German Losses (KIA)

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Piotr Kapuscinski
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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#121

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 07 Sep 2009, 13:59

On 28.01.1945 Wehrmacht estimated that there were 3,500,000 German civilians escaping before the Red Army from both occupied and integral Eastern territories. Until the end of the war this number raised to over 7,000,000 escaping civilians. Together with post war deportations the total number of German civilians who left these territories reached 11,000,000 (although this doesn't mean that 4,000,000 were deported). During both escapes and deportations 610,000 died from all causes. This includes also escapes and deportations from such countries like Romania and Yugoslavia.

Many Germans were killed while escaping before the Red Army, a lot of during combats (collateral damage), many died of other reasons - e.g. they drowned (e.g. when escaping from East Prussia), were frozen to death or died of illness.

Some civilians were also killed by German soldiers (e.g. Himmler ordered to catch and execute all "marauders").

Also many escaping German civilians were being "spontaneously" incorporated to the German army in that period.

When the war was already 10 years over, further 2,200,000 persons were found still missing (unknown fate) - some possible reasons of their deaths were already explained and enumerated by me on the previous page of this thread.

Source: Christopher Duffy, "Red Storm on the Reich".

According to some posts from this thread (e.g. page 1), 2,100,000 are still missing (so 100,000 were already found?).

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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#122

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 17 Apr 2010, 14:25

Bergveen wrote:So, actuallly, 3,2 million was KIA; 1,6 million died as POW (50% during the war and 50% after V-day) and 0,5 million of accidents, disseases, suicide, executions. Of the 3,2 million which died on the fronts (inclusive 250.000 in air, on sea) most died on the Eastern front: arround 2,2 million of which indeed 41% (900.000) died before the summer of 44 and the other 59% 1.100.000 soldiers and about 200.000 members of the Volkssturm and Polizei (formerly counted as civilians), died thereafter.
So German losses on the Eastern Front in period June 1941 - June 1944 were on average 25,000 dead per month?

From July 1941 (excluding last week of June) to June 1944 (including days after 21 VI) we've got 36 months.


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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#123

Post by ljadw » 17 Apr 2010, 18:31

the number of German KIA in the East(only army and WSS ),without DOW was in
1941 :170000
1942:230000
1943 :250000
1944:250000
Total :900000 (rough figures ).

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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#124

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 17 Apr 2010, 22:04

What is the source for these numbers? Losses in 1944 are counted until the end of the year?

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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#125

Post by ljadw » 18 Apr 2010, 09:15

the losses for 1944 are counted till 31-12
Source :BA /MA RW 6 /559
Available on : Human Losses in World War II: WW II Stats .Com
These figures are the officially known numbers of KIA,without the DOW and the MIA (these were some 700000)

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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#126

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 18 Apr 2010, 10:24

By the way - if it comes to the Polish Campaign, I've got the full list from the Volksbund online database. Note that:

1) the Volksbund online database is not complete (just as an example - you can't find gen. von Fritsch there - it is incomplete in at least 10% to 15%, maybe much more but probably the incompletness is different for different periods, anyway - if it comes to the Polish campaign the database is incomplete in at least 10% to 15%)

2) the below quoted data includes only deaths which occured before 6 X 1939, it doesn't include died of wounds who died later (German statistical research shows that during the first year of war against the USSR, about 10% - 11% of all WIA died of wounds within 3 months from being wounded - I accept similar proportion and timeframe for Poland):

1 IX - 619
2 IX - 624
3 IX - 705
4 IX - 416
5 IX - 572
6 IX - 405
7 IX - 433
8 IX - 601
9 IX - 852
10 IX - 1000
11 IX - 860
12 IX - 1065
13 IX - 650
14 IX - 630
15 IX - 728
16 IX - 852
17 IX - 667
18 IX - 1134
19 IX - 671
20 IX - 524
21 IX - 443
22 IX - 309
23 IX - 260
24 IX - 229
25 IX - 226
26 IX - 419
27 IX - 361
28 IX - 173
29 IX - 146
30 IX - 113
1 X - 106
2 X - 112
3 X - 106
4 X - 76
5 X - 119
6 X - 94

As you can see the peak of German daily losses was on 18.09.1939.

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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#127

Post by ljadw » 18 Apr 2010, 12:44

Domen ,I presume these figures are for the whole Wehrmacht (including Selbsschutz etc .)?
WW II stats.com is also giving WSS and Algemeine SS losses for Poland (see:News)
WSS :474 dead (372 KIA and DOW)
ASS :413 dead (352 KIA and DOW)
Also (slightly different ):
Dead of WSS (before ,during and after the Polish campaign):377 KIA and DOW and 97 others (15 suicides and 3 court-martials:it seems that the morale of the WSS was not optimum ).
Dead of the ASS:355 KIA and DOW and 58 others (including MIA )
I presume the ASS losses are including Selbstschutz and other para-military units .

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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#128

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 18 Apr 2010, 14:03

Domen ,I presume these figures are for the whole Wehrmacht (including Selbsschutz etc .)?
Heer, Waffen SS, Luftwaffe.

http://www.volksbund.de/

But this is not any "official list" of losses - just surnames from Verlustmeldungen which were listed by the Volksbund online database (and downloaded). As I wrote the online database is incomplete in at least 10 to 15 percent, many officers from the thread "Poland 1939: KIA German officers", death of which is confirmed by other documents and sources, are not listed by the VB database (including even gen. von Fritsch, who was KIA near Warsaw as we know).

Selbsschutz was not part of Wehrmacht and its losses (as well as Freikorps, etc.) are not listed by Volksbund.

Losses of Freikorps Ebbinghaus alone in Upper Silesia alone amounted to 183 KIA and 135 WIA according to KTB Grenzschutz-Abschnitt-Kommando 3 and even more - 220 KIA - according to Namentliches Verzeichnis von Geffallenen der "Sonderformation Ebbingahaus" sowie der K.- und S.-Organisation. KTB Grenzschutz-Abschnitt-Kommando 3 lists 174 KIA and 133 WIA from Freikorps Ebbinghaus on 01.09.1939 alone. Volksbund doesn't list any of these KIA.

Out of these 174 KIA from "Sonderformation Ebbinghaus" on 01.09.1939 alone, 65 surnames are listed as KIA during combats for the "Michal" mine and in the castle garden in Michalkowice. While Volksbund database on that date (01.09.39) lists only one man with Todesort "Michalkowitz" and one more with Todesort "Beuthen/Michalkowitz".

Moreover, surnames of these two men listed by the Volksbund database as KIA in these places on 1 IX, don't appear in the mentioned casualty list (Namentliches Verzeichnis von Geffallenen der "Sonderformation Ebbingahaus"... ).
I presume the ASS losses are including Selbstschutz and other para-military units.
Single cases of members of Allgemeine SS who served in paramilitary units are probably included. But I don't think that paramilitary organizations like Sonderformation Ebbinghaus were composed of members of Allgemeine SS. In case of Freikorps Ebbinghaus it was mainly composed of deserters from the Polish army (of course of German nationality) and members of German minority who escaped from Poland before the war. Officers were recruited from SA or NSDAP.

Sabotage organizations in Poland were largely composed of local Volksdeutsche or Germans from the Reich.

German soldiers of the Polish army (Volksdeutsche) in German "captivity", September 1939:

Photo

--------------------------------------------------

Edit:

Btw - from those Volksbund statistics quoted above we can see that there was a considerable increase of German average daily losses during the period of the Polish offensive at the Bzura (09.09.1939 - 12.09.1939):

1 - 3 IX (battle of the border) = 650 KIA daily
4 - 8 IX (in between) = 486 KIA daily (change to the previous period: - 164)
9 - 12 IX (Polish Bzura offensive) = 945 KIA daily (change to the previous period: + 459)
13 - 14 IX (after the Polish retreat) = 645 KIA daily (change to the previous period: - 300)
15 - 18 IX (until the Soviet invasion) = 846 KIA daily (change to the previous period: + 201)

Losses in period 9 - 12 IX were 95% higher than in period 4 - 8 IX and 50% higher than in period 13 - 14 IX.

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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#129

Post by Jan-Hendrik » 16 Jun 2011, 16:18


Piotr Kapuscinski
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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#130

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 16 Jun 2011, 21:19

It's really unbelievable how the Germans - with their human resources - were consistently not able to replace their losses in the East, while having so few of them compared to the Soviets - at least according to this data.

BTW - proportion of officers to overall losses is "strange". Shouldn't there be more officers?

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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#131

Post by ljadw » 16 Jun 2011, 23:13

It is not unbelievable
1) Already before the war,the Germans had a shortage of manpower (see The Wages of Destruction)
2) There already was a second front on june 1941,claiming a lot of German manpower .
One also could argue that till after Citadelle,the Germans were able to replace their losses in the east .
On the losses of officers :the losses of AGC till 31 december 1941 were 16231 officers and 386965 nco's and soldiers ,something as 1/25.
For the whole front(same period) :26000 officers and 800000 nco's and men 1/30.

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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#132

Post by Urmel » 17 Jun 2011, 13:45

ljadw wrote:2) There already was a second front on june 1941,claiming a lot of German manpower .
If you refer to North Africa, that was really not 'a lot'. Maybe 70,000 men, with losses and replacement requirements probably less than the sick rate in an army group in Russia. More problematic was the call on resources such as oil and planes.
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42

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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#133

Post by ljadw » 17 Jun 2011, 15:54

I am not referring to NA,but
1)the German occupation troops
2) the manpower and ressources needed for the defense of the Reich against air attacks
3)the manpower and ressources needed to wage an offensive Uboat war against Britain .

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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#134

Post by Urmel » 17 Jun 2011, 15:59

That's what I thought.
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42

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Re: German Losses (KIA)

#135

Post by Michate » 01 Jul 2011, 14:54

It's really unbelievable how the Germans - with their human resources - were consistently not able to replace their losses in the East, while having so few of them compared to the Soviets - at least according to this data.
This is bullshit. The number of German soldiers on Eastern front was roughly as high (or higher) in summer 1943 as in 1941, the number of soldiers in the Wehrmacht as a whole steadily went up until that date as well. The lack of replacements for the divisions were mainly due to the continuous establishment of new divisions.

The subsequent decline in numbers on the Eastern front was mainly due to the need to siphon off an ever increasing part of the forces for newly arising fronts.

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