Unbelievable Soviet WWII Casualty Figures

sounds like you are talking about Bacque's claims?

 

Yes, I see. When I had posted this link earlier I was informed that it came from David Ivings Website (look on the bottom). When posting it I missed it myself as I was in a hurry. I understand this analysis is not that of Irving's himself simply pointing out that it is from his website...

I got scolded a bit for it

from the same site,

"Professor Karner believes that the 1,400,000 Germans died chiefly on the Russian front. The problem is that at least one of the central documents culled from the Soviet Archives, the statistical report of Colonel Bulanov, Chief of the Prison Division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, clearly states the total number of German prisoners (2,388,443) and the total number of the German dead (356,687) along with the capture totals and mortality figures of Hungarians, Rumanians, Austrians, etc. (p. 79).

If the number of Germans missing and presumed dead stands at 1,400,000 and the highest possible Soviet source gives the total number of the dead at 356,687 then clearly somewhat in excess of a million dead Germans seem not to have died in the Soviet Union but may have died, as James Bacque has contended, on the Western (not the Russian) front as captives of the French and the Americans.

 

Yup!

 

Thanks for pointing it out

 

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Loss of personnel of the Karelian Front

...Loss of personnel of the Karelian front in 1941Loss of personnel of the Karelian front in 1942Loss of personnel of the Karelian front in 1943Loss of personnel of the Karelian front in 1944Loss of personnel of the Karelian front in 1945

interesting data, if you can translate it from files...

 

I am a "baby boomer" who is appreciative of the tallies the allies lost in war during World War II. In numbers these losses were nothing less than staggering. I am also keenly aware of a lot of speculation as to the tactics that could have been used and sometimes was desired by some of our allies.......all hoping to stem the tides of losses in men as I think our allied leaders were keenly aware that with a shortage of males post war recovery could be very difficult for some societies. Our allies asked for a lot, our leaders responded with reasonable contributions in manpower and our society also peaked our manufacturing which enabled allies in Europe to accomplish a great deal "on their own" so I think our leadership was fortunate with some good planning to enable us to have good recoveries in the post war years. There is no doubt European leaders wanted to maximize U.S. contributions in the battles to stem their own losses.

End result---perhaps today we take up a bit of too much of an effort to prevent another "runaway aggressor such as Hitler" and perhaps sometimes our allies expect a bit too much from our resources in world policing. The tendency remains to not handle the aggressors until the U.S. steps in. I think Europe did not completely learn the lessons of having allowed a tyrant to grow nearby and the negative effect of having to move on a large scale to stop such after they have gained momentum. I do realize we do have responsibility but comparing our economic load, do the countries all carry the weight in proportion to their populations? I would like some input from non-U.S. people and their comments about this. What do our traditional allies have in their response to this subject? I am very curious about their insights into this controversy so I hope we get some contributions.

 

I think you miss the point that the unwillingness to sacrifice males in Europe was not due to any dreams of post war recovery but due to a rather bad shortage of such appropriately aged males due to a previous war to which you also turned up late.

No offense intended.

 

Well said

I would question more his belief that the U.S. SHOULD police the world. His presumption is that the rest of the world is remiss in allowing tyrants to rise up and that the U.S. is some sort of savior, stepping in to do the dirty work. This is disingenuous and risks making this a political, social thread.

But, I will say this: There are plenty of tyrants in the world, some with true WMDs, some with equal or worse human rights records that the U.S. refuses to acknowledge... The OP needs to consider what that means.

 

I agree with your second part wholeheartedly Nicnac, the OP did not however mention anything in his first paragraph about shortages of European manpower due to WW1.

 

Which raises the question of whether or not we should have showed up at all.
In any case early war most of the European countries seem to have been willing to sacrificy their males at fairly prodigious rates (the British seem to have come to their senses in this regard faster than some perhpas as a result of being a democracy).

 

The Poles, French, Dutch, Belgians, Danish and Czechs would probably disagree.

to name but a few.

and incidentally most of the European nations were democracies at the start of the war.

 

It's pretty clear that someone should. The US has hardly been ancious to assume this roll however.

Again I would argue that we are all remiss in allowing some of these tyrants to remain in power. In the cases where the US has taken action against them yes it is indeed "some sort of savior". When other countries have done so they also qualify as above.

Perhaps but then your post also seems to qualify in that regard.

It's pretty clear what it means. The US does not have unlimited resources or an unlimited mandate to remove tyrants. When it has been in our best interest and our capability we have done so but, that's rather a different issue.

 

ahhh sorry Spartan, I posted and was editing while you replied. Yes, I did question your comment but reread the OP and removed the reference.

Another thing that 'bugs' me about the OP's comment is a presumption that the U.S. took a bigger hit in WW2 than other European nations.

I would point him to the first chart here where if he sorts by the last column (% of deaths related to population), he will see that the U.S. had almost the lowest amongst the Allies.

 

Would they? History rather indicates otherwise. Except for perhaps the Dansish and Czecks but even there if there had been a chance of success would they not have done so? The Poles certainly fought until the bitter end. Belgium was pretty much over run before they surrendered and didn't some of their units continue to fight along side the British and French? Holland was also over run and it's population centers were under threat of destruction (ie women, childredn, and aged). France was in a similar position.

Depending on what you mean by democracy. But then most of them were out of the war or never in it pretty quickly weren't they?

 

Any post discussing US motives for it's actions since ww2 is going to be political.

You sum it up perfectly with your last sentence.

 

I just looked back at the OP and didn't see any sign of this "presumption". Care to point it out?

 

I cannot respond to this without being political, so here goes. We were all pretty gung-ho about starting two wars 9 years ago.

Some peoples don't want the U.S. to 'save them'.

Unavoidable sir. That was my point.

It isn't. What the U.S. wants with the rest of the world is very much at the heart of current tensions the rest of the world feels regarding us. I know what you feel. The problem is you have to know what THEY feel.

This was never the issue here. The issue here is in where to appropriately use these limited resources.

And this gets to the heart of the matter. Many people are afraid to become the 'best interest' of the U.S.

 

All those nations mentioned surrendered after a varied amount of resistance but none of them

as you said. Hence the surrenders.

what do you mean by democracy? and most of Europe was not 'out of the war' - geographically and politically that was impossible.

 

By OP, I mean the post to do with the current discussion:

I am also keenly aware of a lot of speculation as to the tactics that could have been used and sometimes was desired by some of our allies.......all hoping to stem the tides of losses in men as I think our allied leaders were keenly aware that with a shortage of males post war recovery could be very difficult for some societies. Our allies asked for a lot, our leaders responded with reasonable contributions in manpower and our society also peaked our manufacturing which enabled allies in Europe to accomplish a great deal "on their own" so I think our leadership was fortunate with some good planning to enable us to have good recoveries in the post war years. There is no doubt European leaders wanted to maximize U.S. contributions in the battles to stem their own losses.

 

Irrelevant. You were talking about us being the "worlds policeman" this was a matter of self interest and self defence.

Possibly. But some do. The mugger hardly looks at a police officer that stops a mugging as a savior. Both sides in a family dispute may not want to see a police officer intervene. That's hardly the point however.

And both OT and irrelevant to this thread so why do it?

Isn't it? or do you just not want to see it.

And your point is?

You do? It hardly looks like it from your posting.

I do? Why? Or conversely what makes you think I don't?

That wasn't what you implied.

Indeed. That's not necessarily a bad thing but I'm not sure it's all that relevant to this discussion either.