The fallen of WW2

[Bremspropeller]

 

[cardboard_killer]

Relatively easily checked errors in the 30 seconds I watched of it. First, it claims the Germans took Stalingrad, which they didn't, but not a big deal as they came close, but then, "a half a million Nazis would ultimately die in Stalingrad". Huh? I stopped it there as I don't feel like fact checking every 30 seconds of a youtube video.

[NETSCAPE]

>a guy gathers readily available numbers from wikipedia

>puts together moving graphics that a 10 year old could make

>wins numerous awards

huh.

[JtD]

Good one. Watched it a long time ago, and the figures as well as individual images are sickening. Still, I feel it's necessary to reminded every now and then.

 

Obviously, the Axis losses (dead or missing) at Stalingrad were only 480000, with some ten thousand give or take, and it's hard to excuse if that's rounded to "half a million".

[ZachariasX]

It is an impressive compilation for sure. But as pointed out above, a lot of things are much less exact than they are made believe. One thing that is a recurring error is the general trend to inflate German losses. They even round up inflated numbers to make it more impressive, as @JtD pointed out. It's like saying Hartmann had about 400 victories, well just rounded. Past 50, you can bring up the figure, right? It sounds better that way, easier to memorize.

 

Toward the end of and just after the war, comparisons between parish registers and official loss registers showed drastic differences. Mind you, parish registers were about the most exact census documents of that time. Official lists showed far higher loss numbers. And the worse they did their jobs in getting the actual numbers, the higher the tally.

 

I can only speculate that it was very much in the Germans interest to keep the numbers high as much as it was for the Allies to tell everyone how much they let 'em have it. But there can't be any doubt that actual German *combat fatalities* are much more in line with numbers from Allied countries than what is generally mentioned. Also death tolls from bombing in Germany contain also hundreds of thousands of worker slaves in Germany. Those worker slaves were housed not too far from the factories. How many of those camps there were you can see on this map, taken from here:

Spoiler

 

This puts the whole "total casualties lists" even more into question. Did they check for nationalities when collecting charred bodies in bombed cities? I guess not. But it shows the sheer maginitude of the Nazi's pirating enterprise as well as gives an idea about the number of dislocated people, even within Germany at the time. It is simply a wrong misconception that there were camps just for politically misguided or otherwise disliked folks. It was the base of their economy and everyone from throughout Europe could get trapped there if able bodied and caught by Nazis. Soviet loss figures are of course disproportionate, as this was the whole purpose of the undertaking, namely killing them all. You know, if you promise every ambitous fart in your ranks "estates in the east", then the current tenants are generally a problem. That the Nazis found a solution for.

 

 

Edited November 20, 2019 by ZachariasX

[cardboard_killer]

3 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

Mind you, parish registers were about the most exact census documents of that time.

 

Actually, the best lists are payroll lists, because no one fights for free. As soon as they stop paying you, you make a lot of noise to get your money in any armed forces.

[ZachariasX]

42 minutes ago, cardboard_killer said:

Actually, the best lists are payroll lists, because no one fights for free. As soon as they stop paying you, you make a lot of noise to get your money in any armed forces.

 

I doubt that there could be made much of those, as in areas of intense fighting, lots of ad-hoc repartitioning of troops took place among the ranks. Sold was distributed just among just the present hands, not because some master file in Berlin issued payment to Max Muster as long as he didn't report back being dead. Thus I'd consider conscription lists outdated as soon as the soldiers were sent off to war. Also, there must have been plenty who (for god reason) valued some discretion after the war and the total chaos present was a welcome environment to disapear quietly. Parish lists on the other hand kept much closer tabs on people, as every community knew about most of their people who was really missing. Like this, you also filter out all the foreigners that shouldn't add to "German losses" in any way. And only those "German losses" were struck from the parish register. If you take these registers as sample size, it just never tallys up to the officially stated loss percentage.

[cardboard_killer]

33 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

I doubt that there could be made much of those, as in areas of intense fighting, lots of ad-hoc repartitioning of troops took place among the ranks

 

Really? You think soldiers don't care about pay?

[ZachariasX]

1 minute ago, cardboard_killer said:

 

Really? You think soldiers don't care about pay?

They care about them not being lined up and shot and their families not getting shot. Pay is extra. It is not that they had a choice.

[cardboard_killer]

I assure you, the Wehrmacht continued recording and paying payroll to nearly the very end of the war. Parrish records ?

[ZachariasX]

33 minutes ago, cardboard_killer said:

Parrish records ?

These were (and are) not as much as a hobby in Europe as the may be in the US. The church kept historically very close info on their folks. I can can understand that this may sound strange to people outside of Europe, but that is how it was. The church was not really a choice of yours. Over the centuries in Europe much more so than whatever was a "state" at the time.

 

That is why I see them as a very good source to take samples from. Especially when a lot of the rest is (sometimes conveniently) lost.