
1,081 Missing in action
For a total of 38,881 casualties."

So the fighting within and around Stalingrad was intense. During this same period Russian/Soviet armies to the north, 24 & 66 Armies and the 64 Army to the south, were frequently launching mass attacks to distract and prevent the German VI Army from concentrating their efforts against the 62 Army within the ruins of the city.

Art
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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#17

Post by Art » 12 Feb 2017, 11:34

Stiltzkin wrote: City fighting (13 Sept. to 16 Oct.)

Officers 69 KIA 271 WIA 3 MIA
NCO+Men 2,438 KIA 10,107 WIA 298 MIA

total 13,186
Losses of the entire army were larger than quoted (well above 20 000 in a month). You can find German medical record of casualties here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160629180 ... dec42.html
Of course, not all were suffered inside the city.


Henri Winkelman
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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#18

Post by Henri Winkelman » 12 Feb 2017, 13:38

Dann Falk wrote:This is all good info.

So once again let me quote from my research to illustrate the final fighting within Stalingrad...

For a grand total of some 69,256 men. This works out to be a loss rate of some 2,885 men per day. Numbers like these illustrate the level of fighting that was taking place during the final assault against Stalingrad."

So the Axis forces within the Stalingrad pocket were starving to death and freezing. They were also low on fuel, ammunition, heavy weapons, medical supplies and hope. They knew the battle was lost but they would not give up and were able to inflict some 69,256 causalities on the attacking Don front armies.

A final bit of info..."It was reported that after the battle, some 140,000 dead and frozen Axis troops were picked up from the Stalingrad battlefield and buried."
Very interesting Dann, thanks.
Dann Falk wrote:More Romanian information.

From the book Third Axis Fourth Ally by Mark Axworthy. If you are interested in the Romanian army during WW2 this is a great book.

Page 111 - The Romanian 1st Cavalry and 20th Infantry Divisions within the Stalingrad pocket had 12,607 men. (these were almost all killed or captured)

Page 114 - Romanian losses for the entire Stalingrad Campaign, 3 & 4 Armies, totaled some 158,854 dead, wounded and missing. On the Stalingrad axis about 140,000 men with some 110,000 since 19 November 1942. (That is after the Soviet offensive).


It appears that we are all posting the same information :D
158.854 casualties, that's a lot if you compare it to the total amount of Romanian troops on the Eastern Front in November 1942. According to most sources 268.000 Romanians were fighting on the Eastern Front during that month. So the Romanians lost approximately 59 percent of their troops during the Stalingrad campaign.

Henri Winkelman
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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#19

Post by Henri Winkelman » 12 Feb 2017, 13:45

Stiltzkin wrote:From the 6th Army records:

Axis losses , outskirts to street fighting (intense phase, 21. Aug 1942 to 16. Oct)
Approach, plus city fighting:

Officers 239 KIA 821 WIA 8 MIA
NCO+Men 7,456 KIA 30,360 WIA 1,127 MIA

total 40,011

City fighting (13 Sept. to 16 Oct.)

Officers 69 KIA 271 WIA 3 MIA
NCO+Men 2,438 KIA 10,107 WIA 298 MIA

total 13,186
That seems to be a very low number to me. I know that German accounts are generally more reliable than Soviet accounts, but this can't be very accurate.
(while the Germans suffered 150.000 KIA in the city itself.)

During the 4th quarter of 42 the Wehrmacht suffers 133,894 Gefallene (KIA), on the whole EF, this does not make much sense.
It makes sense, it's simple math. Around 250.000 Germans (probably even more) were trapped in and around the city. 90.000-100.000 were taken prisoner, so the other 150.000 must have been killed.

By the way, most Germans probably died in January 1943, which is (of course) not included in the 4th quarter of 1942.
2,507 KIA during 1 month of intense urban fighting, extrapolating from this , including the modifiers for terrain and defensive posture we can conclude that Soviet KIA must have been around 11,000, in this particular sector (though, the exchange rate during the 4th quarter of 42 increased significantly).
Same story, the numbers must have been higher.

BarKokhba
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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#20

Post by BarKokhba » 12 Feb 2017, 19:32

Henri, keep in mind there were also huge numbers of Italians at Stalingrad, and the destruction of Italian forces at Stalingrad and generally on the Eastern Front are one of the leading causes for the Italian people turning against Mussolini, deposits him, and essentially dropping out of the war, leading to the Nazi occupation of northern Italy. There were also Hungarian fascist forces, in smaller numbers, crushed at Stalingrad.

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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#21

Post by Stiltzkin » 12 Feb 2017, 19:33

I am familiar with the 10 days reports. You should learn how to read the casualty reporting system (Verlustwesen), before correcting other posters. There are KIA, WIA , MIA, DOW/HW, other causes (sick, later returns, frostbitten etc.). They cannot have sustained 150,000 KIA in the city. The ration strength of 6th army was 298,573 (26,000 on leave, 50,000 Hiwis), plus 152,000 allies (see M.Kehrig, Stalingrad, Anlage 14 , 1974, p. 671). 4th Panzer Army had 42,215 men plus Romanian Divisions with 104,700 men (80,700 Romanians in Div., 24,000 non specified/in non-divisional HQ units), for a total of 146,915 men. Actual strength is always lower than ration strength. Ist Stärke: 242,583
These 3 armies faced the Soviet offensive with 597,488 men opposed by 1,106,000 men. Ration strength includes sick, wounded, prisoners of war, nonmilitary manpower and manpower from other military organisations. Actual strength includes all men that are part of the unit's composition, but can also give an inflated number. Gefechts or Combat strength is usually half of the actual strength (35% of actual is front strength).

The numbers given are for the units that fought INSIDE the city by the units of 6th Army , urban warfare, during 1 month of battle. The highest toll/losses sustained during the late phase of 42 were near Veliki Luki/Rzhev etc. and not in or around Stalingrad (except during the Summer offensive, 2.Kharkov and the initial approach). The situation in Stalingrad worsened after the encirclement, prior to that they managed to further minimize their losses. Encircled troops are not KIA.

According to 10 day reports:

6. Armee (from the AKs, XIV, VIII etc., which IDs exactly, we could only guess), Gefallene, KIA from September to October 42: 9249 KIA, thus the number of 2507 KIA is in close agreement to these reports, this represents only a fraction of the KIA for this month.

Losses for AOK6 (this includes Group Don) up until February 43 with corrected figures: 55,166 KIA, 195,000-209,529 captured in the pocket, for a total of 214,897 MIA.
If you want, you can add 13,517 KIA from Sept. to October 42 for Heeresgruppe B and 7,236 Romanians for the Stalingrad campaign, if they are not already double counted.
How you came up with the number of 150,000 KIA is a mystery to me, only if we expand the front and include losses from the Caucasus and other operations like Winter Storm, we would arrive at such a number.

Henri Winkelman
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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#22

Post by Henri Winkelman » 12 Feb 2017, 20:21

BarKokhba wrote:Henri, keep in mind there were also huge numbers of Italians at Stalingrad, and the destruction of Italian forces at Stalingrad and generally on the Eastern Front are one of the leading causes for the Italian people turning against Mussolini, deposits him, and essentially dropping out of the war, leading to the Nazi occupation of northern Italy. There were also Hungarian fascist forces, in smaller numbers, crushed at Stalingrad.
Good point, but I thought that the encircled troops in Stalingrad were largely Germans. Do you have numbers of Italian and Hungarian troops in the pocket?

BarKokhba
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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#23

Post by BarKokhba » 13 Feb 2017, 01:41

According to V.E. Tarrant, there were a total of 510,000 non-German troops on the Eastern Front in June 1941- 330,000 Romanians, 70,000 Hungarians, 68,000 Italians 28,000 Slovakian, 14,000 Spanish, which Tarrant says 'were more of a liability than an asset', and usually kept to the rear or quiet sections of the front. For the Fall Blau (Case Blue) campaign toward Stalingrad and 2 other objectives, Hitler employed 8 Romanian Divisions, 6 Hungarian, 6 Italian, all at half strength compared to full strength German divisions of 18,500 (therefore each having closer to 9,250 each). For the most part, the Hungarian and Italian forces were deployed NW of Stalingrad and south of Kursk, with the 3rd Romanians directly on the left flank of the German 6th Army, and the 4th Rumanian SW of Stalingrad close to the city. On Nov 19 the Red Army attacked and decimated both Rumanian forces in their encirclement operation. By Nov 23 the German command at Stalingrad reported 'the total dissolution of the 3rd Rumanian'. On that day the trap shut tight around the Axis forces, the Pocket, and subsequent attacks by the Red 1st Guard Army and 5th Tank Army turned north to outflank and destroy the Italian and Hungarian armies. Remnants of these armies fled north to Kursk and west into the steppes. Many Italian stragglers were captured by German forces and sent to German POW and labor camps. On the night of Nov 23, 27,000 Rumanians, the remnant of four divisions, surrendered to the Red Army. Tarrant reports that 12,000 Rumanians fled into The Pocket when it was it's largest. The remnants of the 1st Cavalry and 20th Infantry somehow escaped west outside the Pocket. There is no report by Tarrant if any Italians or Hungarians made it into the Pocket, which surrendered on Feb 2, 1943 with over 90,000 captured.

Henri Winkelman
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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#24

Post by Henri Winkelman » 13 Feb 2017, 02:01

BarKokhba wrote:According to V.E. Tarrant, there were a total of 510,000 non-German troops on the Eastern Front in June 1941- 330,000 Romanians, 70,000 Hungarians, 68,000 Italians 28,000 Slovakian, 14,000 Spanish, which Tarrant says 'were more of a liability than an asset', and usually kept to the rear or quiet sections of the front. For the Fall Blau (Case Blue) campaign toward Stalingrad and 2 other objectives, Hitler employed 8 Romanian Divisions, 6 Hungarian, 6 Italian, all at half strength compared to full strength German divisions of 18,500 (therefore each having closer to 9,250 each). For the most part, the Hungarian and Italian forces were deployed NW of Stalingrad and south of Kursk, with the 3rd Romanians directly on the left flank of the German 6th Army, and the 4th Rumanian SW of Stalingrad close to the city.
This is well-known information, but still fascinating to think over again. With hindsight it wasn't the smartest move to place the weakest troops on your flanks. Were there not more German reserves in the hinterland which could have been replaced by non-German troops or did the German command not want to sacrifice more 'German blood'?
Remnants of these armies fled north to Kursk and west into the steppes. Many Italian stragglers were captured by German forces and sent to German POW and labor camps.
That's particularly interesting. Where did the Germans get the manpower to capture these forces? As far as I know, the front west of Stalingrad was a mess and Manstein needed every man to stabilize the situation.
On the night of Nov 23, 27,000 Rumanians, the remnant of four divisions, surrendered to the Red Army. Tarrant reports that 12,000 Rumanians fled into The Pocket when it was it's largest. The remnants of the 1st Cavalry and 20th Infantry somehow escaped west outside the Pocket. There is no report by Tarrant if any Italians or Hungarians made it into the Pocket, which surrendered on Feb 2, 1943 with over 90,000 captured.
Very interesting, so 12.000 non-German troops in the pocket+a couple of Croatians. So like I thought, by far the biggest part consisted of Germans. So the amount of 150.000 Germans KIA makes sense. (Well, maybe 140.000)

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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#25

Post by Stiltzkin » 13 Feb 2017, 03:28

So the amount of 150.000 Germans KIA makes sense
Read my post above, again. KIA = Killed in Action (these are men with a "bullet hole" in their heads, so to speak).
Substract the total losses of Ostheer from August 42 from January 43 and maybe you can tell me how the Stalingrad front alone can have 150,000 KIA, if Ostheer KIA during these months does not even reach 150,000 KIA over all army groups, total losses are not just KIA, they consist of wounded and also missing and sick. Encircled are classified as MIA, how many of these men died in Soviet captivity you would have to check in the Anlaufstelle or Overmans report for fatalities and POWs.
Not even total Axis losses in Heeresgruppe B can amount to 150,000 KIA, that is inconsistent with all other battles and contingencies on the EF.

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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#26

Post by Henri Winkelman » 13 Feb 2017, 23:51

Stiltzkin wrote:I am familiar with the 10 days reports. You should learn how to read the casualty reporting system (Verlustwesen), before correcting other posters.
It was not my intention to be rude, I'm sorry.
There are KIA, WIA , MIA, DOW/HW, other causes (sick, later returns, frostbitten etc.). They cannot have sustained 150,000 KIA in the city. The ration strength of 6th army was 298,573 (26,000 on leave, 50,000 Hiwis), plus 152,000 allies (see M.Kehrig, Stalingrad, Anlage 14 , 1974, p. 671). 4th Panzer Army had 42,215 men plus Romanian Divisions with 104,700 men (80,700 Romanians in Div., 24,000 non specified/in non-divisional HQ units), for a total of 146,915 men. Actual strength is always lower than ration strength. Ist Stärke: 242,583
These 3 armies faced the Soviet offensive with 597,488 men opposed by 1,106,000 men.
Well, very interesting. But how many troops were inside the pocket? Not 597.488 as far as I know. (General consensus is 250.000-300.000 Axis troops)
Ration strength includes sick, wounded, prisoners of war, nonmilitary manpower and manpower from other military organisations. Actual strength includes all men that are part of the unit's composition, but can also give an inflated number. Gefechts or Combat strength is usually half of the actual strength (35% of actual is front strength).
I knew that, yes.
The numbers given are for the units that fought INSIDE the city by the units of 6th Army , urban warfare, during 1 month of battle. The highest toll/losses sustained during the late phase of 42 were near Veliki Luki/Rzhev etc. and not in or around Stalingrad (except during the Summer offensive, 2.Kharkov and the initial approach). The situation in Stalingrad worsened after the encirclement, prior to that they managed to further minimize their losses. Encircled troops are not KIA.
Okay, but I was speaking about total losses, not only in 1942. So September 1942-February 1943. The battles around Veliki Luki and Rzhev are interesting topics as well, but not really relevant for this discussion.
According to 10 day reports:

6. Armee (from the AKs, XIV, VIII etc., which IDs exactly, we could only guess), Gefallene, KIA from September to October 42: 9249 KIA, thus the number of 2507 KIA is in close agreement to these reports, this represents only a fraction of the KIA for this month.

Losses for AOK6 (this includes Group Don) up until February 43 with corrected figures: 55,166 KIA, 195,000-209,529 captured in the pocket, for a total of 214,897 MIA.
195.000-209.529 captured in the pocket? Almost all records give a number of 90.000-100.000 'kriegsgefangene'. (also German records) Of course there must have been many wounded, but it's not unreasonable to assume that most of these missing and wounded died in a very short time after the German surrender. (As just 5600 man returned from Stalingrad) But at least we agree about the amount of encircled troops in the pocket. (around 250.000)
If you want, you can add 13,517 KIA from Sept. to October 42 for Heeresgruppe B and 7,236 Romanians for the Stalingrad campaign, if they are not already double counted.
How you came up with the number of 150,000 KIA is a mystery to me, only if we expand the front and include losses from the Caucasus and other operations like Winter Storm, we would arrive at such a number.
This is just general concensus among historians. See this site which quotes a lot of sources:

http://necrometrics.com/battles.htm

Sources:
Clodfelter
Soviets: 300,000 casualties
Axis
200,000 Germans killed, wd. or captured inside encirclement.
100,000 Germans k/w/c outside encirclement.
150,000 non-Germans Axis k/w/c
28 Feb. 2003 Guardian (London)
"At Stalingrad the Soviets lost a million people."
"... 150,000 Germans lay dead."
"ANALYSIS
Let's start with ca. 480T Soviets KIA. (Erickson, Beevor, Overy)
Add the common estimate of 147,000 German 6th Army personnel killed within the pocket.
Over 9,700 Germans were killed in the weeks of street fighting, before the Soviet encirclement. (Hoyt) That's incomplete, so let's double it.
Romanian casualties run from 120-160,000, so a quarter of the mid-point would give us 35,000 k.
The Italians lost 85-130,000, so a quarter of the mid-point would give us 27,000 k.
Hungarians: Let's assume that it was comparable to the Italians and Romanians: 30,000
Germans outside the pocket: Hard to say. As a pure guess, let's say 10,000.
TOTAL of what we've got here: 749,000."

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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#27

Post by BarKokhba » 14 Feb 2017, 02:19

To answer some of your questions above, (again Tarrant is my source here), 124,000 total German and Rumanian KIA during the 5 day encirclement. Within the Pocket were 267,000 men, including a Croat fascist Infantry regiment attached to the German 100th Jager Division. As to 'German reserves in the Hinterland', there were entire Army groups west of Stalingrad but many of them had been stripped to near half strength by Hitler to support Fall Blau. It's not that saving German blood was the issue, but that Hitler's staff, in order to please him, showed all the rear divisions at full strength when they were not, and putting those units into the front line (even at half strength) in exchange for Rumanians to be the reserve was something even Hitler dared not to risk. Finally, the Germans did not need much manpower rounding up fleeing Italian troops. They were unarmed, freezing and starving, and generally walked right into German camps expecting to be welcomed and fed. A sad ending to those miserable souls sent to the Russian Front by IL Duce.

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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#28

Post by Stiltzkin » 14 Feb 2017, 06:20

"ANALYSIS
Just to be clear here, you have stated 150,000 German KIA, not total Axis forces KIA and you also referred to the city of Stalingrad and only Army Group B and subsequently group Don fall under this category. The reporting system usually lagged behind, the reliability lowers after mid 44, before that the discrepancy is minimal (about 9%).

Once again, most of the Axis forces were captured. There are a lot of fatalities during encirclements, but not necessarily due to combat. Aside from being captured: Starvation, freezing, accidents, diseases, murder/looting, execution and so on. These can be all sorts of personnel.

If you want to hear my opinion, I assume that a lot more deaths occured, the war in the east was not particularly characterized by large numbers of captives, except for a few occassions (unlike the ETO, W.Front). These deaths however were mostly not caused by fighting but due to other aforementioned reasons. A battle of ideologies. No conventions, barely any remorse (which can be easily deduced from the conditions for POWs, many Soviet and Axis PoWs died in captivity).
There is only a limited amount of sources about Stalingrad which can be regarded as useful, none of these mentioned on the site are amongst them.
Initially, you asked about soldiers who died in the city (mamayev kurgan, Grain elevator, fallen fighters square, red october etc.), which is adressed in KTB A.O.K. 6 Ia, 17. Oktober 1942, file 30155/33, reproduced on microcopy T-312, roll 1458, frames 961-63.
They show KIA for the soldiers who went into the city, for one month, you could try to extrapolate from there, considering this month saw intense fighting.

As for Soviet reports on how many Germans lay dead, Soviet claims on German losses were notoriously exaggerated, inflated. You should never take Soviet reports for German losses and vice versa.
Even if we accept these statements, just because 150,000 men lie around Stalingrad, this does not mean that they were all killed in action.
The numbers come from a Soviet report stating that about 91,000 officers and men were taken prisoner (from 10th Jan.1943) and of 147,200 "registered and interred dead". How many of these were Germans? If all of them were, how many were KIA? Do you now understand the problem?

The reporting system did not include all Stalingrad losses until Feb- March 43 (Nachmeldungen, for example 9,000 officers).
https://web.archive.org/web/20130423074 ... 03_MIA.jpg

What we know (corrected Heeresarzt report of 16/2/43, BA-MA RW 6/553):

Ration strength of AOK6 on Nov. 42: 298,573
Iststärke of AOK 6 1. Nov 42: 242,583
losses for AOK 6 from 1-22. Nov. 1,329 KIA 4392 WIA 333 MIA
23.Nov 42 - 12.January 43 (corrected): 6,870 KIA 21,011 WIA 3,143 MIA = 31,024 (substract)
21,011 WIA (wounded reported inside the pocket, so these are going to be MIA, captured).
25-27,000 flown out (evacuated, which we could define as wounded).
Some units escaped the encirclement and joined other formations.

total losses for AOK 6 up until January 43:

55,166 KIA 177,576 WIA 214,897 MIA, thus after the 12. January of 1943, about 178,505 men are MIA in the cauldron (close to the estimate of 195,000 - 210,000). If you are adding these to KIA, you are doing a mistake, that is like adding RKKA captives from Smolensk and Kiev 41 to KIA. Even if you know their fate, they died in captivity and not in combat, few returned. If you want to specifically know how many people died fighting, this would be difficult to guess.

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Yuri
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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#29

Post by Yuri » 15 Feb 2017, 11:23

Dann Falk wrote:From the book by French L. Maclean, Stalingrad, The Death of the German Sixth Army on the Volga, 1942-1943
Vol #2 p.60.

"The German VI Army HQ reports to higher headquarters (Army Group B) that between 13 September and 14 November (three months) the VI Army has suffered the following casualties:

7,487 men Killed
30,313 Wounded
1,081 Missing in action
For a total of 38,881 casualties."
If between 13 September and 14 November it is not three months but two months. Someone here is wrong.

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Re: Questions about Stalingrad

#30

Post by Yuri » 15 Feb 2017, 11:43

BarKokhba wrote:According to V.E. Tarrant, there were a total of 510,000 non-German troops on the Eastern Front in June 1941- 330,000 Romanians, 70,000 Hungarians, 68,000 Italians 28,000 Slovakian, 14,000 Spanish, which Tarrant says 'were more of a liability than an asset', and usually kept to the rear or quiet sections of the front.
Forgot to mention - the French Legion (AG "Centre") and the Danish corps (AG "North" - 16th Army), Scandinavian volunteers (AG "Centre") and Slovenian volunteers (AG "North" - 18th Army).

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