Hello again Art,
Not exactly. He states that the number of wounded and sick is taken from troop reports, but at the same time gives the number of men hospitalized according to the materials of Medical Service of Red Army. In order to explain the dicrepancies between thiese two data sheets he emphasizes that some wounded men could be not evacuated to hospitals, but instead returned to their units from regimental and divisional medical points. As far as I am ackwainted with the losses acount sytem in Red Army, it was on the level of this medical points where the acount of the losses bega, so the situation desribed doesn't seem to be improbable.
This is what I was referring to too, the point being just that Krivosheev at least take the hospital figures into account when commenting on his own data, and makes an attempt to account for the differences.
However, if you noticed the figure of wounded men fro 1941 given by Krivosheev is higher then the figure of wounded hospitalized in the same year, and this the fact that couldn't be expained by this theory.
Hm, you are right, this I had not noticed. OK, these are the two sets of figures - "Kriv" consisting of "Wounded" plus "Frostbites" according to Table 69, Hosp. referring the hospital figures in Table 60.
Year.............Kriv............Hosp..............Diff
41..............1,269,978......1,712,981.......- 443,003
42..............3,553,989......3,625,351.......- 71,362
43..............4,628,590......4,124,093.........504,497
44..............3,979,408......3,520,203.........459,205
45..............1,864,946......1,702,965.........161,981
In All.........15,296,473......14,685,593.......610,880
So, in 41/42, the reported figures wounded are lower than the figures shown by hospitals, 43/45 they are higher. IMO, the obvious factor to turn to in order to account for this should be the state of reporting in the chaotic circumstances of 1941/42, which Krivosheev himself describes as having resulted in inaccurate reports - also a very familiar phenomenon on the other side. He attempts to adjust for this by adding an estimated figure for missing in 1941, but does no such thing for wounded, or if he does, he doesn't say anything about it. This may have resulted in wounded not being accounted for at all, or it may have resulted in wounded being reported too late. If in the latter case, the excess figure in 1943 may be at least partly accounted for by this reporting lag. The explanation he does give (of soldiers not being sent back despite having been reported wounded) seems much more plausible for the late part of the war. There are several good reasons why there is considerably less incentive to evacuate wounded soldiers to the rear when generally on the offensive than when generally retreating. Above all, there is little risk of wounded being captured as a result of enemy advances. The general effect of advances is of course also to outrun your medical infrastructure, making it more time- and resource-consuming to bring wounded men back and forth.
I suppose a final possibility is also that hospitals and field formations may not have classified a given casualty in the same way. For instance, an injury (say, a broken leg) may have been reported under the wounded category because it was incurred during combat, but not been regarded as a combat injury by the hospital.
n 1941 1 532 367 wounded, 5 570 burnt, 29 625 frostbitten, 374 298 sick
1942 3 523 933/ 22 170/ 107 200/ 1 893 707
1943 3 695 814/ 18 410/ 44 435/ 1 824 425
1944 3 225 271 /12 294/ 11 344/ 2 046 744
Okay, so let's put that with Kriv. and the hospital figures
WOUNDED, FROSTBITES; BURNS
Year.............Kriv............Hosp..............Alt
41..............1,269,978......1,712,981........1,567,562
42..............3,553,989......3,625,351........3,653,303
43..............4,628,590......4,124,093........3,758,659
44..............3,979,408......3,520,203........3,248,909
In All.........13,431,527......12,982,628... 12,228,433
SICK (Kriv. Sick + Died of disease etc.)
Year.............Kriv............Hosp..............Alt
41...............319,508.......405,685..........374,298
42...............726,226.....1,948,133.......1,893,707
43...............991,643.....2,175,862.......1,824,425
44.............1,189,762.....2,381,321.......2,076,744
IN ALL.......3,209,139.....6,911,001.......6,169,174
On the wounded side, (and I would like to stress that I am merely offering possibilities) I think this again points towards plausibility for Krivosheev's explanation during the later part of the war, and to delayed or incomplete reporting during the early part of it. On the sick side, my immediate instinct (by no means an infallible guide) would be identify these figures with the overall sickness figures from hospitals, to whom they are much more similar. What do you think? And does the source have anything more to say about the scope and basis of the figures?
In the decrees that I saw - yes.
Thank you, that is a very major piece of contextual information for these figures.
But not in three times - that's what the number of wounded in EH did since 1942! I was indeed surprised by this rise.
You'd think that among hundreds of loss-related documents there'd be something as simple as a yearly Heer breakdown, but oh no.
I can piece the figures together probably, but it'd be a major undertaking. However, as said, such an increase seems perfectly plausible to me. Bear in mind also the very heavy losses suffered in 1945 - just in the East, 335,000 wounded were reported for January and February, and it is also clear from the report that thi is an incomplete figure. Then there is the effect of major losses in the West and south, which were not there in '42.
There is even monthly breakdown of losses and for 1944 the breakdown by months and fronts, but I don't have time now to type them.
If you should ever find the time to do so, or could be persuaded to scan them for me, I would be eternally grateful.
cheers
