Talk:Battle casualties of World War II

A little bit inconsistent
The article's name is Battle casualties, in other words, it tells about the combat losses sustained by regular armies or militia during regular or guerilla warfare. Therefore, I am not sure that the sections "German occupation of Czechoslovakia, 1938–1945", "Soviet occupation of the Baltic States" and some others are relevant to this article. Executions, massacres and police actions should not be in that article (if I correctly understand the major article's idea). By contrast, civilian losses that took place in close proximity to the battle field and were the collateral result of hostilities (e.g. Stalingrad, Leningrad, Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest) can be included. To my opinion, such a separation is necessary because otherwise the article will become the "WWII casualties 2.0" article. --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC) To me, the major purpose of this article is to show how many people were killed during the war between the Axis and the Allies on the battlefield, or in close vicinity to the battlefield, in other words, to show the relative intensity of WWII hostilities in different theatres using the most universal measure - human life. In that sense, all brutal actions of Axis' or Allied authorities against their own population or against the population of occupied territories had no direct relation to that and should be omited. If you agree with that idea (and I have a feeling you do), maybe it makes sense to think about writing an introduction that would explain that. What do you think about that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:52, 25 March 2009 (UTC) If everyone agree with this point, let's try to write a short introduction and then let's think about linking this article to majoe WWII articles.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:43, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree, User:Erikupoeg made these edits, I am VERY busy at this time and will resume work on this article in the near future--Woogie10w (talk) 01:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the coincidence of the start of the article with the hot debate on allocating military losses by theatre got me the wrong idea about the article. Indeed, if the article has nothing to do with that discussion, most of civilian deaths do not belong here. --Erikupoeg (talk) 07:17, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not sure your vision of the article to be wrong. You wrote :"For example, it sounds wrong to list Holocaust deaths in Russia as part of battle casualties of the Eastern Front." This fully coincides with my own understanding of the article's idea.
 * We may want to put all the war crimes in a seprate section.--Woogie10w (talk) 20:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I guess I broadened the term 'battle casualties' to casualties of military operations, which actually would include a large share of Holocaust deaths in the operations carried out by military forces. There's a point in leaving the civilian deaths that were not directly caused by a battle out of the 'battle casualties' and either explaining the exclusion in the lead or including them in a separate section. By the way, what do you think about including deaths in the strategic bombing of German cities as battle casualties? --Erikupoeg (talk) 08:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Holocaust victims, most NKVD's victims, Chinese civilian victims, German and Japanese victims of allied bombing campaigns, etc., took place far away from a front line, and all of them, excluding, maybe, the latters, had no direct relation to any military operation. Therefore they do not belong even to "casualties of military operations". The scope of this article is very narrow, and it seems to be complementary to various "WWII war crimes..." article. Therefore it would be correct not to mix these things.
 * Lets not. Its 13 years later and still the article would be best classified as a "sick joke". Particularly the definitional gerrymandering to accomplish whatever political fantasy  you had 13 years ago.
 * If the intention was to do a sort of nationalist wang-measuring contest re: whose soldiers were the most effective, then you would need data not only on who died, but on "who killed who". Toward that I can offer this: the Soviet Red Armies neutralized or killed 84% of the Wehrmact - in particular all the best trained soldiers and veterans.  That leaves 16% for all the other countries to squabble over claiming. The greenhorns were left back on the West front, where - as they say - it was (almost) all quiet.  The periodical I source  just got removed from archive.org, though.  Its the [British] National Review. (I have screen shots, fortunately).  Trying to figure out what to do about that.
 * In general, I would say that "cancelling" the lives and shaming the memory of over 20 million Chinese and Japan folks (they are completely absent from mention in the page. ), then pushing to weave this distorted reality into more mature articles suggests that other info on the page is likely suspect.
 * I say we flat-out delete the page, or fix it pronto.  Know Einstein (talk) 17:44, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree, that needs to be done. I am VERY BUSY--Woogie10w (talk) 21:17, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * If Erikupoeg doesn't mind I'll try to prepare an introduction. Then you both will do approproate changes (if needed) anw we will introduce the text into the article. OK?--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:45, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * OK --Erikupoeg (talk) 10:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. Besides the whole notion of "Soviet occupation of the Baltic States" is very questionable and arguable. Legitimate Baltic governments officially invited Russian troops, even though under the pressure. Russian troops or German troops: it was unavoidable. Few weeks later the Baltic states formally jointed the Soviet Union as ethnic republics, may be under the pressure or influence as some would say, but still that's the way it worked most of the time.Brown99 (talk) 02:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Legitimate Baltic governments officially invited Russian troops, under the threat of military intervention, and were occupied and subjected to terror.--Woogie10w (talk) 07:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Intro
I added a short inro aimed to outline the article's scope. Everyone is welcome to change, edit and revert.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:00, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It looks good to me. Nick-D (talk) 06:58, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

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