Myths of the Eastern Front

Yes, but the troops in Stalingrad were encircled and air supply didn't work, so food was very rare.

182740 trapped in November, 91000 left in Februar, 16345 escaped - 75000 died during the encirclement. Correct?

Winter in Stalingrad was very cold too, very windy, not as you would expect usually from a city in southern Europe.

 

75000 ,yes,but no one will know how many died in combat and how many from sickness .

Probably the majority died from sickness,but even than, this is only a minority of those who were trapped .

Maybe 25 % .

 

The average temperatures for the winter of 41/42 in Leningrad (months december,january and february) was :-14.6 °,for Moscow -14.9 °,for Oktjabrsky Gorodok (a weather station between Moscow and Stalingrad,there were no data available for Stalingrad) :-15.8°

For 1942/43

Leningrad :-6.3 °

Moskow : - 9.8 °

O G : - 13.6

As one can expect,january was the coldest month

41/42

Leningrad :-18.7

Moscow : -20.2

O G : -19.3

42/43

Leningrad :-11.8

Moscow : - 15.3

O G : -17.8

Source : Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

 

LJAd, you're so utterly wrong about the connection between cold and asthma.

You've been shown to wrong. A simple google check would inundate you with medical information showing just how wrong you are.

Asthma is a chronic condition, it is always present, but attacks can be triggered by a multitude of causes, the stress of breathing cold air is just one of them.

Having been proven wrong, you are now trying to blame "NHS pencil-pushers"?

Then, you blather on about it being "less cold in Stalingrad than Moscow" and provide a statistical average of temperatures elsewhere (Oktjabrsky Gorodok)? This Oktjabrsky Gorodok shows lower temperature, despite being further South than Moscow in three of the four averages you've presented.

You're being less lucid than normal, which is to say not very much at all.

 

It's a free world and I have the right to disagree .

 

That OG was further south than Moscow is irrelevant for the temperatures in OG .
Did I say anything else than that astma can be triggered by a lot of causes,cold air being ONE of them ? But there is no automatism between cold air and asthma,asthma can happen in the summer,winter,spring and autumn and is NOT winter related: if it was winter related,it would also be summer related,spring related and autumn related .

And in 41/42 it was less cold in the Stalingrad area than in Moscow : that is a fact mentionned by the American Meteorological Society which you can't deny .

 

Dysentery and hepatitis, that is diarrhoea with blood and viral liver infection ( making boys look yellow ) were something the troops were really suffering from.

 

Dysentery happened also in the summer (maybe more than in the winter) :Hitler suffered from dysentery in the summer of 1942 when he had moved his HQ to the Ukraina .

 

Hitler suffered from dysentery in August, 1941, when he was at the Wolfsschanze...He suffered from a bout with influenza at Werwolf in 1942.

 

LJAD, dysentery is worse in winter because men tend to be indoors more, its harder to take showers and clean things. Since dysentery comes from bad sanitation and thus the conditions the Germans dealt with made it more likely to get the disease.

 

The same goes for influenza.

 

1) The Ostheer was not indoors in the winter of 41/42

2)As there are no figures about dysentery cases for the war in the East, it is only speculative to say that there were more cases in the winter than in the other saesons


3)BUT,there are figures who indicate the opposite = figures about dysentery in the 2 NZEF

march 41-march 42 (only 11 months) :total 1169 of which 125 for the 3 winter months (december,january ,february)

march 42-march 43: total 971,winter 133

march 43-march 44:total :1643 : winter : 113

march 44-march 45:total :882,winter :118

in each of these years the winter counted for less than 25 %,and in each of these years the month with the greatest number of cases was a non winter month

41 : november
42: july
43: september
44 : june
45 : may

Dysentery erupted when soldiers were entering a region(country) that was infamous for its bad sanitary conditions,such as : Crete and Egypt and winter or not had only a small influence.

Source : nzet.victoria.ac.nz
:war surgery and medicine: chapter 1 :dysentery

 

You are aware of where the 2NZEF was fighting? Or are you trying to introduce a new myth of the Eastern Front?

Your figures do not prove your blunt, and are completely irrelevant in the context which is being discussed.

"Winter" on the Eastern Front, can hardly be compared in any shape or form, to a Winter in the Mediterranean.

It appears you are just arguing for the sake of arguing, rather than making any attempt to understand.

As climatic extremes are reached, hygene suffers, and dysentry occurs. In Russia, the climatic extreme is in Winter, whereas in Egypt to Libya, it is during the Summer. Oddly enough, we were discussing Eastern Europe....

 

It seams we are all agreed on that. good.

It really looks like you are failing to understand what the word "related" means. It certainly doesn't imply that if something is seasonal it only happens during that season. In this case anyone who was trying to understand our posts shouldn't have had any trouble seeing that it meant that it occurse with both higher frequency and often greater severity during the winter. It is also "related" to summer for instance in that it tends to decrease in both severity and frequency during that period. Claiming that it is not "related" to winter is quite simply wrong.

Given the weather conditions and the lower frequency of fighting they were almost assuredly spending more time under cover than they were in the preceding months. They were also likely staying closer together for heat if nothing else. Now this may have been in tents or temporary shelters but to try and negate the crowding issue with a simple statement like the above is not only wrong but appears to be deliberately misleading.

Are you sure there are "no figures"? I suspect in any case there are enough accounts to give considerable weight to that speculation. Given the causes and nature of dysentery it may be "speculative" but it is well informed speculation to bring that hypothesis to the table. Your rejection of it without fact or logic is rather less well founded.

Certainly other factors could dominate under some cercumstances. However most of those weren't in play in the East were they? That rather brings to question your conclusion.

 

An other one who thinks it never is snowing in Italy .The facts are that when the NZEF was in Egypt there were more cases of dysentery than when they were in Italy during the winter and when they were in Italy in the summer ,there was more dysentery than when they were in Italy during the winter:204 in june 1944 and 44 in january 1944,july 1943 :293

Besides : if the Germans had more dysentery during the Russian winter, the same would happen to the Russian civilians,for which there is no proof .

Besides: dysentery does NOT occur when climateic extremes are reached: dysentery is caused by drinking of infected waterer,it is not caused by cold temperatures,unless you could prove that people are drinking infect water when it is cold and not when it is warm .

The allied trooops suffered from dysentery when they were in Crete,because the sanytary conditions were very bad in Crete,not because it was cold or warm in Crete .

 

For the love of God, learn to read.

Then read what others have written. Then re-read what you have just posted.

 

So you are saying the troops never went indoors at all the whole winter?? So I guess the German army had no shelters at all from the cold.

 

This is great thread. I just grabbed a big box of popcorn, laid down just to relax and watch as LJAd is creating new history and medical truths

 

I will say edhunter76 I have been following this thread a lot myself and it has been quite the ride :eatpopcorn: Good thread.