I've just been trying to find out the approximate number of german casualites in the War, civilian and Military included. I have come across a figure of 4,530,000 for the Military and 2,556,000 civilian deaths (including those killed by the Nazis) supposedly coming from Overmanns estimates.If the pre war population was 87 Million (and at the least 79.8 million actually listed as living in pre 1937 population areas)and the post war 1946 population was only 65 million what would explain the differences? Has Overmanns failed to calculate something or did the Nazis over cook the population books? Did you also know for some bizarre reason that Portugeuse Timor had the biggest percentage of dead during the War over 14%?
I forget the Authors name who wrote this book but, it's published by Osprey and is called: Ostfront. This book has more accurate casualty figures for the Germans listed. Their military did not have 4 & 1/2 +++ million casualties even if these numbers combined those deceased with those wounded, and even then the numbers would still not be as high as the one posted. That would have been the major portion of their total personnel all branches combined.
4.5 million miltary casualties could be explained by the inclusion of the POW taken by the Soviets that never returned, the figure doesn't look absurd, I don't have many figures at hand but I recall that 1941 "losses" in the East in 1941 were in the region of 800.000 and that was a victory year so most would be KIA and WIA not MIA/POW. I believe it's nearly impossible to compare pre-war with post-war German population figures as the effect post war shift of the Polish border and other minor border changes can easily shift the figures by a few millions. On the other hand the military losses may well include soldiers of Austrians and Sudeten origin and others that would not be in the 1937 census but would be considered German to all effects in the Amy books, it may even include the non German "volunteers" !!. Lies, d*** lies and statistics.
facts from this site re civilian deaths.. Civilians killed during World War 2 Albania: 10,000 Austria: 125,000 Belgium: 76,000 Bulgaria: 10,000 China: 7,750,000 Czechoslovakia: 294,000 Denmark: 2,000 Ethiopia: 5,000 Finland: 2,000 France: 350,000 Germany: 1,600,000 Greece: 325,000 Hungary: 290,000 India: 25,000 Italy: 153,000 Japan: 672,000 Netherlands: 200,000 Norway: 7,000 Philippines: 91,000 Poland: 5,680,000 Romania: 200,000 Soviet Union: 7,000,000 United Kingdom: 92,700 United States: 6,000 Yugoslavia: 1,200,000
Thanks for that I've include a small summary of Overmanns calculations Austria Total population 6,653,000 Military deaths 261,000 Civilain deaths 58,700 Holocaust deaths 65,000 Percentage of population 5.8% Germany (1937 borders) TP 69,623,000 MD 4,456,000 CD 840,000 (to 1,940,000) H D 160 000 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. These figures don't include Ethnic Germans from outwith the Reich (an estimated population of 6 million with a death rate of between 10 and 19%) which are notoriusly difficult to calculate as Many classified as ethnic Germans suddenly became Polish or Czech after the war. The Total figure of serving Armed forces for the reich was somewhere in the region of 13,600,000 for the Wehrmacht and around 2,500,00 air force and 1,200,000 for the Navy with the SS and Waffen SS making up 900,000. Rűdiger Overmans. Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Oldenbourg 2000. ISBN 3-486-56531-1
Thanks ray It was the facts (or something very near it) that I was after I have seen all types of figures from 3 million dead civilians in West and East Prussia (and on the trek) alone and a figure of around 500 000 from the Sudeten Lands (including some that were killed in Slovenia). Also there was a figure of around 1 million (if we include the Children) that died of starvation and disease in and around Berlin just after the War that I read from a pretty reliable source. I suspect , I haven't seen a complete source for this, that the Commonwealth war graves commission count all service deaths up to 1947 as a result of the WW2. Are there any official figures from the Alllies concerning Geman casualites? What about the IRC do they have figures , at least on civilians, about casualites? Are there any good and reliable sources for these figures? I 'm sure the final ammount can always be argued.
The problem is the number of German casualties/desths in 1945. There are no reliable figures for these totals as the reporting system broke down (I wonder why?). Thus any final figure has a big variable for 1945. The estimates for 1945 run up to a million.
