When the bell tolls: WW2 Eastern front casualties

[Nostromo]

I'm reading a novel about a SS officer's experiences on the Eastern front and his role in the holocaust. The book is called "Les bienveillantes". I'm sure the french speakers here heard about it. I'm no expert, but the book seems to be extremely well documented.

According to the book, the conflict lasted from June 22 1941 to Mai 8 1945. So it lasted about 3 years, 10 months and 16 days. Anyway, here's the estimated death toll, on the Eastern Front only.

Soviets........ 20 millions
Germans...... 3 millions
Jews............ 5,1 millions

Total............ 26,6 millions

So, on the German side, we had:

64 516 deaths per month
14 821 deaths per week
2 117 deaths per day
88 deaths per hour

And here are the Jewish casualties:

109 677 deaths per month
25 195 deaths per week
3 599 deaths per day
150 deaths per hour

And the Soviet's casualties:

430 108 deaths per month
98 804 deaths per week
14 114 deaths per day
588 deaths per hour

Those numbers are really mind boggling

[Ninot]

I knew the numbers were big, but looking at it as deaths per hour/day still kinda shock, I guess.

[Ecthy]

Careful with those numbers. You never know where they overlap, hard work to find out who counted them, and how many died before in Stalin's schemes.

5,1 Jews died on the Eastern front? Does that include concentration camp deaths? Did Jews not fight in either army?

Things to consider...

[Last Conformist]

There's no way in hell 5.1 million Jews died on the front, so those figures must include must include deaths not caused by the war.

[Ecthy]

Also, the figure for Soviet deaths is soldiers and civilians combined (in the traditional way of counting war deaths) while I'm not so sure on the German side.

What about Poles? How high rank Jewish victims among Polish civilian casualties?

[Nostromo]

The author mentions that of the 20 million Soviet casualties, 1,5 million were also Jews. So the numbers overlap on that point.

[Ecthy]

Also, after the war about 2 million Poles were moved from the territories in the East (occupied and kept by the USSR) to central and western Poland (where land had been taken from Germany). The point was obviously not only to re-settle those newly Polish lands, because that was only necessary after expelling the Germans. Stalin's point must have been an ethnic relocation on grand scale.

Anyone knows how large the Polish and Jewish population in that land strip was before the war? Anyone heard of stunts like the Katyn massacre?

Careful with the numbers and about who to blame for what part. I'm not denying the perversion of German Eastern warfare here, I'd just like to look at the whole thing rationally before judging. Why accept blame on more crimes than necessary?

[Nostromo]

The 5.1 million jewish casualties are the result of the Endlosung, the final solution. It includes the concentration, the death camps and the death squads that followed the advancing German armies.

It seems that the famous 6 million number comes from a certain Hottl who said in Nuremberg that Eichmann said 6 million. But it would seem that Eichmann actually said that he estimated the death toll at about 5 million. The narrator/author uses Hilberg's numbers: 5.1 million, which corresponds to Eichmann's estimate.

[Kuciwalker]

Soviets........ 20 millions
Germans...... 3 millions
Jews............ 5,1 millions

Total............ 26,6 millions

edit: nvm, didn't know they overlapped

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Also, the figure for Soviet deaths is soldiers and civilians combined (in the traditional way of counting war deaths) while I'm not so sure on the German side.

It doesn't matter much for the total figure - Germany's losses on the eastern front where overwhelmingly military.

My encyclopedia gives 3.5 million soldiers dead and .5 million civilians dead for Germany for the war as a whole. The later includes some hundreds of thosuands killed by angloamerican bomber attacks.

[Ecthy]

Alright. Keep in mind folks that some more millions died as a result of the population movements. But back to the topic of the war.

nostromo: ZOMFG YOU SAY 5 MILION NOT 6 YOU MUST EB TEWH HOLOCOST LIAR!1!1one

[Berzerker]

I read somewhere the Russkies lost 20,000 tanks in the first year or so of the war to a few hundred by the Nazis

[Ecthy]

I have some privately recorded Hitler audio file where he talks to Mannerheim of Finnland on some casual occasion (the latter's 75th birthday in Viipuri/Wyborg mid 1942 IIRC) and they debate the immense armament of the Red Army. Apparently the factoid that the RA was in terrible shape in 1941 belongs into the realm of legends. Hitler says they must have started the war with 35,000 tanks and had lost by mid 1942 34,000 of them. Your figure might not be too far from the truth, it might well have been in the 20,000-30,000 range.

That the German forces only lost a few hundred cannot be true though, after all they dramatically changed their strategy for the 1942 campaign and attacked only in one focus as opposed to 1941 when they came in at three focuses.

[Nostromo]

Yes, we all grieve for the friends and families of those tanks. How many tanks will we have to lose before we put an end to all this insanity? 100 000 tanks? 1 000 000 tanks?

[Ecthy]

Yes nostromo, there were also crews in those tanks.