Talk:World War II casualties/Archives/2009/December

German military deaths - over estimated ?!
Just a personal note : If you calculate all the German military deaths in all battles stated in wikipedia even with those missed/Pow especially in the eastern front they will hardely reach 2 millions ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.8.246.12 (talk) 06:09, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

The figures for German casualties are from a German Army analysis by Rűdiger Overmans. Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Oldenbourg 2000. ISBN 3-486-56531-1. Dr. Rüdiger Overmans, an associate of the German Armed Forces Military History Research Office until 2004, provided an official reassessment of German military war dead based on a statistical analysis of German military personnel records. The Overmans research project was supported and funded by the German government. The study found that the statistics collected by German military during the war were incomplete and did not provide an accurate accounting of casualties.--Woogie10w (talk) 10:09, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Soviet Union
It states that the Soviet Unions total deaths were 23,954,000 but considering the numbers in the table show a range from 8,800,000 to 10,700,000 soldiers killed and a range of 12,254,000 to 14,154,000 civilians killed shouldn't you, like with the other numbers in the article where there are a range of numbers, have a range of 22,054,000 to 25,854,000 total deaths (including Holocaust victims) instead? --Nirvana77 (talk) 01:59, 15 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Please read the footnote on the USSR. Official Soviet figures include only 1.3 million POW and do not include militia and partisans with the military, the balace of 1.9 million are considered civilians. Sources in the west put POW dead at 3 million and include militia and partisans with military dead. In any case the total remains the same, also note well that Russiann figures are for borders in 1941, which includes eastern Polish territory. The Polish include these losses with Poland. To avoid a duplication we must break out these losses. --Woogie10w (talk) 15:46, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I will be offline until tomorrow, if you have any questions re:Soviet casualties, please inquire. Russian sources have extensive details, the figures on this page are a mere summary of their losses.--Woogie10w (talk) 16:09, 15 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Aha, I understand now. Thanks, --Nirvana77 (talk) 07:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Sovjet-Georgian casulties were not 190.000, but at least two times that high TheMightyGeneral (talk) 15:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * What is your source? We need to verify what you say, All information in this encyclopedia must be verifiable in a reliable, published source--Woogie10w (talk) 15:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

US military deaths by theater
How many americans died fighting Germany and how many against Japan ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.8.246.12 (talk) 06:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

U.S. Combat Dead by Theater of war - Europe-Atlantic 183,588; Army ground forces 141,088; United States Army Air Forces 36,461 and Navy/Coast Guard 6,039; Asia-Pacific 108,504; Army ground forces 41,592; United States Army Air Forces 15,694; Navy/Coast Guard 31,485; Marine Corps 19,733. Unidentified Theatres- Army 39 For further details see the official report by the United States Dept. of the Army, Army Battle Casualties and Non Battle Deaths in World War II. Available online at --Woogie10w (talk) 10:16, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Red Army "other formations" / Foreigners in German Armed Forces
1) Losses of "other formations" in the Red Army according to Krivosheev: I would like to draw attention to Krivosheev, Soviet casualties and combat losses…, 1997, pp. 228-230, where he points to further losses of other formations which where part of military operations. He states that these casualties do NOT appear in his casualty figures as there are, he says, no official documents in the archives. This concerns „militia formations“ („many casualties“, p. 229, strength 2 million), partisans (strength > 1 million), „merchant navy and river transport“, „rail and road transport workers and special formations“, „health workers and communications workers“ -- and even women (pilots, snipers, AA gunners, but also doctors and signallers etc.). The Wikipedia article gives 250.000 dead partisans and 150.000 „militia“. I am not sure whether the terminus „militia“ covers all other formations mentioned above. It would be good to add a note even if we do not have any further numbers.


 * The additional 400,000 war dead of partisans and militia were estimated by a Russian source Vadim Erlikman in a 2004 study of war losses.--Woogie10w (talk) 23:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not concerned with the figures themselves, but with the term „militia“ which may be too vague. It would be better to say "militia and support forces", for merchant navy members, rail and health workers and so on are IMO no militia.--Akribes (talk) 19:24, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

2)Foreigners in German Armed Forces: There is something wrong with the volunteers. On p. 229 Overmans says that foreigners fighting within the Wehrmacht are NOT included in the figures he found with his statistical analyis. Basically there are two groups, Soviet citizens and volunteers mainly from western Europe. The Wikipedia article lists correctly Krivosheev’s 215.000 Soviet citizens additionally (that means separately), but it does not so for other nationalities. This concerns foreigners / volunteers from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Norway, Sweden, Slovakia and Switzerland. Overmans says (p. 229) further that there were Croatian formations (apparently not Ustasa on the Balkans) and very small SS units from nearly all over the world. All those are not included in Overmans’ total number of 5.318.000 dead. Figures for nearly all of them can be found in the footnotes of the article. Footnote 19 mentions „37.000 volunteers from western Europe“, apparently drawn from Overmans’ table 73b on p.335 where he has 29.132 from „West-, Nord- und Suedeuropa“, but these deads are Germans (further „ethnic Germans“) born in those countries who served in the Wehrmacht. But the above mentioned volunteers -- e.g. native Belgians, Slovaks etc. -- must be categorized separately.
 * See page 230 of Overmnans for a breakout of the 29.300 volunteers from western Europe(includes non ethnic Germans), They are included in his total of 5,318,000 and make up less than 1% of the total, not a significant figure. --Woogie10w (talk) 23:03, 28 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, not a significant number. But take a look at Overmans p. 229, middle of the page: Foreigners are not included in the 5.318.000 and table 33 on p. 230 refers only to foreigners, not to ethnic Germans. On the other hand, table 73b on p. 335 gives figures for ethnic Germans only, from all over the world, among them 29.132 from Western Europe (without Alsace-Lorraine), Northern and Southern Europe, 4.000 from Unterkrain (Krajinska, today in Slowenia) and 3.000 others (e.g. Germans born in Namibia and so on). Makes 37.000 ethnic Germans which are wrongly classified as „volunteers from Western Europe“ in footnote 19, and they are included in the 5.318.000, whereas Overmans’ ~29.300 volunteers on p. 230 are not. Note further that in footnotes 4, 12, 16, 17, 32, 38, 41, 51 and 52 of the article there are slightly different numbers for volunteers from these countries than those Overmans gives on p. 228.--Akribes (talk) 19:24, 29 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Note that Overmans has a question mark next to the figures for these „volunteers from Western Europe. The 4.000 from Unterkrain (Krajinska, today in Slowenia) are in the Annexed territories There were few ethnic Germans in the Netherlands, yet Overmans has 10,000? dead. These men were Dutch not ethnic Germans!!--Woogie10w (talk) 19:39, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

A question on Krivosheev’s 215.000 (english edition 1997, p. 278): He writes „Volunteer Wehrmacht formations and SS troops (Vlasovites, Balts, Muslims, etc.)“. What does he mean by „Muslims, etc.“?--Akribes (talk) 19:59, 28 December 2009 (UTC)


 * What does he mean by „Muslims, etc.“? Crimean Tartars and peoples from Central Asia and the Caucasus were recruited by the SS--Woogie10w (talk) 23:03, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

General remarks on Overmans
Everyone working on the article or reading it should realize very well that Overmans’ figures are based only on statistical analysis. By taking 4.322 file cards from the card index of the Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt) he makes a spot check and then an extrapolation to get total numbers. For every single German soldier there is a file card on which the individual military dates were written manually, from 1939 on up to now if something new is discovered. In fact, in this book Overmans is not so much an historian as an statistician. Even today nobody really knows the exact total number of all file cards. That is the problematic starting point for a statistical analysis. Only the number of card index boxes is known: 30.477. Out of these, 711 are spot-checked by Overmans in order to get his sample of 4.322 single files. But it is even not known how much file cards are in every single box! So he has to calculate (and estimate) the amount of files within one pile of files which measures one centimetre. This is the kind of problems a statistical analysis faces. And some files are of course incomplete: in the end, 4.137 of 4.322 have been found complete, covering all data Overmans wants to examine. To complicate the matter, there are two different sets: The „Totenkartei“ (Death index) with about 3.070.000 definite deaths (this figure is confirmed by other sources and has been reached by manual counting) and the „Allgemeine Kartei“ (Common index) which covers all surviving soldiers but also additional deaths. The crucial question is, how many additional deaths there are which have to be added to the 3.070.000 confirmed. What I want to say: Statistical analysis is problematic. Concluding his algorithms and first calculations Overmans states absolutely right -- I try to translate from German: „In all, in the Allgemeine Kartei 15.201.074 persons are documented. This seeming exactnes of the result could bring about the impression that this is an exact data. But this would be wrong: It is the result of a extrapolation based on a spot check.“ (p. 196) During his further calculations, Overmans is rounding his figures sometimes, what is IMO absolutely essential and right when someone is doing mere statistics. But on other occasions Overmans gives his calculated figures up to the last digit, especially in the appendix pp. 332-336. An appendix with a lot of numbers is easy to read and comprehend, especially for a non-German speaking reader who is not willing to work through the whole book. These very exact numbers -- e.g. exactly 2.742.909 deaths on the Eastern Front up to 31/12/44 -- can seduce the reader into believing that these are the definite German casualties based on official documents from an archive (like Krivosheev’s numbers). That is not the case. In fact, these very exact numbers have nothing to do with historical reality.

But there are further methodical problems. The greatest problem concerning German total casualties are the last months of WW2, especially 1945. For 1945, Overmans introduces on p. 174 the category „final battles in the East and in the West as of January 1 1945“ (without Italy and without dead POWs). That’s it. He does not differentiate anymore and does give no reason for mixing both fronts (but not including e.g. Italy) except for the date 01/01 („common date“) and the difficulty to assign deaths to individual theatres. But his figure for the „final battles“ (p. 336) is very exact again: 1.230.045. On p. 265 he estimates that two thirds, that is ca. 800.000, died on the Eastern Front. Accordingly, though he does not explicitly state this, ca. 400.000 died on the Western Front against American, British and French troops between 01/01/45 and 08/05/45, without Italy, without deaths at sea, without dead POWs (p. 174.). But where did 400.000 German soldiers on the Western front die in 1945? If you take a look at other sources, literature etc. and add the figures for single operations in the West as of 01/01/1945, you will never get up to 400.000 deaths: Battle of the Bulge (which indeed reached back to 1944), Siegfried Line, Ruhr pocket, Wesel…, even if there were further deaths from other causes (disease, executions). If these would be total casualties including wounded, the figure could be right. Then, deaths on the Western Front from 1939 up to 31/12/1944: 339.957 -- again without Italy, without Norway 1940, without Balkans/Greece, without Africa, without deaths at sea and the air over the „Reich“ itself (p. 174). The figure breaks up as follows (p. 272): KIA 231.132, MIA 50.825, died other causes 58.000 (sic! – this time rounded or exact?). So we should have about 290.000 combat deaths (MIA in Overmans’ book does never contain POWs which were missed after their capture but who were in fact alive – MIA is in fact dead). Making again a rough estimate for the major operations one should again say this is too high: Battle of France 46.000, Operation Overlord 80.000, Hurtgen forest 12.000, Battle of the Bulge up to 31/12/44 perhaps 10.000. These are figures from most serious scholarship based on archival research (and may even include deaths from disease or accidents etc.). Even taking into account some deaths fighting the French resistance, some in the air over the Channel, the battles of Arnheim and of the Scheldt I do not think we will get up to 290.000.

To sum up: I have been reading Overmans for months again and again but I cannot help to find some figures simply too high compared to those I find in other sources. Not everything recorded, found and produced in earlier times can be totally wrong. At least we should be careful to cite his very exact numbers which have been reached by extrapolations and not by archival research. And we should be very careful to use Overmans as a source for single theatres / operations (as has happened in some Wikipedia articles). IMO with this book the last word on German total casualties has not been spoken.--Akribes (talk) 20:11, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Reply by Woogie 10w

You cite not one source to support your critic of Overmans. Is this your original research?
 * No, I am just a critical reader who hopes to be a little bit thought-provoking. I have not demanded to change Overman’s figures. BTW, regarding "original research": For Soviet casualties WP-authors have compiled data from different sources in order to correct Krivosheev. Now we have 10.700.000. This could be regarded as original research (unless Erlikman has this, too).
 * But there was a link in footnote 19 to a paper criticizing Overmans' methodology: http://web.telia.com/~u18313395/overmans.pdf  Has anyone removed this link??
 * Anyway: Will look for reviews on Overmans in our University library in 2010.--Akribes (talk) 19:40, 29 December 2009 (UTC)


 * paper criticizing Overmans' methodology This is not a source that is acceptable on Wikipedia. It is a posting by an anonymous author. Interesting blog.


 * Well, the page itself belonged to Niklas Zetterling who has published some books on World War II. But the page appears to be offline now. He should have written his name on the pdf-file...--Akribes (talk) 19:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes,he should have written his name on the pdf-file. IMO it was very unprofessional to publish this annonymously. It has little or no credibility.


 * My critism of Overmans is that he did reconcil his losses to the total number drafted 18.2 million nor to the total population losses. I have done this but cannot post to Wikipedia because it is original research


 * Do you have official German gov statistics on civilians killed in Berlin April 1945? We need to find this number. Secondary sources may be wrong.--Woogie10w (talk) 20:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I need to check Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg at the New York Public Library Main Branch to see what they may have on Berlin.--Woogie10w (talk) 20:48, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Erlikman has 10.650 million, you are quite correct on the East Front.


 * BTW about three years ago I started a blog on the Axis History Forum re:the 400,000 dead in the West in 1945, nobody responded. I suspect Overmans did not want to offend his American friends. My father who was a US GI in 1944-45 said "after Malmedy we took no prisoners"


 * Please post anything you find in your Library.--Woogie10w (talk) 19:56, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Dr. Rüdiger Overmans, an associate of the German Armed Forces Military History Research Office until 2004, provided an official reassessment of German military war dead based on a statistical analysis of German military personnel records. The Overmans research project was supported and funded by the German government. The study found that the statistics collected by German military during the war were incomplete and did not provide an accurate accounting of casualties. The research by Overmans concluded that German military dead and missing were 5,318,0000

We need to subject Overmans to an audit, lets cross check his figures to official German government demographic estimates of war losses.

A.In 1956 Wirtschaft und Statistik (10/1956), journal published by Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland.(German government Statistical Office) estimated German Wehrmacht dead (within 1937 German borders only) at 3,760,000.

B.Wehrmacht war dead from Austria were estimated at about 280,000 in official sources prior to Overmans.

C.Bilanz der Vertreibung-Published by the German government in 1958 put the military Wehrmacht war dead among the ethnic Germans from eastern Europe at 432,000.

D.Wehrmacht war dead from France and other western nations were about 60,000.

E.The total of A,B,C and D is 4,532,000, not counting the dead of the Volksturm and paramilitary forces fighting alongside the military.

F.Overmans puts the figure at 5,318,00, a difference of 786,000. We need to explain this variance.

Overmans in his study found 344,000 additional military war dead from the areas that were subject to the expulsions. Overmans believes that this will reduce civilian deaths and increase military deaths. Overmans includes 232,000 dead of the Volksturm and paramilitary forces fighting alongside the military, 124,000 of this total were not in the areas that were subject to the expulsions. Overmans also includes 266,000 German POW deaths/died of wounds in the period after May 1945. The preceding figures add up to 734,000, which is almost equal to our difference. I have also read the Overmans book. He goes into considerable detail describing the system used during the war to collect casualty statistics pointing out the flaws in the system and how it broke down in the final year of the war. I agree that the exactness of the numbers is somewhat misleading, however the readers are made aware that statistics was used to derive the figures. We need to be faithful to our sources and not to post our own estimates based on original research

To further clarify the problem of Germany’s war losses we need to understand the total demographic losses ( military & civilian) due to the war. A German academic source puts the total population losses due to the war for Germany in 1937 borders at 6.9 million Peter Marschalck Bevölkerungsgeschichte Deutschlands im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert -suhrkamp 1984

Military and civilian losses of Austria were about 400,000.

Estimates of ethnic German losses in eastern Europe vary. The 1958 report Bilanz der Vertreibung estimates total military & civilian losses at 1.5 million. Gerhard Reichling. In the Die deutschen Vertriebenen in Zahlen, Bonn 1995 estimates these losses at about 1.2 million.

To sum up we have 6.9 million in Germany; 400,000 in Austria and 1.2-1.5 million ethnic Germans for a grand total of 8.5 to 8.8 million total excess deaths in the Third Reich. Assuming that the German High Command figure of 3.3 million war dead is correct that means 5.2 to 5.5 million civilians died due to the war. This makes no sense at all and cannot be explained in the historical literature. The Overmans report makes logical sense viewed in the context of total German war losses, both military and civilian.--Woogie10w (talk) 16:24, 29 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Will check all this carefully from the original sources later in our library (unfortunately you give no page references, but will try to find everything). I am not sure that Volkssturm, Wehrmachtgefolge and Police had been altogether neglected in these earlier publications. But the "new" additional dead nevertheless emerge only from statistical analysis -- up to now. If German government would give money to WASt for additional personnel, all 15.000.000 (or so) card files could be counted manually and the holy grail could be found.--Akribes (talk) 19:49, 29 December 2009 (UTC)


 * A new idea: Perhaps Overmans is just wrong with his estimate that out of 1.230.000 deaths in 1945 two thirds were on the Eastern Front (p. 265) – perhaps even much more deaths in 1945 have to be assigned to the Eastern Front. But see p. 272, table 56 for the breakup: 401.660 KIA (that means it is definitely known that they were killed in action), 131.066 died other causes -- and 697.319 MIA! A great percentage of those MIA had probably been captured first and then died later as POWs without having been officially classified as „dead POWs“. But then Overmans should not say that in 1945 „300.000 soldiers died per month“ (p. 275) and „10.000 died per day“ (p. 279), but rather „300.000 were lost irrecoverably“ (KIA and MIA). What I want to say: He may be useful for total losses and deaths, but not so for single operations and months. The main problem is 1945 and Overmans is right in maintaining that previous authors had underestimated the last monts.--Akribes (talk) 19:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Note well that the gefallen total of Overmans (2.3 mill)is close to the official figure( 2.2 mill). Men who died of wounds or were MIA were often not counted by OKW. As for losses in the west, it makes sense to me that the Germans lost a lot more than the Americans. My father said the sky was full of planes in July 1944 and the US guns fired non stop. When he advanced, dead Germans littered the road, they were buried in mass graves. He lamented the fact that so many young men died, he was 36 years old then. He remarked "one of those kids looked just like my father" who was born in Germany.--Woogie10w (talk) 21:05, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Check the Nutrition facts label on your bag of Kartoffelchips, statistics was used to derive those numbers.--Woogie10w (talk) 23:17, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not know exactly what you are intending by this but I think you are comparing apples with oranges [] by comparing Kartoffelchips-statistics with World-War-2-statistics… I prefer the principle "apples with apples" (while eating no chips).--Akribes (talk) 19:54, 29 December 2009 (UTC)


 * My point is that statistics is an accepted tool in the real world. The economic statistics we see on news are the result of samples taken, not a full accounting of the economy.


 * Here is what happens in the real world . At the Kelsen factory in Berlin 9AM, The manager requests that the foreman pull out five bags of Paprika Chips at random(out of the 20,000bags in stock) and bring them to his office. The manager sends the five bags to an independent laboratory for analysis. The laboratory sends a copy of the results to the manager who keeps it on file and updates the nutrition label on the packages being manufactured. When the government inspector comes to the Kelsen factory in Berlin the manager gives him a copy of the report and a complimentary pack of Paprika Chips.--Woogie10w (talk) 20:23, 29 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Here is the reply that I was waiting for. The government inspector pulls five bags of Paprika Chips herself and sends them to the government laboratory for analysis, in order to verify the information that Kelsen gave her.--Woogie10w (talk) 21:45, 30 December 2009 (UTC)