German Losses East vs West Front

[Rebus_Badger]

This is a bit embarrassing: I'm up at my cottage and don't have any of my reference books handy. My neighbour skied over for a drink and saw me playing CM:BB, and couldn't believe anyone would simulate the "minor" East Front.

I think I convinced him of the sheer relative scale of the two, but he won't be truly convinced until I can give him the rough German casualty figures for each front (or % E v W). Anyone got a quick figure/ref for me, or a good url?

[tracer]

Holy crap, where does he live, in the boonies, everyone knows (that is everyone who likes Military History), the east front saw far more military casualties then the west.

[Rebus_Badger]

Actually, he does live in the boonies - year round cottager! I don't really agree with you, though, about general knowledge in North America. My impression is that among non-military history types the general belief is that the East Front was a minor distraction. This fellow, not a willfully ignorant person, for instance, thought Barbarossa started "just before" D-Day... part of this, I suppose, is the result of nationalist history teaching in North America, in which even the terms "Allied" or "Allies" often goes missing.

[tracer]

Didn't say he was ignorant, and I also mentioned that everyone who likes military history. But you might have a point about the North American part, but I don't know because there are a lot of people here in the states that are quite knowledgeable about WWII,(look at this forum, and it's just a small part)

[Rostik]

As well as this monstrous programme of extermination, the human cost of the war was appalling for most of the belligerents. The USSR lost the most—at least 20 million civilian and military personnel killed—including large numbers of Russian prisoners deliberately starved to death in German prisoner-of-war camps. Poland lost around a fifth of its civilian population. Allied civilian losses were 44 million; Axis losses, 11 million. The military deaths on both sides in Europe numbered 19 million, and in the war against Japan, 6 million (which included a sizeable number of Allied prisoners-of-war starved or tortured to death in Japanese forced-labour camps in Burma and elsewhere). Only the United States was spared any significant civilian losses, with 292,131 military deaths in battle and 115,187 military deaths from other causes.

The highest numbers of deaths, military and civilian, were as follows: USSR more than 10 million military and 10 million civilian; China 3.5 million and 10 million; Germany 3.5 million and 3.8 million; Poland 120,000 and 5.3 million; Japan 1.7 million and 380,000; Yugoslavia 300,000 and 1.3 million; Romania 200,000 and 465,000; France 250,000 and 360,000; British Empire 452,000 and 60,000; Italy 330,000 and 80,000; Hungary 120,000 and 280,000; and Czechoslovakia 10,000 and 330,000.

Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

USSR casualties are represented roughly. Stalin wanted to cut down on human losses. I studied that about 30 million people were lost in total!

[PK]

I just watched a programme on the battle for Kursk and they said newly discovered red army papers put the Soviet losses at 250,000 dead and 600,000 wounded and about 100,000 German dead. Not sure what total figures for the rest of the war was but Russian losses amounted to about 20 million including civilians.

[Redwolf]

The Soviet losses are currently being discussed on the onwar.com forums, where a number of people hang out who study general WW2 stuff like this like we here study Panther slopes.

The currently accepted numbers are 9 million military dead and 16 million civilian.

[MG-42]

Originally posted by PK:

I just watched a programme on the battle for Kursk

Pk,

I reckon we both watched the same docu - "Mother of All Battles." Anyway the comment that struck me was "during the first hour the German Arty fired more shells then the total amount fired during the entire Polish and French campaigns combined" :eek:

[Lumbergh]

Glantz has some totalled numbers ("When Titans Clashed").

Why not give your neighbor this book instead of random figures? If he has any grogish tendencies he'll love it. So will you!

Dave

[Rebus_Badger]

Thanks all. This will get me started. It wasn't a particularly serious discussion, but it seemed my duty to correct his "impression."

Interesting that Encarta bit's "Only the United States was spared..." Hmm, what was I saying about forgetting the other "Allies"?

[ December 22, 2002, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: Rebus_Badger ]

[Pine59]

From "Platz der Leibstandarte" published this year: "Nearly 80% of German Army and Luftwaffe personnel killed in action were lost in Russia. The other 20% died in other German theaters of war such as in Africa, Italy, Poland in 1939 or France in 1940 and 1944-1945."

[Firefly]

http://ww2bodycount.netfirms.com/ gives a breakdown of casualites, both civilian and military by country. I was well aware of the suffering that Russia endured, but the figures for Poland are quite shocking - 120,000 military personnel and 5.3 million civilians.

[Phantom Captain]

Firefly,

Yes, remember that most of those were Polish Jews, gassed by the Nazi's.

[ December 22, 2002, 12:18 PM: Message edited by: Lord Dragon ]

[Gremlin]

From When Titans Clashed by Glantz and House: "Total Wehrmacht losses to 30 April 1945 amounted to 11,135,500, including 6,035,000 wounded. Of these, almost 9,000,000 fell in the East. German armed forces' losses to war's end numbered 13,488,000 men (75 percent of the mobilized forces and 46 percent of the 1939 male population of Germany.) Of these, 10,758,000 fell or were taken prisonere in the East." p. 284

[PK]

Originally posted by MG-42:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by PK:

I just watched a programme on the battle for Kursk

Pk,

I reckon we both watched the same docu - "Mother of All Battles." Anyway the comment that struck me was "during the first hour the German Arty fired more shells then the total amount fired during the entire Polish and French campaigns combined" :eek: </font>

[Firefly]

Originally posted by Lord Dragon:

Firefly,

Yes, remember that most of those were Polish Jews, gassed by the Nazi's.

Well the normal figure given for Jews murdered by the Nazis is 6 million. I know that a lot of the Jewish victims were Polish and that non-Jewish Poles were treated as a pool of slave labour by the Nazis, however 5.3 million civilians from a country the size of Poland is an appalling number.

[CC_Brad]

It does seem incredible how the average american could be ignorant, for lack of a better word, about the scope of human loss in the East. But i will admit while i was growing up, i never even heard of the Russian Front. It was not taught in my history classes some 30 yrs. ago.

It wasnt till i was around 16 yrs. of age when i started wargaming. I saw PanzerBlitz sitting on a store shelf and thought hmm..whats this? The Eastern Front then became, by far, the most interesting and emcompassing war to study and recreate in gaming.

[Rostik]

Originally posted by CC_Brad:

It does seem incredible how the average american could be ignorant, for lack of a better word, about the scope of human loss in the East. But i will admit while i was growing up, i never even heard of the Russian Front. It was not taught in my history classes some 30 yrs. ago.

It wasnt till i was around 16 yrs. of age when i started wargaming. I saw PanzerBlitz sitting on a store shelf and thought hmm..whats this? The Eastern Front then became, by far, the most interesting and emcompassing war to study and recreate in gaming.

[Rostik]

Originally posted by CC_Brad:

It does seem incredible how the average american could be ignorant, for lack of a better word, about the scope of human loss in the East. But i will admit while i was growing up, i never even heard of the Russian Front. It was not taught in my history classes some 30 yrs. ago.

It wasnt till i was around 16 yrs. of age when i started wargaming. I saw PanzerBlitz sitting on a store shelf and thought hmm..whats this? The Eastern Front then became, by far, the most interesting and emcompassing war to study and recreate in gaming.

The same was on The East. Evarage person didn't know much about Western Front. "Cold War" - I think can explain everything.

Hey I just became a member!!!!!!!

[JunoReactor]

WWII is a major historical real landscape everyone build their houses on.

A close friend of mine once had an Italian-American landlord. He was still very attached to Italy, with Italian still spoken in the house. During my stay there, he came over and jokingly taunted a Turkish football team which had recently played against the Italian team he supported. My friend's counter-taunt, worthy of a place in any peng thread, sparked an extended discussion about the two countries, and eventually led to WWII, at which point the landlord declared that Turkey had fought and lost against Italians in the second world war, and became communist afterwards. I think his fantasy was a mixture of the fates of Poland and Greece, but his was nevertheless an historical 'consciousness' about a very significant event and its consequences.

Your cottager neighbor is doing the same thing. For him, WWII is the war in which USA emerged the leader of the world, where she fought her greatest battle and won her greatest victory and not much else. It might be interesting to hear how he will react to the information presented. Keep us posted.

[Redwolf]

To make conclusions about the intensity of combat, you also have to take the timeframe into account.

The eastern front had 80% of all German miltary losses. So let say the ETO took 10% and all other theatres also 10% (crazy guess).

But the eastern front went on for 47 months, the ETO only for 11. If you project that, the 8 times more losses on the eastern front come out as "only" 1.8 the combat intensity.

[ December 22, 2002, 06:35 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Phantom Captain]

quote:

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

Originally posted by Lord Dragon:

Firefly,

Yes, remember that most of those were Polish Jews, gassed by the Nazi's.

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

Well the normal figure given for Jews murdered by the Nazis is 6 million. I know that a lot of the Jewish victims were Polish and that non-Jewish Poles were treated as a pool of slave labour by the Nazis, however 5.3 million civilians from a country the size of Poland is an appalling number.

It is appalling, regardless of the numbers. We can't even truly comprehend numbers of people like this. 5.3 million PEOPLE from a country that size is beyond my rational grasp.

I recently watched a program on the memorial for the battle of Antietam. Figures estimate 23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing by the end of the day. In memorium they lit 23,000 candles and placed them on the battlefiel, one for each man. They literally covered the field. It was truly mind blowing when you see it like that. Numbers are exactly that, we can't really comprehend that many men until we visually see it. I was awed.

[LightningWar]

The numbers are staggering for most Americans. We had a hard time coming to grips with 57,000 or so dead in Vietnam. I remember reading about a huge operation which stalled the Moscow operation by a month or so. I think it was Kharkov. But not positive. Anyways the Germans enveloped I think 2-3 full Soviet armies and decimated nearly 650,000 troops. That is in 1-2 months.

The Eastern Front was truely a different war IMO. You had battles where literally millions of men, thousands of tanks were going at it. When I think of the Eastern Front. I think of gigantic battles for humanity. I get pictures of huge industrial complexes pumping out huge tanks. Large formations of troops all duking it out.

Eastern Front was the major theater of WWII IMO.

LW

[coe]

Well ignorant or not, there is no such thing as telling the story as it really happened so to speak. It may be just that the person

has not been exposed to that history. Many people haven't. For instance, for me, I just learned of the Rzhev battles which happened at the same time Operation Uranus was taking place and I know a bit more than your average American about WWII.

As long as the person is willing to learn, not

knowing initially is ok with me.

I can't remember who said this but from what I understand even during Normandy, German casualties continued in the East were about 4x that of the West although at Normandy the significance was that the Allies destroyed or badly ravaged a whole order of battle. My assumption is that while the destruction of Army Group Center was big (that is something that many Americans don't know about), there were still Army Groups North and South left.

By the way, enlighten me, since alot of the Panzers were shifted to the South in anticipation of an offensive there, what did they do once Bagration started? What was the role of Army Groups North and South during July-Aug, 1944?

[jbertles]

British Empire 452,000 and 60,000; Italy 330,000 and 80,000;

One of the things that leaped out at me was the similarity in civilian deaths between British Empire and Italy. The BE deaths must include the colonies as well, since the Battle of Britain couldn't have created that total alone. Italy, on the other hand, was well fought over.