Soviet vs. German losses in WWII
What, a four-page discussion on losses and nobody warned me?!
Erickson:
While there is certainly large areas of insecurity in this issue, Erickson's comparison here can IMO be dismissed as weak, or even as irrelevant. Firstly, the sort of figures he attempts to use are hardly a good measure of military losses, unless the point is in itself to determine the number of people who lost their lives (which is of course interesting in itself, but something different than military analysis, from which point of view it is irrelevant if a POW retruns from captivity after the war or not, for example). Also, "dead" is a notoriously difficult category to compare, and also one where figures are extra uncertain. Secondly, his Soviet figures. These are well-known, and largely identical to Krivosheev's. Krivosheev's figures can I think be regarded as fairly reliable (at least as far as I can judge), but not as free of problems - and his figures for dead seem clearly the most rickety part of his construction. They are apparently coming under increasing pressure from research being made in personnell registries, and a careful reader willl have noted f.e. David Glantz hinting at as many as 13,000,000 Soviet military dead (which would in fact be much easier to reconcile with the Soviet casualty total) in his last book. So, while I am confident using Krivosheev's figures generally, I am much less confident using his deaths figures specifically. It must IMO be regarded as a minimum figure. Thirdly, a figure of more than 6 million German deaths is of course utterly and absolutely out of the question, and fails to have any correlation whatsoever with any German documentation I know of. That issue remains contested (and will remain so, I suspect), but even the highest estimates (Overmans) do not go much above 4 million, and that has a level of inclusiveness that is again not very meaningful vis-a-vis military analysis.
On the strength of my current material, I would hazard an estimate of something like 7 - 7.5 million casualties (ie, dead, wounded, missing) in the East through April 45 (without LW and KM). The total in the 20 April ten-day report is some 6.3 million, but that of course has not caught fully the losses in 45. These however concern killed, wounded and missing. Krivosheev's figure for ditto (with the non-combat losses deducted) is 27 million. It thus appears that it can with some confidence be assumed, on the strength of currently available material, that the relation between the overall losses of the two armies is in the area of 1:3.5/1:4. I see no good reason why there should not be a similar relation between the killed on the two sides.
cheers
Erickson:
While there is certainly large areas of insecurity in this issue, Erickson's comparison here can IMO be dismissed as weak, or even as irrelevant. Firstly, the sort of figures he attempts to use are hardly a good measure of military losses, unless the point is in itself to determine the number of people who lost their lives (which is of course interesting in itself, but something different than military analysis, from which point of view it is irrelevant if a POW retruns from captivity after the war or not, for example). Also, "dead" is a notoriously difficult category to compare, and also one where figures are extra uncertain. Secondly, his Soviet figures. These are well-known, and largely identical to Krivosheev's. Krivosheev's figures can I think be regarded as fairly reliable (at least as far as I can judge), but not as free of problems - and his figures for dead seem clearly the most rickety part of his construction. They are apparently coming under increasing pressure from research being made in personnell registries, and a careful reader willl have noted f.e. David Glantz hinting at as many as 13,000,000 Soviet military dead (which would in fact be much easier to reconcile with the Soviet casualty total) in his last book. So, while I am confident using Krivosheev's figures generally, I am much less confident using his deaths figures specifically. It must IMO be regarded as a minimum figure. Thirdly, a figure of more than 6 million German deaths is of course utterly and absolutely out of the question, and fails to have any correlation whatsoever with any German documentation I know of. That issue remains contested (and will remain so, I suspect), but even the highest estimates (Overmans) do not go much above 4 million, and that has a level of inclusiveness that is again not very meaningful vis-a-vis military analysis.
On the strength of my current material, I would hazard an estimate of something like 7 - 7.5 million casualties (ie, dead, wounded, missing) in the East through April 45 (without LW and KM). The total in the 20 April ten-day report is some 6.3 million, but that of course has not caught fully the losses in 45. These however concern killed, wounded and missing. Krivosheev's figure for ditto (with the non-combat losses deducted) is 27 million. It thus appears that it can with some confidence be assumed, on the strength of currently available material, that the relation between the overall losses of the two armies is in the area of 1:3.5/1:4. I see no good reason why there should not be a similar relation between the killed on the two sides.
cheers
Last edited by Qvist on 03 Oct 2005, 11:26, edited 1 time in total.
I'd be careful with any counting of enemy losses, by any army. I have to say though that I ahve seen much, much worse than this."The German files Panzer-Verluste Ost compiled by Fremde Heere Ost (IIc), in a report for 26 January 1944 summarising Feindliche Panzer-Verluste 1941-1943, tabulated troop after-action 'reported losses' with confirmed loss. The figure for Soviet tank losses in 1941 was 22,000 (with only the smallest discrepancy between the two figures, 246). For 1942 the figure of actual loss was 16,200 (compared to a 'reported loss' of 21,367). In 1943 actual loss was 17,300 (as opposed to a 'reported loss' of 34,659!). For the period 1941-3, German intelligence arrived at a figure of 55,300 Soviet tanks destroyed (compared to a 'reported loss' of 78,272, much of it attributed to 20-50 per cent double-counting)." pg. 268 Kirovhseev supplies Soviet tank losses as '20,500 in 1941, 15,100 in 1942, 23,500 in 1943." I'd be careful with German 'tank counting' after seeing this.
cheers
Of the Killed in Action, roughly five sixths were in the East, through 1944.That was the only number I wasn't sure of, and he doesn't go into detail about it. I'm afraid to say that he might have used a Soviet estimate, Andreas, is there a breakdown of those numbers? At least for the killed, out of 4 how many were on the Eastern Front?
cheers
1. How to deal with the missing here depends on the perspective. There is still roughly a million missing, presumed dead. However, it cannot neccessarily be assumed that these were killed in action, or that they died during the war - they may also have died in Soviet captivity, during or after the war.Not for the whole war, due to the breakdown in reporting from late 1944. From June 1941 to 30/11/44, the Heer suffered 1,419,728 KIA and 997,056 WIA in the war with the Soviet Union. To this you have to add losses of the air force other than air force ground troops I guess, and those of the Kriegsmarine (negligible I would guess). It is all very uncertain due to the problems of book-keeping in 1945, and the uncertainty about the fate of those missing in the east. If I read MH correctly, you can probably add another million or so to the aforementioned figures, and assume that the million listed as MIA to 30/11/44 are all actually dead (that would give you about a million returned from POW), and then you arrive somewhere near the upper boundary of those KIA in the east. Around 3.5m, or close to 90% of those killed
2. MH's figure for KIA also matches well with other reports I have seen of the same time, provided that it includes dead from wounds.
3. 3.5 million would appear to be dead and missing, including POWs who returned, which is not comparable to the Soviet figure Erickson in quoting (though this is not IMO a very meaningful way to group casualties).
4. It is correct that LW and KM dead don't amount to very much in this context. According to a Verlustwesen report through December 1944; 53,469 and 8,039 respectively, on the Eastern Front.
cheers
Last edited by Qvist on 03 Oct 2005, 11:32, edited 1 time in total.
Why?Personally I'd think the number higher
This remains a difficult, vexing and even obscure issue. Apart from the W-SS formations, it seems perhaps most likely that the losses of HiWis and Osttruppen are not much accounted for in these German figures. But there are clear limits to the scope of impact this could possibly have had. It is notable enough to affect the figures, but would not change them in any really fundamental way.but does this number include all the 'eastern legions' fighting with the German Army?
Well, to compare the dead according to this formula is IMO both futile (as there isn't the sources for it) and pointless (as it really mixes together different things which have nothing to do with each other, such as one specific category of battlefield losses and the rate of survival among POWs - in the German case for as much as 15 years after the war ended). The 1 million dead German allies is not much less specualtive than Erickson's German dead. Here I sadly lack really reliable data myself, but 1 million would be more plausible as a figure for all German allied casualties than for their dead alone. In short - this is a mode of comparison where you might as well draw numbers out of a hat, essentially.Even taking the minimum, 3.5 and adding 1 million for allies, 4.5 is still less than a 2:1 kill ratio for the East, although I'd think it closer to 1.5:1.
I would be fairly confident of the overall German and Soviet casualty figures quoted in one of the above posts (though neither is fully complete or exhaustive in its inclusiveness), with the losses of the German allies needing to be added to these. Bear in mind that the Soviet combat losses totalled some 27 million. In order for there to have been a 2:1 or 1.5:1 relation, there would need to be 13.5 million or even more axis casualties, something which is absolutely out of the question. As said, I see no good reason why the relation between their killed should be radically different.
cheers
So no losses during october 1941 and August 1944?Kunikov wrote:Polyarnoe/Karelia defensive operation 29 June-10 October 1941
KIA 67,265 Medical Casualties (MC from now on) 68,448
Vyborg-Petrozavodsk offensive operation 10 June - 9 Aug 1944
KIA 32,674 MC 72,701
Petsamo-Kirkenes offensive operation 7-29 Oct. 1944
KIA 6,048 MC 15,149
Truthfully, I'd say only these three operations took place against a majority of Finnish troops, and as you can see, the KIA is a bit over 100,000. 1941 was a bad year all around, so that would explain the large KIA, if you will notice, as the war progressed the MC to KIA went to the usual 3:1 ratio, or close to it.
IIRC, Finland lost nearly 10 000 KIA during the 'trench war' period, don't know about Soviets.
Also the Petsamo offensive I suspect was against Germans only...
This chapter in Krivosheev is a horrible mishmash which isn't even consistent with itself, nor with the sources it quotes.Well, you are counting 2 million KIA including the MIA's? Also, what is the number of MIA's for earlier years on the Eastern Front? Are all of them known to have been POW's, or are some of them counted in KIA or neither? By the way, here is info coming out of Kirovsyeev's book, which I think is where Erickson got some of his numbers from:
So far so good - all analysts (including OKH) agree that they did not have a full - or nearly full - overview of their losses in 1945. Everything here is estimates."According to the German COmmand's calculations, casualties for the period 1 January - 30 April 1945..." are Killed, 250,000 for Army and SS, 10,000 for Air force, and 5,000 for Navy. MIA and POW 1 million for Army and SS troops, 7,000 for Air Force and 5,000 for Navy. "The accuracy of their calculations is doubtful, however. First they do not include losses in compbat operations between 1 and 11 may; secondly, the calculations were based on average monthly losses over a three-month period in 1944, which could not possibly be the same as 1945 losses; and thirdly, they contradict figures from the headquarters of the German Armed Forces High command published in B. Muller-Hillebrand's work, where on page 328 it states that there were about 1,900,000 killed and missing, not 1,277,000 as indicted in table 101 [which I described - kunikov].
This is also neccessarily an estimate, but it is not an implausible one - it would indicate roughly 2 million casualties of all types in 1945. It would presumably pertain to all fronts and all three branches.1. (a) Killed in action, including 500,000 deaths from wounds: 2.03 million. In addition, died as a result of accidents or disease: 200,000.
(b) Wounded: 5.24 million
(c) Missing in action: 2.4 million
Total losses: 9.73 million"
This is however not a category that is identical to MIA in Wehrmacht reporting, even for Germans and Austrians - particularly given what was apparently the Soviet practice of taking captive more or less all males of military age in Germany. Also, it includes soldiers that went into captivity after the war ended.POW's taken by the Soviet Union amounted to 3,777,290, of which 2,389,560 were Germans, 156,682 were Austrians, 513,767 Hungarians, 201,800 Romanians, 48,957 Italians, and 2,377 Finns. The remaining 464,147 were French, Slovaks, Czechs, Belgians, Spaniards, etc. who had previously served in the WEhrmacht or worked in service installations or logistical servies.
Again, the only way in which this may be reconciled with other known documentation is if it includes very large numbers of soldiers that went into captivity at war's end, which from most perspectives are irrelevant. The same goes for the irrecoverable losses on the German-Soviet Front as quoted here. All in all, I would not give much for an "analysis" that a) deals with a subject that is inherently uncertain, b) provides figures that are much higher than other known sources, c) provide source-backing whatsoever for it, and d) provides nothing on just what "analysis" has been performed either.An analysis of various archive documents and Soviet overseas publications giving war losses for World War II shows that total German armed forces casualties came to 13,448,000, which was 75.1% of the number mobilised during the war, or 46% of the entire male population of Germany in 1939 including Austria. Their irrecoverable losses on the German -Soviet front came to 6,923,700.
This is quite simply impossible to take seriously - it has no correlation whatsoever with any other data I have ever seen on the German allies.Germany's allies (Hungary, Italy, Romania and Finland) lost 1,725,800 fighting the Soviet Union." Losses for German allies are:
Hungary: Killed 863,700
Italy: Killed 93,900
Romania: Killed 681,800
Finland: Killed 86,400
The best bit is however his following breakdown of losses by nationality in the East, which is again much higher than all the other figures he has so far quoted.
cheers
As a general point - the only perpsective from which it has any relevance AFAICS to differentiate between POWs who survived and POWs who didn't is if you are trying to establish the number of people who dies. This however has little or nothing to do with any possible aspect of military analysis.Well I don't have a problem with you subtracting POW's, why is it a problem for you?
cheers
Actually Krivosheev figures are these ( http://www.rus-sky.org/history/library/ ... c536603354 ):Qvist wrote: No, these are the combat losses of the Red Army (killed, wounded and missing) as provided by Krivosheev.
KIA - 6,885,100
MIA - 4,559,000
MIA(consripts before they joined army) - 500,000
Total - 11,444,100
And wounded:
In hospitals under treatment 1,046,000
Dischargees as wounded 3,798,200
Returned to the ranks after recovery (from wounds and diseases) 17,157,243
Last edited by Dmitry on 03 Oct 2005, 11:15, edited 3 times in total.
Andreas,
1. There simply are no deaths figures that are worth comparing. Specifically, 4.5m is not a figure for German dead in the East, while Krivosheev's 11.4 million is not one I would put much money on.
2. Hence there are no figures for "irrecoverable" that are worth comparing either.
3. Even if there were, the proper comparison (and by far the most reliably sourced) would be all casualties.
4. There is absolutely no way in which you can find valid overall loss figures (KIA, WIA, MIA) which is anywhere around 2:1, with or without German allies. The fact that you can if you look only at killed basically only says something about the reliability of the deaths figures. Unless someone can think of a good reason why a much larger percentage of axis casualties would be dead even if one includes dead in captivity (which was much worse for soviet troops)?
cheers
Again:So for the Soviets the number of 11.4m is relevant, while for the Germans it would be 4.5m, plus their allies (let's be generous and say 750,000 irrecoverable) plus maybe Hiwis, although I am not sure if these would have been counted or not - I guess not.
In any case, you end up somewhere around 2:1.
1. There simply are no deaths figures that are worth comparing. Specifically, 4.5m is not a figure for German dead in the East, while Krivosheev's 11.4 million is not one I would put much money on.
2. Hence there are no figures for "irrecoverable" that are worth comparing either.
3. Even if there were, the proper comparison (and by far the most reliably sourced) would be all casualties.
4. There is absolutely no way in which you can find valid overall loss figures (KIA, WIA, MIA) which is anywhere around 2:1, with or without German allies. The fact that you can if you look only at killed basically only says something about the reliability of the deaths figures. Unless someone can think of a good reason why a much larger percentage of axis casualties would be dead even if one includes dead in captivity (which was much worse for soviet troops)?
cheers
Last edited by Qvist on 03 Oct 2005, 11:55, edited 1 time in total.
Kunikov
Quite simply - any thorough acquaintance with the available material on the soviet on German losses, and any reasonable reading of it, will quickly bear out that the disparity of losses in the East was not an accidental effect of special circumstances in 1941, and was a constant (if a diminishing one) of the whole campaign, in every year of it up to and including 1944 (and quite possibly even in 1945, when the Red Army suffered 2.5 million combat losses in the East). The only way in which you can escape from that conclusion is to look only at certain chosen figures that fit the hypothesis, and ignore a wealth of others that don't. Better IMO to just accept the inevitable and get on with the real work.
See f.e. this:
Losses 22.6.1941 - 31.12. 1944
Red Army and Navy (Krivosheev)
4,619,767 Killed in Action
952,299 Died in hospital from combat wounds
13,322,171 Wounded, concussions and burns
4,386,072 Missing in Action
Total; 23,280,309
Wehrmacht, Eastern Front (Heer, SS, LW, KM) (Corrected report, Wehrmacht Verlustwesen)
1,300,933 Killed in Action
278,480 Died of Wounds (on all Fronts)
3,580,991 Wounded
1,055,608 Missing in Action
Total; 6,216,012
As you see, there's a fairly proportionate relation between all categories of losses - the Soviet losses are roughly four times larger whether it's killed, dead from wounds, wounded or missing. That's 3.5 years of fighting that includes all types of strategic situation from catastrophic defeat to stunning victories for both sides. Somehow, I do not find it an attractive hypothesis that this is fundamentally atttributable to Red army mistakes in 1941, or that somehow we can reach a general relation of 1:1.5 by finding other data to look at, or that 1945 radically outweighs everything that happened during the first 7/8s of the war.
cheers
However, also they should not be underestimated - which one does if one is basing comparison on just one subset of the casualty figures which are contradicted by the overall picture, and where there is no relevant basis for the figures compared. If all relevant information is taken into account rather than overlooking everything apart from an uncertain and imperfectly understood German killed figure and an equally shaky soviet deaths figure from Krivosheev, there simply is no getting away from the fact that the combat losses of the Red Army were more than three times larger than those of the Germans, and very probably considerably closer to four times larger, even without any revision of Krivosheev's figures. The Allied losses would adjust this some, but not a lot.I agree that isn't something that can be so easily researched, but the whole point I wanted to make with the thread is that Soviet losses shouldn't be overestimated in ratios to their German counterparts in WWII. But, truthfully, 1941 (the greatest losses for the Red Army) in and of itself if you study it is more an example of Soviet mistakes and misjudgements, among a plethora of other reasons, rather than the triumph of German military might and ingenuity.
Quite simply - any thorough acquaintance with the available material on the soviet on German losses, and any reasonable reading of it, will quickly bear out that the disparity of losses in the East was not an accidental effect of special circumstances in 1941, and was a constant (if a diminishing one) of the whole campaign, in every year of it up to and including 1944 (and quite possibly even in 1945, when the Red Army suffered 2.5 million combat losses in the East). The only way in which you can escape from that conclusion is to look only at certain chosen figures that fit the hypothesis, and ignore a wealth of others that don't. Better IMO to just accept the inevitable and get on with the real work.
See f.e. this:
Losses 22.6.1941 - 31.12. 1944
Red Army and Navy (Krivosheev)
4,619,767 Killed in Action
952,299 Died in hospital from combat wounds
13,322,171 Wounded, concussions and burns
4,386,072 Missing in Action
Total; 23,280,309
Wehrmacht, Eastern Front (Heer, SS, LW, KM) (Corrected report, Wehrmacht Verlustwesen)
1,300,933 Killed in Action
278,480 Died of Wounds (on all Fronts)
3,580,991 Wounded
1,055,608 Missing in Action
Total; 6,216,012
As you see, there's a fairly proportionate relation between all categories of losses - the Soviet losses are roughly four times larger whether it's killed, dead from wounds, wounded or missing. That's 3.5 years of fighting that includes all types of strategic situation from catastrophic defeat to stunning victories for both sides. Somehow, I do not find it an attractive hypothesis that this is fundamentally atttributable to Red army mistakes in 1941, or that somehow we can reach a general relation of 1:1.5 by finding other data to look at, or that 1945 radically outweighs everything that happened during the first 7/8s of the war.
cheers
Last edited by Qvist on 03 Oct 2005, 12:29, edited 1 time in total.
Generally, that is the case, yes. But on the other hand, if one looks at the Geb.AOK 20 casualties, these are generally extremely low apart from periods of active operations, more of an either-or character than the armies on the main front, so perhaps this is also the case on the other side. But in any case, there are the Front-by-year figures on the Soviet Fronts strength sticky in this section, which should address that.Qvist (who I am sure will be along shortly) has pointed out elsewhere that a significant number of casualties were incurred outside specific operations. I am not sure about the ratio, but it was a lot. Assuming this pattern also applies on the Finnish front, Soviet KIA casualties would be considerably higher than 100,000.
cheers