German Losses (KIA)

[Panzergrenadier2967]

Can someone help me?
i want to know KIAs and MIAs and POW'S of Italian campaign.
specially Salerno Battle and Po Crossing

[Art]

You can check information from original documents here:
http://ww2stats.com/cas_ger_okh_tow.html
Reported casualties of the German ground forces in Italy from 1 September 1943 to 20 April 1945 were about 40 000 KIA, 138 000 WIA and 99 000 missing. More details can be found on the same website.

[Panzergrenadier2967]

Sorry Art this link said "error"

[Art]

Check the archived page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160730202 ... r_okw.html

[Stiltzkin]

The Verlustwesen was reliable (delays should be fairly obvious) up until the end of 44 (with a small discrepancy in the number of dead, adjusted at the beginning of the next year). Overmans gives fatalities, further casualties for 45 can be extrapolated, making it possible to narrow them down. There is a correlation between KIA and WIA (MIA fluctuates throughout the war but there are periods with consistent values). Furthermore, there is also a correlation with casualties of the OPFOR.

I will post the 10 day data since 41, corrected figures:

22 June 1941 - 31 December 1944:


KIA

Heer: (Waffen SS included): 1,239,425
of which on the Eastern Front: 1,091,962

Died of Wounds: 278,480
other causes (sick/burned/etc.): 134,536
Heer, total killed: 1,652,441

Luftwaffe: 219,087
of which on the EF: 53,469

Marine: 34,998
of which on the EF: 8,039

Total Wehrmacht KIA: 1,493,510
Wehrmacht KIA on the EF: 1,153,470
other fronts: 340,040

WIA (strangely, these also include [air] accidents)

Heer: 3,903,543
of which on the Eastern Front: 3,459,568

Luftwaffe: 199,726
of which on the EF: 114,732

Marine: 25,259
of which on the EF: 6,691

Total Wehrmacht WIA: 4,128,528
on the EF: 3,580,991
other fronts: 547,537

MIA

Heer: 1,596,703
of which on the Eastern Front: 999,746

Luftwaffe: 147,101
of which on the EF: 48,284

Marine: 34,395
of which on the EF: 7,578

total MIA Wehrmacht: 1,778,199
on the EF: 1,055,608
other fronts: 722,591

Total military casualties up to December 44:
Heer: 6,874,207
Luftwaffe: 565,914
Marine: 94,652
other fronts: 1,744,704
------------------------------
Overall Total: 7,534,773

on the EF:
Heer: 5,551,276
Luftwaffe: 216,485
Marine: 22,308
--------------------
total: 5,790,069

--------------------------
To this can be added: 97,480 casualties before 41 (Heer).

Military casualties from September 1939 - December 1944:

Total dead:

Heer: 1,750,281
Luftwaffe: 55,014
Marine: 60,029

Wehrmacht: 1,865,324

Irrecoverable losses:
Heer: 3,755,336
Luftwaffe: 353,875
Marine: 171,253

irrecoverable: 3,635,293

total irrecoverable: 4,280,464


approx. 4,415,619 total wounded.
--------------------------------------------

approx. 8,050,912 total military casualties , with 1945 this number should rise to 9,000,000, with about 250,000 further KIA. Add Axis Allies and you will land at about 13-15,000,000 total Axis military casualties (of course fatalities will be even higher)

I hope I did not make any mistakes.

[sandeepmukherjee196]

Total KIA and MIA for German military in WW II was 5.3 Million.

[Stiltzkin]

Total KIA and MIA for German military in WW II was 5.3 Million.

How do you know that, did you count them all? I gave information up to 44 which is the only reliable data available, everything else are estimates and an inaccurate reporting system. Its not unlikely though as my calculation comes close to 5 for irrecoverable losses at the end of 44.

[sandeepmukherjee196]

Zwischen 1935 und 1945 gehörten 17,3 Millionen Menschen zur Wehrmacht, zusammen mit der Waffen-SS gab es 18,2 Millionen deutsche Soldaten. Von ihnen sind 5,3 Millionen gefallen. Das heißt, dass "in Deutschland fast jede achte männliche Person - gerechnet vom Säugling bis zum Greis - im Zweiten Weltkrieg ums Leben gekommen ist".

("... Between 1935 and 1945, 17.3 million people belonged to the Wehrmacht With the Waffen-SS there were 18.2 million German soldiers. Of these, 5.3 million have fallen. This means that "in Germany almost every eighth male person - from the infant to the old - died in the Second World War".)


Rüdiger Overmans: Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Beiträge zur Militärgeschichte Band 46. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, München 1999.

He was an oberstleutenant in the Bundeswehr, PhD , historian. He didn't want to go by the official and inaccurate figure pegging the losses at a level less than 4.5 million. He did fundamental research on the subject , digging up all he could.

Cheers
Sandeep

[Stiltzkin]

the official and inaccurate figure

Overmans.... I know who he is. I would like to know who paid him to make his politically motivated research.

Overmans.pdf

(160.82 KiB) Downloaded 69 times

Overmans investigation only covers those soldiers who lost their lives, and partially also those who were
taken prisoner. However, the wounded are not included in the investigation. Since the majority of all
casualties usually are wounded, this makes claims on the casualty reporting system less relevant. It is
obviously difficult to make claims on the accuracy of a system when the largest part of the system is not
covered. In this case it is particularly limiting, since there is a connection between killed and wounded, in
the form of soldiers initially reported as wounded, but who later die of their wounds. It is fully conceivable
that the initial reports, giving killed in action and wounded are correct, but that the system fails to
properly take into account the soldiers who die of wounds or disease. That this can make considerable
difference is shown above.
To a certain extent Overmans has compared apples with oranges. The reporting system was not
primarily designed to answer the question he has formulated, hence it is not surprising that it fails to do
that.
It seems that the reporting system generally was quite accurate at giving killed in action, wounded and
missing for regular military units in action. It may well have been less accurate concerning soldiers who die
of wounds, those who died of disease, non-regular units and certainly the exact fate of those reported as
missing. The fact that the system does not properly account for wounded soldiers who die does however
not show that it reported too small losses, rather the error is the balance between the various categories of
casualties reported.
But there are also many question marks over Overmans own investigation. First we have the fact that
he has used two different sets of cards to create his sample. If these have identical distributions this causes
no difficulty, but there are strong reasons to suspect they are not identical in their distribution over time.
Also he has arrived at the overall casualty figure of 5,318,000 dead by adding together the 3.1 million in
the “Totenkartei” with the result of a sample from the “Allgemeine Kartei”. This means that the
“Allgemeine Kartei contains, according to Overmans sample, 2.2 million “deaths”. However, since this is
a sample it must be added that there is a margin of error on that figure of almost +/- 200,000. Since
Overmans uses this total as a basis to calculate the losses for smaller periods, we have a case of two
statistical errors of margin piled upon each other. If we look at the figures he gives for losses on the eastern
front up to 31 August 1943, this means that the margin of error is in the order of +/- 250,000.
Consequently, his losses for each month, often given down to the last digit, must be taken with a large
grain of salt.
But these are problems of statistical nature only. These considerations apply for a case where there are
no question marks over the set of data used and the methods of sampling. However there are many
problems with Overmans set of data. First of all, there are the many ambiguities with those cases where
there is no information available on the fate of individuals. Overmans equates these cases with deaths.
This is far from safe. Overmans argues that the many other possibilities are small. Probably true, but many
small factors can taken together be kind significant, if they mainly pull in the same direction. Since
Overmans have assumed that, if there is no information available on the fate of a man after a certain date,
he is dead, uncertainties can only pull in one direction. After all, a man can not be more than dead more
than once. Hence, there is a basic risk in the kind of investigation performed by Overmans.
Taken together, all these objections makes Overmans claim that the German casualty reporting system
was inaccurate untenable. He may be correct about 1945, but not for the period before.
This does not mean that German system was perfect, but up to December 1944 it seems to have
worked quite well. In 1944, however, the share of hastily assembled units was increasing. Often these were
formed from military schools or air or naval bases. In these cases, the reporting channels may not have
been properly established, which can result in many casualties never being properly reported.

Listen, you don't know how many have fallen in 45, probably a larger figure, but again scroll up before you post and look at my figures. They are relatively accurate till the end of 44, because they are consistent with Qvists and Zetterlings. If you noticed my calculation for 45 gives approx. 5 Million irrecoverable losses, so I do not know what your posts are about. What are you trying to correct here, read the dates. The Heeresarzt are probably the lowest figure, while Overmans can be considered the highest (or should be merely used for fatalities anyway). His figures are useless for individual months, KIA (at least for later events).

[Stiltzkin]

Can someone help me?
i want to know KIAs and MIAs and POW'S of Italian campaign.

up to the end of 44 you have as follows (corrected figures, after 44 they become less reliable):

44,433 KIA
160,106 WIA
204,854 MIA

for a total of 409,393 casualties.

with 45:

48,750 KIA
174,734 WIA
215,525 MIA

total: 439,009 casualties.

POWs are hard to establish but from the Wiki entry on Ellis:

Ellis states that from various sources, between September 1939 and 31 December 1944, the German Armed Forces (including the Waffen SS and foreign volunteers) lost 59,940 killed, 163,600 wounded, and 357,090 captured within Italy. He notes that other sources, for only the army, losses between June 1941 and 10 April 1945 amount to 46,800 killed, 208,240 captured, and 168,570 wounded

Except hes wrong, because the Army figures already include SS, so he probably counted twice.

up to 17th August POWs are stated to be 124,430 for total Axis forces.

[sandeepmukherjee196]

Pl excuse the double post

[sandeepmukherjee196]

the official and inaccurate figure

Overmans.... I know who he is. I would like to know who paid him to make his politically motivated research.Overmans.pdf

Overmans investigation only covers those soldiers who lost their lives, and partially also those who were
taken prisoner. However, the wounded are not included in the investigation. Since the majority of all
casualties usually are wounded, this makes claims on the casualty reporting system less relevant. It is
obviously difficult to make claims on the accuracy of a system when the largest part of the system is not
covered. In this case it is particularly limiting, since there is a connection between killed and wounded, in
the form of soldiers initially reported as wounded, but who later die of their wounds. It is fully conceivable
that the initial reports, giving killed in action and wounded are correct, but that the system fails to
properly take into account the soldiers who die of wounds or disease. That this can make considerable
difference is shown above.
To a certain extent Overmans has compared apples with oranges. The reporting system was not
primarily designed to answer the question he has formulated, hence it is not surprising that it fails to do
that.
It seems that the reporting system generally was quite accurate at giving killed in action, wounded and
missing for regular military units in action. It may well have been less accurate concerning soldiers who die
of wounds, those who died of disease, non-regular units and certainly the exact fate of those reported as
missing. The fact that the system does not properly account for wounded soldiers who die does however
not show that it reported too small losses, rather the error is the balance between the various categories of
casualties reported.
But there are also many question marks over Overmans own investigation. First we have the fact that
he has used two different sets of cards to create his sample. If these have identical distributions this causes
no difficulty, but there are strong reasons to suspect they are not identical in their distribution over time.
Also he has arrived at the overall casualty figure of 5,318,000 dead by adding together the 3.1 million in
the “Totenkartei” with the result of a sample from the “Allgemeine Kartei”. This means that the
“Allgemeine Kartei contains, according to Overmans sample, 2.2 million “deaths”. However, since this is
a sample it must be added that there is a margin of error on that figure of almost +/- 200,000. Since
Overmans uses this total as a basis to calculate the losses for smaller periods, we have a case of two
statistical errors of margin piled upon each other. If we look at the figures he gives for losses on the eastern
front up to 31 August 1943, this means that the margin of error is in the order of +/- 250,000.
Consequently, his losses for each month, often given down to the last digit, must be taken with a large
grain of salt.
But these are problems of statistical nature only. These considerations apply for a case where there are
no question marks over the set of data used and the methods of sampling. However there are many
problems with Overmans set of data. First of all, there are the many ambiguities with those cases where
there is no information available on the fate of individuals. Overmans equates these cases with deaths.
This is far from safe. Overmans argues that the many other possibilities are small. Probably true, but many
small factors can taken together be kind significant, if they mainly pull in the same direction. Since
Overmans have assumed that, if there is no information available on the fate of a man after a certain date,
he is dead, uncertainties can only pull in one direction. After all, a man can not be more than dead more
than once. Hence, there is a basic risk in the kind of investigation performed by Overmans.
Taken together, all these objections makes Overmans claim that the German casualty reporting system
was inaccurate untenable. He may be correct about 1945, but not for the period before.
This does not mean that German system was perfect, but up to December 1944 it seems to have
worked quite well. In 1944, however, the share of hastily assembled units was increasing. Often these were
formed from military schools or air or naval bases. In these cases, the reporting channels may not have
been properly established, which can result in many casualties never being properly reported.

Listen, you don't know how many have fallen in 45, probably a larger figure, but again scroll up before you post and look at my figures. They are relatively accurate till the end of 44, because they are consistent with Qvists and Zetterlings. If you noticed my calculation for 45 gives approx. 5 Million irrecoverable losses, so I do not know what your posts are about. What are you trying to correct here, read the dates. The Heeresarzt are probably the lowest figure, while Overmans can be considered the highest (or should be merely used for fatalities anyway). His figures are useless for individual months, KIA (at least for later events).

I fail to see what the consternation is all about.

I have just given an alternative version about total fatalities ONLY . I have not included the figure for 'wounded and recovered' or 'accounted for POWs'. I have not gone into the year wise, month wise, front wise break up of casualties.
Hence there is no point challenging my sources on other issues apart from the figure for fatalities.

As I said, I totally fail to comprehend the reason for the poster's angst and the usual speculative and scurrilous nonsense about who paid whom for what motives !

[Michael Kenny]

I fail to see what the consternation is all about.

Do a simple Forum search for 'Overmann' and see how much into there is on this subject.

I have just given an alternative version

As in the current torrent of 'Alternative facts'?

[Stiltzkin]

I fail to see what the consternation is all about.

That there is nothing wrong with your statement with 5,3m and my calculation. They do not contradict each other and that I won't rely on Overmans (for certain periods) for KIA because the numbers are simply wrong, the methodology flawed.

[sandeepmukherjee196]

I fail to see what the consternation is all about.

That there is nothing wrong with your statement with 5,3m and my calculation. They do not contradict each other and that I won't rely on Overmans (for certain periods) for KIA because the numbers are simply wrong, the methodology flawed.

If there is nothing wrong with my statement and they match your calculations..then thats good I should say! No reason certainly to argue on that. You had asked me about my sources.so I had quoted the same. And mind you, I quoted only for the limited purpose of having a fix on the final fatality figure. That in no way discredits what you have posted on the totality of casualties, including the valuable details you have painstakingly given on the sector wise breakups on different parameters. I was just complementing your figures.

And why I like Overmann on the subject of 1945 figures is that the Wehrmacht KTB and other sources appear to be vague and incomplete for the last dying days and weeks of the war.

Cheers
Sandeep