Soviet Death Toll in WWII As A Whole

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nickterry
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Re: Bialystok region

#16

Post by nickterry » 14 Mar 2006, 17:40

thom wrote:Population of territories ceded from USSR to Poland in 1944/45:
1) from Belorussia (part of Belostok oblast): 945,000 (as of 1931)
2) from Ukraine (part of Drogobyc and Lvov oblasts: 340,000 (as of 1931)
Total: 1,285,000 (1931) [Eberhardt, Polska granica wschodnia 1939-1945, p. 204]
Total: 1,392,100 (1940/41?) [ADK, Naselenie Sovietskogo Sojuza 1922-1991, p. 53]

Belostok (Bialystok) oblast was dissolved on September 20, 1944, and 9115 sq. km remaining in the USSR (population 405,500 as of 1931 [Belorussian Review 1956 (3), p. 18]) transferred to the newly formed Grodno oblast.

ADK's calculation of 26.6 million deaths is based on postwar borders [ADK, Naselenie Sovietskogo Sojuza 1922-1991, p. 74], [ADK, Vestnik statistiki 1990 (10), p. 25]. Therefore, population losses of territories ceded to Poland in 1944/45 are not included in their 26.6 figure.
Thank you very much Thorn. I have just been to the library to copy the relevant parts of ADK's 1993 work, the 1990 article is too-brief!

From Iusupov 2003, which I read last night, it seems that ADK's figure for 1941 population applies to the 1946 borders. Is that your understanding as well? This would mean a somewhat higher population for the 1941 borders, in 1941.

A Population as of 22.6.41 196.7 million
B Population as of 31.12.45 170.5 million

Iusupov suggests a population total of 193 million for November 1940 after all annexations were complete. So I'm still wondering about the 1941 figures, how they grew because of excess births in what was a fairly short space of time.

Iusupov 2003 is very good on the excess mortality in the unoccupied RSFSR, he seems to me to be grossly overestimating military and paramilitary deaths (opolchenie, partisans, undergroundists he estimates at 1 million, which overlaps with Extraordinary Commission figures as well), which he gives as 14 million.

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#17

Post by thom » 14 Mar 2006, 23:31

ADK's 1941 figure applies to 1946 borders (see Naselenie, p. 74) which is confirmed by Isupov (p. 206). The population for 1941 (in 1941 borders) is given as follows:

1) 198,712,700 as of 1.1.41 [Kozhurin, Voenno-istoricheskij zhurnal 1991 (2), p. 26]; Kozhurin estimates a population of 200.1 million as of 22.6.41 (in borders of 1941)

2) 198,588,000 as of 1.1.41 [Alekseev, Naselenie Sibiri, Novosibirsk 1986, p. 17]; this number is also given by Isupov (198.6 million as of 1.1.41, p. 205).

The total of 193 million (Isupov, p. 36) includes the population of the USSR as of 17.1.39 (in borders of 17.1.39) and the population of the annexed areas as of 1.1.40 (in borders of November 1940). Rather confusing calculation which gives no reliable result for a specific date.

In terms of the 14 million figure for military deaths as given by Isupov – I rather doubt Krivosheev's low 8.7 million figure which is based on military records which are likely incomplete (there is this interesting example in Krivosheev's book about the Soviet casualties in the Soviet/Finnish Winter war – 95,300 death/missing according to contemporary military records vs. 126,800 death/missing according to a postwar headcount).


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#18

Post by nickterry » 15 Mar 2006, 10:34

thom wrote:ADK's 1941 figure applies to 1946 borders (see Naselenie, p. 74) which is confirmed by Isupov (p. 206). The population for 1941 (in 1941 borders) is given as follows:

1) 198,712,700 as of 1.1.41 [Kozhurin, Voenno-istoricheskij zhurnal 1991 (2), p. 26]; Kozhurin estimates a population of 200.1 million as of 22.6.41 (in borders of 1941)

2) 198,588,000 as of 1.1.41 [Alekseev, Naselenie Sibiri, Novosibirsk 1986, p. 17]; this number is also given by Isupov (198.6 million as of 1.1.41, p. 205).

The total of 193 million (Isupov, p. 36) includes the population of the USSR as of 17.1.39 (in borders of 17.1.39) and the population of the annexed areas as of 1.1.40 (in borders of November 1940). Rather confusing calculation which gives no reliable result for a specific date.

In terms of the 14 million figure for military deaths as given by Isupov – I rather doubt Krivosheev's low 8.7 million figure which is based on military records which are likely incomplete (there is this interesting example in Krivosheev's book about the Soviet casualties in the Soviet/Finnish Winter war – 95,300 death/missing according to contemporary military records vs. 126,800 death/missing according to a postwar headcount).
Thanks again. I read through most of the sources you cite yesterday in the library (I remembered I copied the VIZh article about five years ago), and the population growth rates in terms of excess of births over deaths do match with the higher figures. So you're quite right that the 26+ million figure is what it is. This still leaves semi-open the smaller questions of non-returnees and those still waiting to be repatriated - I'd like to see a breakdown for the registration statistics for 1946 (or indeed 1941) which tend along the lines of the censuses, i.e. distinguishing between those held in camps, those in the army, and the republics.

The military deaths question - 14 million is still too high, because the main realm of uncertainty is 1941, by contrast the figures for the rest of the war seems to fit the rhythm of the conflict reasonably accurately. Krivosheev and his team gave estimates of half a million for reservists never reaching units, and another figure for unregistered casualties in the first phase. Further problems come in with the POWs - the Krivosheev figures are too low, but begin to resemble the German figures with these 'surcharges' of unregistered losses. Here one has to bear in mind two things, first, that many POWs were in fact civilians never called up to the Red Army, second that the Germans definitely overestimated the number of prisoners taken in the large encirclement battles. This overestimate on the German side probably accounts for the discrepancy between OKH claiming 5.7 million captured versus OKW figures of 5.2 million.

One last point about Iusupov, and indeed all the demographers - they have a very hazy grasp of events, nor have any of them actually explored the Extraordinary Commission records.

Anyway, more on this in due course, for a revised version of the original post.

thanks again.

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#19

Post by michael mills » 16 Mar 2006, 04:39

I would be interested the statistical source of the figure for the quoted population of the Soviet Union of 196 million in 1941 after completion of all the annexations.

I presume it is based on the 1939 census, updated to 1941, plus an estimate of the population of the annexed areas in 1941.

If that is the case, is the 196-million figure based on an assumed Soviet population of 170 million in 1939, the figure that was published at the time?

According to this source, the 170-millon figure was a falsification, and the true population total was more like 162 million:

http://www.library.yale.edu/slavic/census3739.html

If the following two conditions apply:

1. the information in the above source is correct; and

2. the 196-million figure for 1941 is based on a 1939 figure of 170 million;

the 196-million figure is too high, and the 1941 population of the Soviet Union in its expanded borders would have been more like 188 million. That in turn would leave a demographic deficit in 1946 of 18 million, assuming that the 1946 figure is correctly calculated.

The above calculation is based on the assumption that the 196-million figure assumes a 1939 population of 170 million, and that the annexations added a population of approximately 26 million.

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#20

Post by thom » 16 Mar 2006, 05:41

According to ADK/Naselenie (p. 33), the actual 1939 census population was 167.7 million. This number has been corrected by ADK and increased to 168.9. I assume that the contemporary 1941 figures (in borders of 1941) are based on the falsified 170.6 million census figure. The corrected ADK figure of 196.7 million as of 22.6.41 plus 1.4 million for territories ceded to Poland in 1944/45 probably give the best estimate for the Soviet population as of 22.6.41: 198 million.

Nickterry - I noticed that you were also looking for the number of repatriants as of 31.12.45. I have a number for 30.11.45 - 5289630 [Russkij arkhiv, Vol. 4(5), p. 457/8].

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#21

Post by michael mills » 16 Mar 2006, 06:52

Slo that would mean that the population of the territories annexed by the USSR (East Poland, Baltic States, Bessarabia and North Bukovyna) must have added up to about 28 million.

Do the sources give any indication of how that figure was arrived at? I presume it would be based on the most recent censi in the countries concerned, updated to 1941 on the basis of certain assumptions.

In addition, is there any reliable estimate of the reduction in population between 1941 and 1946 specifically of the areas annexed in 1939 and 1940, ie excluding the population losses in the original Soviet Union?

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#22

Post by nickterry » 16 Mar 2006, 12:15

thom wrote:According to ADK/Naselenie (p. 33), the actual 1939 census population was 167.7 million. This number has been corrected by ADK and increased to 168.9. I assume that the contemporary 1941 figures (in borders of 1941) are based on the falsified 170.6 million census figure. The corrected ADK figure of 196.7 million as of 22.6.41 plus 1.4 million for territories ceded to Poland in 1944/45 probably give the best estimate for the Soviet population as of 22.6.41: 198 million.

Nickterry - I noticed that you were also looking for the number of repatriants as of 31.12.45. I have a number for 30.11.45 - 5289630 [Russkij arkhiv, Vol. 4(5), p. 457/8].
Thanks Thom for the repatriants figure. It seems however suspiciously complete compared to the other figures for July 1945. It's also almost identical to the March 1946 figure I cited above. Can they really have completed the majority of the repatriations by the end of November and then done nothing for three months? I'll try and take a peek at the original source.

The 1939 census with correction is generally accepted as valid. ADK's 1993 work breaks it down rather nicely by category of special contingents, there is also an online source through demoscope weekly in Russian for the populations by republic and province, which I can link to when I get back home in a few days.

The 1941 figures for the newly annexed territories reflect registration data and it's my understanding they also include births/deaths for 1940, allowing extrapolations for 1939. Thus they're as accurate as can be without a full-scale census.

Michael, no work that I have seen yet published a breakdown of war losses by republic let alone distinguishing between old-Soviet and annexed territories. The best one can do is compile war losses by republic from separate demographic works on the Ukraine, Russia and Belorussia.The article I cited on the Ukraine above is probably a good starting point. If there are works on the Baltic states I'd be very interested to know about them.

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#23

Post by michael mills » 17 Mar 2006, 01:22

It is a pity that there has as yet not been any analysis of population losses specifically in the annexed territories, but I can understand that it might be quite difficult to achieve.

My purpose in enquiring whether such studies exist relates to the underlying theme of this whole discussion, which is the degree which the 1941-45 population losses in the Soviet Union were due to German inhumanity as opposed to Soviet inhumanity.

The populations in the territories annexed in 1939 and 1940 were generally fairly hostile to the Soviet Union, and often quite well disposed toward Germany, particularly in the Baltic States. Accordingly, the German invaders would have no reason to consider the populations of those areas (apart from the Jews and actual Communist activists) as enemies, and therefore have no reason to treat them harshly.

An example is provided by the ethnic Ukrainian majority in West Ukraine, which was treated fairly well during the period when that area formed part of the Generalgouvernement as Distrikt Lemberg, certainly better than the population of Reichskommissariat Ukraine, according to Berkhoff in "Harvest of Despair". It would be reasonable to assume that, apart from the extermination of the Jews, major population losses were not caused in that area by German action. Any losses to the ethnic Ukrainian population must have been caused by Soviet actions against elements considered to be anti-Soviet, both before the German occupation and after it, and also by ethnic conflict between Poles and Ukrainians separate from the German-Soviet war.

The same would apply to the Baltic States. Apart from the destruction of the Jews, it is a reasonable assumption that any population losses to ethnic Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians were caused by Soviet action rather than German.

An example of the phenomenon I am describing is provided by the Lithuanian unit set up by the Soviet Government to fight against the Germans as part of the Red Army (I am not sure of its size). Although designated as a Lithuanian unit representing the claimed resistance of the Lithuanian people to German occupation, it consisted overwhelmingly of Jews from Lithuania, not of ethnic Lithuanians.

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#24

Post by thom » 17 Mar 2006, 06:11

Nickterry, there is also this number of repatriants as of Feb. 1, 1946: 5229160 [Shevjakov, Sociologicheskije issledovanija 1993 (8)]. Even though this figure is slightly lower than the one I cited for 30.11.45 it seems that the process of repatriation was almost complete at this time.

The figures of the Extraordinary Commission as cited by Polian give a breakdown by republics and oblasts which would allow to estimate the losses specifically for the annexed territories. However, I have my doubts about the accuracy of the Commission's figures. I agree with you Michael that the majority of losses should be those among the Jews of these territories. The number of Jewish losses as cited by you Nickterry in the Holocaust thread (eg for Drogobych, Lvov, Ternopol, Stanislavov = Ivano-Frankovsk oblasts) basically reflects the prewar Jewish population of these areas and confirms the almost complete annihilation. However, there are major discrepancies between the figures for total civilian losses as given by the Extraordinary Commision (first number) and losses among Jews as given by Altman (second number):

Drogobych 65,000 vs. 87,000
Lvov 475,000 vs. 215,000
Stanislavov 224,000 vs. 132,000
Ternopol 172,000 vs. 132,000

The same applies for the Baltic states:

Estonia 61,000 vs. 1,000
Latvia 314,000 vs. 75-77,000
Lithuania 436,000 vs. 215-220,000

I am therefore rather cautious with data of the Extraordinary State Commission. As recently outlined by Anders and Dubrovskis, "their [the local commissions'] final reports always gave grossly inflated numbers" [Holocaust and Genocide Studies 2003, 17(1)]. The "extraordinary" methodology of the Commission to collect data on Holocaust victims is shown on the example of Liepaja/Latvia. The Commission's records contain 708 names of Jewish victims which were contributed by only 4 witnesses. As the authors of the article conclude, "for such a heroic memory feat one cannot expect much detail or accuracy". The Extraordinary Commission gives a total of 29,800 civilian victims in Liepaja for 1941-43 which is, as the authors state, "a nearly five-fold exaggeration, as only 6,600 Jews were in Liepaja at the beginning of the German occupation and no more than a few hundred non-Jews were executed". This latter exactly confirms what you wrote in your last posting Michael.

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#25

Post by nickterry » 17 Mar 2006, 12:38

Thom and Michael,

thanks for the additional commentary on repatriation figures, Thom.

As for the accuracy of the Extraordinary Commission, the March 1946 figures are the best total snapshot that can be found. This isn't to say that they're perfect. But the commissions continued for several more years!!! In the RSFSR, the commission for Tula oblast rechecked and found twice the number of dead, which was still under 1,000 in a very briefly occupied province. Elsewhere, commissions were clearly finding better information about some atrocities well after the initial 1945/46 figures.

From my experiences with the EC reports for Belorussia and central Russia, the figures given per district are generally accurate. This applies especially to the countryside and to the smaller towns. The EC figures were generally less accurate for the larger towns and for camps. The reasons why are obvious; it's much easier to guesstimate from the worst-peak of a camp.

But I would very much disagree with the notion that all EC reports are grossly inflated. One must also be aware that each provincial and republic commission operated essentially independently, thus there were different methodologies for each region. The RSFSR reports placed financial and materiel losses first, population losses second, for example.

I do appreciate from what I know of the Baltic states that there were politically motivated exaggerations for some of the reports from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. These seem sometimes to stem from a perhaps subconscious desire to ensure that non-Jewish suffering is given greater prominence than Jewish suffering.

Yet Michael Mills should be careful not to dismiss all reports of German repression before 1944, especially since there is extensive German documentation. Anton Weiss-Wendt's PhD study of Estonia found an increase in the number killed by the Germans, and he was extremely scrupulous in his work. The issue in the Baltics, as in Galicia, is less whether there was partisan warfare, and more the extent of political repression involving secret police arrests, prisons, deportations and smaller-scale shootings. The prisons in Latvia and Estonia were overflowing by the end of 1941, just as they had been in 1940, and as they were again after 1944. Nationalist politicians were also thrown into German jails at various stages of the occupation, though the primary victims of the German occupation were communists, their families, communist sympathisers, Slavs and the Baltic Jews. In Latvia, repression was also ethnically targeted since Lettgallen (Latgale) was largely ethnically Russian and handled much worse than the more purely Latvian regions; this was also where Latvian partisan movement really first expanded. Geoffrey Swain has studied this region for the entire 1940s, i.e. the Soviet and German occupations alike, very thoroughly. Russians were also repressed in Lithuania and Estonia.

Even when one takes these ethnic biases into account, there still remains a core of killing aimed at Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians by the Germans. If there is a difference in the two occupations, then one would say the Soviets were much more efficient at deporting these peoples, and thus causing deaths indirectly, but the number of ethnic Balts executed in situ or killed in partisan warfare was still probably somewhat higher under the Germans than under the Soviets, judging by figures from post-1991 government commissions posted elsewhere on this forum and on the net. But the discrepancy is nowhere near the overwhelming, yawning gap to be found in Belorussia, or even the more regionally differentiated excess of German killings over Soviet repression in the Ukraine. No one would doubt the Baltic states suffered grossly at the hands of both regimes.

Given that the Baltic states have been studied quite extensively by government commissions, independent historians etc, we certainly don't need to rely exclusively on the EC for those three republics. But the losses are however awful simply smaller than elsewhere; the real question is what happened in the Slavic republics of Belorussia, Russia and the Ukraine.

One should bear in mind that the EC reports generally do NOT include mortality from starvation and disease for civilians. Or, if lower-level reports mention a figure for a rayon, they are not aggregated in the provincial summaries. Thus, there is a huge discrepancy between the number reported by the commission for those civilians killed in Ukraine and the actual number dying under the occupation, as indicated by the Population Studies article I cited above.

The EC reports for Ukraine as a whole give a figure of around 3 million civilians killed, of whom half were Jewish victims. As discussed elsewhere there is little reason to doubt the extent of the Holocaust in the Ukraine, Kruglov has worked over every last district and town. However the death toll among Slavs in the Ukraine is much less well studied. Unfortunately no historian has yet checked through the overall figures in the same fashion as has been done for the Baltics and Belorussia. I would surmise that there are some overestimates for some towns and camps, perhaps again to create the impression of equality of suffering. But one should remember that the Ukrainian urban population was indeed savagely repressed. Babi Yar was recycled as the Kiev Sipo's shooting ground, and there were dozens of large transports to German KZs in 1943 and early 1944 - prisoners who may have been fudged as 'killed' in the reports. Also that the retreat in 1943 was exceptionally violent - a pattern that also holds true for the central sector. There were many other factors than simply partisan and antipartisan warfare which contributed to excessive killings under the occupation. Anecdotally, the initial wave of repression in 1941 by frontline and security divisions seems to have been somewhat harsher in Ukraine than in the north (see the studies of 6th Army by Safrian/Boll, etc).

Michael previously raised the possibility that the interethnic cleansing between Poles and Ukrainians in 1943-44 in Volhynia may have been included in the EC figures - I don't know for sure, but I suspect a simple contrast for the other relevant west Ukrainian oblasts between the EC figures in Polian and the known Jewish victims will not indicate a sufficient discrepancy to suggest that the EC reports silently included those killed by the UPA. Certainly the figures for Ternopol etc that Thom cited don't suggest this. I'll however try and ask Martin Dean sometime what he has to say on the issue. The best estimate is around 100,000 Poles were killed, which certainly has to be included in the overall wartime demographic loss, and indeed I believe is included in the Population Studies article's calculations. Alfred Rieber has recently published a fascinating survey in Kritika of the civil wars in the Soviet Union in this era, he cites archival data, i.e. reports from Beria to Stalin, indicating the NKVD and other security forces killed 73,000 bandits (ie nationalist partisans) in the year up to February 1945. One would assume that the killing continued to some extent after this date, too.

So there are separate figures for German and non-German (interethnic/Soviet) repression available for the Ukraine; even if you add both together there is still that colossal discrepancy between the demographic mortality and the figures for those killed. This is after the Population Studies authors have factored out migrations to the east or west, and even after one subtracts for Ukrainian soldiers killed in the respective armies. To my mind, it indicates that even if one is sceptical of the EC figures, they are far from the whole story.

This brings me on to Iusupov's 2003 study, which is pretty sloppy in dealing with the issue of the occupation. He cites a separate figure for undergroundists, partisans and opolchenie, which is probably exaggerated in any case, but obviously overlaps with other figures from German and Soviet sources for civilians killed or for POWs dying. Iusupov's main archival work was on the demographic losses in the Soviet rear, i.e. deaths from undernourishment and disease in Siberia, but he pretty much ignores such factors for the occupied territories. So he potentially double-counts on the one hand, and undercounts on the other.

Iusupov presents an interesting mixture of uses and abuses of the EC material vis-a-vis his other demographic calculations. He cites without comment the blatantly exaggerated figures for Auschwitz (4 million instead of 1 million), Majdanek (1.5 million instead of 78,000) and other German camps. Oops! But these are not factored into his calculations, just mentioned. They simply indicate a sloppiness and uncritical use of EC-type figures.

So he then goes on to cite a random grab-bag of figures for the occupied territories, e.g. he claims 350,000 Soviet citizens destroyed in Smolensk oblast. But this is at best the result of aggregating the figures for civilian and POW deaths, a fudge which is often found in Soviet secondary literature.

The actual figure for civilians killed in the Smolensk oblast during the occupation was 87,000. This I can testify is entirely consistent with German reports from the region (and incidentally includes 17-20,000 Jews, thus a 3:1 disproportion of Slavs) and is therefore to be considered essentially accurate. The figure of 87,000 does not include deaths from starvation, of which there was much in this frontline region.

Iusupov like many other 1990s-present day demographers, cites a figure of 1.8 million civilians killed under the occupation for the RSFSR (not including Leningrad), whereas the March 1946 figure is well below 1 million. No breakdown is ever given by these studies, one suspects it is a simple inflation to massage the appearence of suffering vis a vis Belorussia and Ukraine. These figures are repeated in the Liudskie poteri collection, for example, by post-1991 Russian historians.

But the figure of 1.8 million may well be less than total civilian mortality from all causes - killings, starvation, disease, collateral damage - under the occupation in Russia proper. Certainly the circumstances were infinitely less propitious in the RSFSR, which was where the war was fought from October 1941 to 1943, than in Ukraine or Belorussia.








PS re. Galicia for Michael: the region was scourged by mass deportations to Germany as Fremdarbeiter, I don't get the impression that the Ukrainian population was entirely spared these. From 1943 there were quite a number of transports to KZs e.g. Majdanek. Beforehand one gets the impression that as elsewhere on territory that had been Soviet as of 22.6.41, prisoners were shot. The AK was not wholly absent from the area. There is probably more detail on this in Musial's Polnische Heimatarmee edited collection of articles, and perhaps also in Dieter Pohl. The UPA, too, would have been repressed by the Germans before some form of live and let live was introduced. Finally, Galicia was a battleground in 1944 between the two opposing armies; unfortunately the Wehrmacht was fundamentally incapable of fighting on the eastern front without killing large numbers of civilians.

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#26

Post by thom » 18 Mar 2006, 07:46

I completely agree with you Nickterry that one cannot state that all EC reports contain exaggerated data. The figures for smaller towns seem to be fairly exact. However, the often very rough guesstimates for larger towns actually make up the significant part of the grand totals. I am also not sure whether there was any significant correction of figures done after March 1946. The first official public disclosure of EC numbers was, as far as I know, in a Pravda article of 24.3.1969, and these numbers were identical with those of 1946.

I think that demographic data might help to evaluate the accuracy of EC figures. For the city of Lvov, for example, the total number of civilian losses is given by the EC as 200,000 [Shevjakov, Sociologicheskije issledovanija 1992 (11)]. The population of the city, according to archival data, was as follows [Honigsman, Juden in der Westukraine]:

6.41 – 373,800
11.41 – 327,400
6.42 – 263,900
9.42 – 224,600
3.43 – 271,200
11.43 – 265,500

This decline of roughly 100,000 was not caused by killings alone but also by evacuations, deportations, decline in natural growth rate, etc. I am also not sure whether Jewish victims were exclusively included in the EC figure of civilian losses. Jews deported from the city might have been included in the figure of deportees (the Soviet figures of "Deportees to Germany" do not only refer to deportees for labour in Germany but include all losses due to forced and voluntary migration, inside and out of the USSR, including service in the German army, resettlement of Volksdeutsche, and even refugees – see [Naumov, Novaja i noveishaja istorija 1996 (2)]).

A good way to distinguish between losses caused under German and Soviet rule would be to compare demographic data for the different periods of the war. I agree that such data is hard to find in the literature. It is apparently available in local archives, as seen above on the example of Lvov.

To come back to the Baltic states, there is, for example, some population data known for Estonia [Parming, Population Studies 1972; Tsenzy 1945-1951 gg., Vol. 1]:

1.1.40 – 1,122,000
1.1.41 – 1,117,000
1.1.42 – 1,018,000
1.1.43 – 1,016,000
1.1.44 – 1,000,000
1.1.45 – 854,000

There are basically two periods of major population declines – that of 1941 (Soviet deportations and evacuations) and that of 1944 (mainly refugees). Apart from this, these Estonian numbers do not really reflect major population losses due to war crimes, starvation, etc. It has indeed been estimated by an Estonian Commission that some 6,000 ethnic Estonians, 2,000 Jews and Roma, and 1,000 others were killed during the German occupation [http://www.historycommission.ee/temp/conclusions.htm].

I would be very much interested in getting more of such detailed demographic data for other regions of the USSR which were much more affected by German and/or Soviet crimes.

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#27

Post by nickterry » 18 Mar 2006, 12:44

I completely agree with you Nickterry that one cannot state that all EC reports contain exaggerated data. The figures for smaller towns seem to be fairly exact. However, the often very rough guesstimates for larger towns actually make up the significant part of the grand totals. I am also not sure whether there was any significant correction of figures done after March 1946. The first official public disclosure of EC numbers was, as far as I know, in a Pravda article of 24.3.1969, and these numbers were identical with those of 1946.
It is indeed the towns that are the problem. I'm exceptionally lucky in studying Belorussia and Russia since these were simply not as urbanised a region, and thus the exaggerations in the towns are counterbalanced by the underestimates of famine mortality in the countryside. But it's precisely for this reason that one has to wonder about the Ukraine, since in many areas the urbanisation was higher.
I think that demographic data might help to evaluate the accuracy of EC figures. For the city of Lvov, for example, the total number of civilian losses is given by the EC as 200,000 [Shevjakov, Sociologicheskije issledovanija 1992 (11)]. The population of the city, according to archival data, was as follows [Honigsman, Juden in der Westukraine]:

6.41 – 373,800
11.41 – 327,400
6.42 – 263,900
9.42 – 224,600
3.43 – 271,200
11.43 – 265,500

This decline of roughly 100,000 was not caused by killings alone but also by evacuations, deportations, decline in natural growth rate, etc. I am also not sure whether Jewish victims were exclusively included in the EC figure of civilian losses. Jews deported from the city might have been included in the figure of deportees
This is one possible approach, however one must also pay attention to what camps were located in the cities. Most larger cities were the sites of SD prisons, GFP prisons, police/auxiliary police holding cells, forced labour camps, also in other cases transit camps (like Brest). Not to mention resettlement camps for evacuees from the frontline zone. Just to give an example: the jail in Parichi rayon, a typical southern Belorussian district, was filled with arrestees by the Ordnungsdienst; it then passed on well over half of a thousand prisoners to Bobruisk. Multiply that by several times for the district, and you do indeed have thousands of prisoners being fed into the district towns.

Also, especially after 1942 and the disappearence of much of the Jewish population, peasants are being sucked in to replace the now 'missing' part of the urban workforce. The population turbulence of the cities under the occupation was, in short, fearsome. However, I do not know the exact extent in Ukraine, whereas for Belorussia and Russia it is something I have observed close-up with the primary sources and is also recognised in the literature (Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde).

Again, my experiences with Russia/Belorussia indicate that it is precisely inside these camps that the EC lacked sufficienct insight to get things right. Dare I mention Maly Trostinets claims of 206,000 or even half a million? At least that figure is NOT double-counted inside Minsk province reports.

Re: Lvov, one would of course need to ascertain population before occupation and after liberation. I would assume major evacuations in early 1944 before July. Some of the absolute loss therefore should be transferred to the deportations category. However, you'd have to go case by case through every district to see whether there was extensive repression in the surrounding area, or if the town was used as a transit centre.
(the Soviet figures of "Deportees to Germany" do not only refer to deportees for labour in Germany but include all losses due to forced and voluntary migration, inside and out of the USSR, including service in the German army, resettlement of Volksdeutsche, and even refugees – see [Naumov, Novaja i noveishaja istorija 1996 (2)]).
This is exactly right; it however means the March 1946 figures are an underestimate of the total population displacement. I can document well over a million evacuees from central sector alone between 1942 and 1944.
A good way to distinguish between losses caused under German and Soviet rule would be to compare demographic data for the different periods of the war. I agree that such data is hard to find in the literature. It is apparently available in local archives, as seen above on the example of Lvov.
Kharkov and Kiev have good data from the occupation, available in the USHMM via the local archives, also used extensively by Hilberg and Berkhoff. There is even mortality/birth data for these towns.

I also believe that somewhere, I have a rudimentary census of the RK Ukraine which would be interesting to compare with the 1939 census.
To come back to the Baltic states, there is, for example, some population data known for Estonia [Parming, Population Studies 1972; Tsenzy 1945-1951 gg., Vol. 1]:

1.1.40 – 1,122,000
1.1.41 – 1,117,000 = - 5000
1.1.42 – 1,018,000 = - 99,000
1.1.43 – 1,016,000 = - 2,000
1.1.44 – 1,000,000 = - 16,000
1.1.45 – 854,000 = - 146,000

There are basically two periods of major population declines – that of 1941 (Soviet deportations and evacuations) and that of 1944 (mainly refugees). Apart from this, these Estonian numbers do not really reflect major population losses due to war crimes, starvation, etc. It has indeed been estimated by an Estonian Commission that some 6,000 ethnic Estonians, 2,000 Jews and Roma, and 1,000 others were killed during the German occupation [http://www.historycommission.ee/temp/conclusions.htm].

I would be very much interested in getting more of such detailed demographic data for other regions of the USSR which were much more affected by German and/or Soviet crimes
The data for Estonia is interesting, thanks. I've added some figures for the reductions in absolute terms, one of course must know the pre-war birth rate to deduce the actual population deficit, demographers can work out to what extent the lack of growth was from unborn children, migrations or deaths.

I mentioned Anton Weiss-Wendt's PhD thesis which you can order via Digital Dissertations if your university had access to it, he has managed to document a higher total by a factor of 2 to 4, and is obviously aware of all the other surveys (he is Estonian by origin himself). However, it is generally agreed that Estonia suffered 'the least' of all three Baltic states; the number of Estonian SS/Police killed in action was also around 8,000, of whom many would have become first 'migrants' then died elsewhere, i.e. were non-returning migrants.

I'd be curious myself for demographic data on Lithuania and Latvia.

For other regions - the Population Studies article and Vallin book (latter in French) has a wealth of information for the Ukraine but is national level only, no regional breakdowns. Belarusian demography does touch on these issues somewhat e.g. references to child mortality, but that's citing via other works, the one I want is in the university stacks and I wasn't in town long enough last week to get it.


To conclude for the moment - I think the EC figures are broadly indicative not of deaths by shootings alone, but deaths by shootings plus a soft number which represents civilian deaths in places of confinement other than POW camps. Such deaths are factored into some but not all EC reports. On top of this mortality which corresponds to murder 1st degree and murder 2nd degree, there is the mortality stemming from starvation and disease among the 'free' population, which is in effect manslaughter.

To take the Ukraine example, of 7 million deaths indicated by the overall demographic data, at least 5 million are non-combatant deaths and thus fall on the manslaughter-2nd degree-1st degree continuum. It's a matter of judgement and further research whether one says 3 million murders and 2 million manslaughters, or 2 million murders and 3 million manslaughters, or 2 million murders 1st degree, up to 1 million murders 2nd degree, and over 2 million manslaughters. Any which way one is still talking telephone numbers.

thom
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#28

Post by thom » 19 Mar 2006, 03:33

Thanks Nickterry, I will try to get a hold of this thesis on Estonia. Btw, what is the exact source for Kruglov's figures?

In my last posting I forgot to mention that another major cause for the significant population decline in Estonia in 1944, apart from refugees, was the transfer of the Trans-Narva, Petseri, and Ivangorod regions to Russia (with a corrected population of 71,500 according to Parming, Population Studies 1972). But enough on that for now.

Re Krivosheev – there is another good book on Soviet military losses: Mikhalev, Ljudskie poteri v Velikoj Otechestvennoj vojne 1941-1945 gg., Statisticheskoje issledovanie. Mikhalev gives some revised figures – his grand total is 10.9 million deaths compared to Krivosheev's 8.7 million.

nickterry
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#29

Post by nickterry » 19 Mar 2006, 03:37

thom wrote:Thanks Nickterry, I will try to get a hold of this thesis on Estonia. Btw, what is the exact source for Kruglov's figures?

In my last posting I forgot to mention that another major cause for the significant population decline in Estonia in 1944, apart from refugees, was the transfer of the Trans-Narva, Petseri, and Ivangorod regions to Russia (with a corrected population of 71,500 according to Parming, Population Studies 1972). But enough on that for now.

Re Krivosheev – there is another good book on Soviet military losses: Mikhalev, Ljudskie poteri v Velikoj Otechestvennoj vojne 1941-1945 gg., Statisticheskoje issledovanie. Mikhalev gives some revised figures – his grand total is 10.9 million deaths compared to Krivosheev's 8.7 million.
Aleksandr Kruglov has several works on the Holocaust in the Ukraine. I'm citing via Altman and photocopies of the regional variant. I'll get you the exact reference if you want.

I'll check out the Liudskie poteri book - is this different to the 1995 conference proceedings?

The transfer of regions to Russia is interesting, it brings the 'refugee flight' figure for Estonia back in line with other sources.

PM me, I can pass a few things to you direct if you want. ;-)

thom
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#30

Post by thom » 19 Mar 2006, 03:52

Would be great to know this reference - thanks (but take your time!).

Mikhalev's book has been published in 2000 (it has no relation to the 1995 conference proceedings).

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