Talk:Battle of the Dnieper

Comments
Okay, the V1 of this page is finally there. It can and should be improved: To do:
 * Proofread!!! (you can help!!!)
 * The article's connexions with other parts of WW2 series is unclear. 1943 battle of ukraine does not even exist and battle of Kiev is a little more than a stub based on a video game (!!!). Ultimately, I shall expand both, but it will take some time.
 * The attack map is under construction, but it will take me some time to finish it. Found an OK one on the web...

So I put the article in Wikipedia anyway, especially since it's a little more than a stub anyway, even as of now ... ^_^ Grafikm_fr 00:04, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Picture caption
Hello, at the section "Western bank operations" the Picture caption is "The German Heer delivers fire across the Dnieper.". Heer links to the present German Army (Heer). The present german army was (according to the wikipedia article) established in 1955, i think it should be linked to the Wehrmacht article, also the Description links to Wehrmacht (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hitlerdnieper.jpg). If this is acceppted, maybe someone can change it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.121.64.67 (talk) 14:42, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Discussion at Village pump (policy)
see Village pump (policy)/Archive AB.

Remove protection?
This article has been fully protected for about seven weeks, extremely long for wikipedia standards. No progress has been made in the discussion for the last two weeks. Are the parties moving toward mediation or some other form of dispute resolution? If not, then I will formally request unprotection. Calwatch 23:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
 * There was a failed arbitration attempt on top of it as well (recentely turned down ). Personally I would not mind it being unlocked provided that a certain user would not continue to destroy the page' history with reinserting tags again and again. --Kuban Cossack [[Image:Flag of the Russian Empire (black-yellow-white).svg|25px|]] 00:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll unprotect this. There's no sense in protecting articles for months on end.  What's the point of having a wiki and then stopping people from editing it? --Tony Sidaway 06:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Mediation?
A have already proposed to request mediation concerning the use of the word "liberate", but very few people agreed to participate. With the hope that people change their opinion and are ready to resolve the dispute according to WP:DR instead of by removing the tag and edding warring, I propose the mediation once more. Please add your username below, if you are agree to participate.--AndriyK 07:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I would like to resolve the dispute and I will participate in the mediation process

 * 1) AndriyK 07:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) I hesitate, but I would like to try. Don't expect too many people on this list though, as in this dispute there are two sides and apparently the other one does not consider it a problem at all - nor is able to understand why is it a problem to the other side...  // Halibutt 09:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Count me in, it will provide some fun and I need it... :) --  Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  09:46, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Not very enthusiastic, but if that's what will take to put these svidomy losers out of their misery, fair enough. --Kuban Cossack [[Image:Flag of the Russian Empire (black-yellow-white).svg|25px|]] 16:44, 19 June 2006 (UTC) --- Please stop making personal attacks, Kuban Kazak. heqs 03:04, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) tufkaa 16:52, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) PatrickFisher 21:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

To those, who do not like to follow WP:DR
Please do not remove the tag. It is not a legal way to resolve disputes.--AndriyK 08:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Being POV as you are is not a legal way to resolve disputes either, yet you're using it... <_< -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  09:41, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Are you going to participate in the mediation "for fun", or to resolve the dispute? The purpose of the tag is to attract the attention of the community to the dispute. This is supposed to help to resolve the dispute. Please keep the tag if you sincerely wish to resolve the dispute.--AndriyK 10:14, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * It's not the tag that bothers me the most, it's the "reason" you provide, precisely because it implies that you're already sure of the mediation's result. A POV tag alone could do. -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  10:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The tag implies nothing but the ongoing dispute and explains the disagreement.--AndriyK 10:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, that's the way you phrase that disagreement that is not quite neutral, which is kinda bad for a POV tag. -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  10:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * This means we are in dispute. I consider your version of the article to be not neutral and you consider my tag to be not neutral. Let's resolve the dispute. Then we'll have a neutral version of the article and we'll need the tag anymore.
 * Until this is done I propose to keep the article in the form you prefer and keep the tag in the form I prefer. (Or it can be done vice versa, if you like).--AndriyK 10:32, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Grafikm, this is not constructive. Why not present your case, instead of making personal attacks?  It only makes your position look weak when you must resort to ad hominem attacks.  As for AndriyK, I assume good faith, and his civility reinforces that.  If he's pro-Ukrainian, well, so what?  That's ok, as long as his edits are appropriate, and from what I've seen, they are.  - PatrickFisher 21:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Because I can't assume good faith about someone who got pinned by the ArbCom as an "aggressive Ukrainian nationalist", who used sock- and meatpupetry to bend votes in his favor, who abused the Wikimedia software features to prevent reverting moves and so on. It is difficult to AGF in this case. A judge will consider a witness more or less seriously depending on a few things, for instance. Same applies here. -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  21:41, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Dreadful L-word (Liberation)
I have removed the dreadful Liberation word. Those who care are looking for the possibilities to work on the articles, those to care to stop works are putting tags. abakharev 12:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Nicely said.  // Halibutt 13:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You will see that it will not still be enough for AndriyK... -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  13:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the article is okay with its new wording. Perhaps (as I suggested during his arbitration request) AndriyK has a case for adding "liberation" to Words to avoid. --Tony Sidaway 13:44, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Would be a safe choice if you asked me. As I already pointed out, either we allow the usage in all cases where it's used in literature, or we prefer safer, more neutral wording in all cases. That's a fair solution to me.  // Halibutt 16:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * In other words, it is a choice to make. And by definition of choice it has to be collective - so it won't be up to you-know-who to decide... -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  16:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I was under the impression that Alex labeled the event as the Recovering of Kiev in the body of the article. Why was this wording removed from the intro and replaced with "liberated"? Is this an honest attempt at reconciliation?--tufkaa 17:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * It was not removed since it never was there. Alex replaced it in a section but not in the intro... -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  17:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Which does not answer the question of why was it removed...  // Halibutt 19:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * That I don't know. -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  19:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I reestablished Battle of Kiev as Alex put it, too. -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  18:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

My old edit and proposed move
A while back I made a rather extensive edit, that was reverted at first but I believe Grafik ended up saying he would integrate it with some more sources (see here). I would like to see this happen now that the article is unprotected. Also, I still feel strongly that the article should be redirected to Battle of the Dnieper, as we discussed extensively. heqs 03:11, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * As answered previously, no problem with the move for me (although I would rather suggest Battle of Dnieper for a title) As for other mods, well, I guess we'll have to wait until all the POV-pushing about "vile stalinist occupation" will be over, by a mean or another... -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  16:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure "Battle of the Dnieper" is more correct gramatically, whatever its other qualities. Kirill Lokshin 22:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Battle of the Dnieper it is then :) However, as you can guess, it is only a minor problem, and there's a bigger one to be dealt first... <_< -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  22:27, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 22:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No it's "plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes!"... :) -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  22:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, time for the move redirect then. Hopefully the pointless liberate revert wars are over. I will take care of it later today if no one else does. Cheers, heqs 14:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, an admin will have to move it, because the redirect at Battle of the Dnieper already exists (Mzajac created it just a few hours ago - strange timing!). Any admins around, or should I file a Requested Move? We should move rather than copy+paste to save edit history, right? heqs 14:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You can move over a redirect if the redirect has no edit history, so it should be OK. -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  15:28, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Update: I moved it. -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  15:41, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, cool, I didn't know that. heqs 18:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Protected again
I have to protect the article again. It is really a shame that such a fine article should be a subject of the revert war due to such a minor matter. Please find a compromise on the talk page. As for me all the variants are acceptable including the total exclusion of the dreadful L word abakharev 21:10, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * What you will notice, Alex, is that the current protected version was corrected. "L*** of Kiev" in a section was replaced with "Battle of Kiev", a precision was added: "Liberation from Nazi occupation" and so on. Therefore, attempts were made to make this dispute to an end. However, that's what defines POV-pushers: a complete lack of negociation and dispute resolution. -- Grafikm  (AutoGRAF)  21:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Mediation
I filed a Mediation Cabal file to see if consensus can be reached with people able to do so... -- Grafikm  <sup style="color:red;">(AutoGRAF)  20:01, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I've offered to mediate this. I have some knowledge of the battle but no POV on it at all. I take it this is a matter of semantics regarding the status of people/places after troop movements. Contact me via the mediation pahe or my talk page. Art. Arthur Ellis 01:10, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Unprotecting
As the article has been protected for weeks and the mediation request was rejected and there seems to be no ongoing discussion, I'm unprotecting this article. --Tony Sidaway 22:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

"left" and "right" banks
Could we not use "East" and "West" to describe river banks such as that of the Dnieper rather than "left" and "right"? "Left" and "right" depend entirely on which way the observer is facing. If one was at the Dnieper facing upstream (North) the left bank would be the west bank and the right bank would be the east bank, but if facing downstream (South) then they would be reversed. I'm sure there are conventions for this sort of thing but I'm sure not everyone is aware of them and perhaps they are not universal so I think it would be better to be unambiguous and use "East" and "West" rather than "Left" and "Right". Booshank 02:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Universally, left and right banks are defined when facing the sense of the flowing water. Since Dnieper flows from north to south, the left bank is the eastern one and the right is western.
 * At least that's how it is defined for Russian rivers... I guess it's the same way for Dniper too... :) -- Grafikm  <sup style="color:red;">(AutoGRAF)  14:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Given that none of that is explained in the article, nor is the casual reader likely to know which way the water is flowing, it simply appears silly in the intro and requires an explanation. There isn't even a single decent map of the battlefield that would demonstrate what is being discussed. The descriptions in the article as is are useless. Michael Dorosh Talk  19:21, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

"Best" men
Aside from a lack of footnotes in the article, I'm a bit disturbed by the statement that Germany lost their 'best' men at Stalingrad. This is POV and unprovable. Did they keep statistics or have report cards? There's no way to compare or justify this statement so I've removed it. Michael Dorosh Talk  19:21, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Of course there is a way to prove it. If you send experienced troops into battle and lose a quarter of them at Stalingrad, and then draft youngsters from Germany like it was done starting from January 1943, you get a lesser level of combat experience and thus combat performance. Unless 14-year-old adolescents fighting with Panzerfausts in Berlin are about as efficient as elite Waffen-SS troops (and I'm quite sure they're not), I find your point quite strange.
 * For instance, it is clearly written in Zaloga's "Operation Bagration": "The quality of German infantry troops had declined steadily through the war, due to enormous casualties". And the Wehrmacht lost about one quarter of their forces near or in Stalingrad. From both qualitative and quantitative point of view, they never recovered from Stalingrad. -- Grafikm  <sup style="color:red;">(AutoGRAF)  19:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * "Best" is a POV word that is meaningless. Best at what? Best rifle shots? Smartest? Most experienced? Best physical condition? I think it is far more accurate to simply report that many experienced leaders and soldiers were lost at Stalingrad. There is no tangible evidence that small unit performance suffered dramatically after Stalingrad. The operational tempo certainly changed, and the strategic situation changed, but were infantry platoons in June 1943 really less able to conduct their business any less effectively than in November 1942? And if so, how do we know that? Were direct comparisons ever done? It's subjective, sweeping, and over-generalized. But at least that is consistent with the rest of the article. :-)  Michael Dorosh  Talk  19:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

casualty section
It's worthless as far as German casualties go. If they are estimated by your "rule of thumb" method described in the lower section of the article, I strongly suggest to remove them altogether because that is a very, very vague technique and highly unlikely given the numbers. Compare 1.25 million Germans total force employef to 1.25 million highest estimate of casualties... that'd mean every German died, got wounded or taken prisoner. Completely unrealistic.


 * You're absolutely right, high estimate of complete annihilation is ridiculous, I'll leave only the low estimate. And I change the word liberate in the intro to something more fitting, the Ukraine did not welcome the Soviets as liberators any more than Eastern Germany did. Wiki1609 (talk) 10:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I haven't researched beyond Glantz and Erickson and some of the older stuff which didn't take account of Soviet sources. The "reasoning" in the last section strikes me as a good faith effort, but perhaps it should be removed nevertheless?  Because of the complexity - different definitions of the duration and scope of the battle overlapping with different evaluations of which sources are more reliable - any sort of "musing" about which figures are low and high could only be comprehensive and fair if it went on for a few paragraphs.  Obviously the info-box demands its numbers, but a very large range could be put in for both sides there, and then the casualties section could matter of factly state the numbers cited by the most generally reliable German and Soviet sources, and the most accurate historians (here I'm thinking Glantz and Erickson but that's my opinion) with a simple one-line caveat that the geographic and chronological 'limits' to the battle/campaign can contribute to wide variations in the casualty estimates, in addition to the usual fiddling of the figures by both sides.  99.192.64.87 (talk) 18:37, 24 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The real problem with the casualty figures is that this is a soviet-centric article which presents events based on postwar soviet histography rather than from a military history perspective. As is the case with many of these battles, geography and chronology are played with to create a politically appropriate narrative. Whats wrong here is the *entire* attempt to present this as one "battle" or one operation. Because it just isn't.12.12.144.130 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 19:46, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Soviet KIA
The number of Soviet KIA seems far too high, and it isnt even mentioned in the aftermath section. 72.196.193.123 (talk) 05:45, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

5 million casualties?
The lead states "the casualties are estimated at being from 1,700,000 to 2,700,000 on both sides.". Isn't that the total number of casualties? I think this can be read as meaning 4-5 million casualties. --Mortense (talk) 11:04, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Kiev vs. Kyiv
The article mixes the two spellings, i.e. "Battle of Kiev" link. In English, the common spelling is Kiev, not Kyiv. The English Wiki should reflect this, should it not? I'll wait for feedback before changing it. HammerFilmFan (talk) 17:41, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Kyiv is the spelling preferred by the Government of Ukraine, and is being used more frequently in English now. However, Kiev was the spelling used in English at the time of the battle, so it looks anachronistic to use the modern spelling. I would go with Kiev for this article, and Kyiv for articles about modern Ukraine. Ground Zero | t 21:43, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Requested move
<div class="boilerplate" style="background-color: #efe; margin: 2em 0 0 0; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px dotted #aaa;">
 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Lower Dnieper Offensive → Battle of the Dnieper – This article should be moved to its proper name and retitled the Battle of the Dnieper. The reasons are WP:COMMONNAME and factual accuracy.

Per WP:COMMONNAME: There are over 10 thousand Google Books results for "Battle of the Dnieper". There are another 5 thousand for "Battle for the Dnieper". Meanwhile, excluding paper copies of Wikipedia that come up in the search engine, there are fewer than 10 results for "Lower Dnieper Offensive" (perhaps inspired by Wikipedia).

For accuracy: The old title of this article was Battle of the Dnieper; in February 2008 User:Mrg3105 unilaterally moved it to Lower Dnepr strategic offensive operation with edit summary "Correct translation/usage of the operation name and geographic description". Afterward, it was moved here. The original rationale for the move was completely incorrect. In fact, the Russian name of what the article describes is "Battle of the Dnieper" and the Interwiki for every article about this battle is the equivalent of "Battle of the Dnieper" (August - December 1943). The Lower Dnieper Operation is "Нижнеднепровская операция" -- this only formed a part of the battle (late September - December 1943). Zloyvolsheb (talk) 05:43, 24 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. Cloudz 679 09:58, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Fitting?
From the lead:


 * ... Zhukov who supposedly wanted to drown all Ukrainians in the Dnieper.

Is that fitting for such an article? --Mortense (talk) 12:12, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Do you know what the other references say? The Pravda from Ukraine don't look like the best source for contentious claims. By the photo with the Nazi officer with the local population they don't look very neutrals. Vinukin (talk) 17:19, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I think its entirely fitting for this article. After all, the most credible figure for German casualties is arrived at by original research. And the article as well claims that the high estimate for German losses is 100% (all of them apparently died). 12.12.144.130 (talk) 19:50, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

article needs a rewrite
The entire article is garbage. Beyond just being unreadable, it offers no coherent narrative of the operations covered. It also has terrible problems with perspective. Its way too soviet-centric and depends almost exclusively on soviet sources. 12.12.144.130 (talk) 19:25, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

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Casualties
The Battle of Dnieper as such did not exist as a military campaign, it may have referred to several Red Army Offensive Operations in and around Dnieper in Soviet historiography, but its not definied in current academic works as far as I'm aware.

According to Krivosheev, "Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses" from the time of 24 August 1943 – 23 December 1943 on what the article claims to be the "Battle of Dnieper" he list following losses:

Chernigov-Poltova Strategic Offensive Operation, 26 Aug. - 30 Sept. 1943 102,957 killed, 324,995 wounded and sick, total: 427,952

Lower Dnieper Strategic Offensive Operation, 26 Sept. - 20 Dec. 1943 77,400 killed, 226,217 wounded and sick, total 303,617

These two, were the major Red Army Offensive at time, all other Offensive Operations listen between the time frame of "24 August 1943 – 23 December 1943" having less then <50,000 casualties at most. It simply does not add up what the article is claiming and thus I've removed it. TwilightPliskin (talk) 10:09, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Manstein Reference
I find it laughable that the Polish IP 94.254.130.215 reintroduced the revisionistic and apologia memoir by calling me "Fixing vandalism made by troll user" see:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_the_Dnieper&diff=next&oldid=774226284

He also reintroduced several unsourced and misrepresented paragraphs that I have removed before. TwilightPliskin (talk) 10:17, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Casualties
Hi, on this talk page there is a source that states that the entirety of the Dnieper Operations : The Chernigov Poltava and Lower Dnieper offensives had about 180,000 total killed, 103,000 Chernigov 77000 Lower Dnieper, as well as around 550,000 sanitarry cases. However, in Soviet Operational Phases in the actual article there are two sections not included. The Donbass Operations and the Kiev Operations. Including those, I get a total from purely wikipedian sources of 848,469 sanitary losses and 274,667 KIA. I have not edited the article but I wanted this information to be there to look at. Is this correct or am I missing something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:E0CC:8300:44FF:B664:A5DF:12C0 (talk) 16:41, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Recent edits by user "2001:EE0:4A61:6AB0:880C:EA03:B1CC:8FE2"
Recently, on 5 March 2023, this user made 3 edits on this article, which are entirely wrong. His edits are regarding the German casualties during the battle, which the editor claims is "incomplete" and then proceeds to add astronomical number of German casualties during this battle.

For starters, this user adds in brackets that the number of 372,000 German casualties during this battle, which are in fact accurate, is "incomplete data". The number of 372,000 casualties comes from Forczyk's The Dnepr 1943: Hitler's Eastern Rampart Crumbles book, a fine work from a quality author, who extensively uses German primary sources stored at National Archives and Records Administration (NARA for short) stored in Washington DC. This includes data on losses of Heeresgruppe Süd and its armies during this battle. So the user saying it is "incomplete data" is plain wrong.

Then this editor writes in the casualty section that German losses were "749.458 total casualties, including 283,082 killed or mising (excluding SS and Luftwaffe units casualties)". The source for this is the link to the Wayback Machine about "Human Losses in World War II". The link actually shows stats for "Soviet POWs in the OKH Zone of Operation East, 1943", which are taken from Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (BA-MA), stored in Freiburg. I wonder how does that show German losses, lol. The number itself of "749.458 total casualties" of the Germans during this battle is completely wrong. It may be accurate in other ways, such as the overall losses of the Ostheer for certain period or losses of certain Heeresgruppen for certain period, but this editor specified none of this and just wrote this number in purely vague manner.

Finally, in the "Outcomes" section of this article, this user wrote that "German personnel losses are clouded by the lack of access to German unit records, which were seized at the end of the war. Many were transferred to the United States national archives and were not made available until 1978, while others were taken by the Soviet Union, which declined to confirm their existence." That's another pure nonsense. The German records, at both NARA and BA-MA, are readily available for anyone interested, for numerous decades now. Their availability everyone can see in this very article- in the edit of 23 April 2022, I personally added the strength numbers of German forces involved in this battle, straight from NARA.

Tai3chinirv7ana (talk) 20:25, 8 March 2023 (UTC)