Hi Doppleganger.
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Those pesky figures indeed! Here we have 2 internet sites, that both quote the same reference sources and where the text is identical yet one states 850,000 Axis casualties and the other only 500,000. Who to believe?
This link is a link from the link you posted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad
Interesting to note that the figures stated in the sidebar don't tally up. It states that 500,000 Axis troops were involved yet they suffered 850,000 casualties? This can't be right and indeed must be a typo somewhere. The Soviet casualty figures seem low to me and I know that there must have been more than 40,000 civilian deaths. Why? because it's generally agreed by all sources that only around 5,000 civilians survived Stalingrad and the pre-battle population was certainly much greater than 45,000.
This is the link I posted:
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery...+of+Stalingrad&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc02b
The figures tally up and the Soviet casualties seem much more realistic.
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Those two sites listed are virtually the same, with the same mistake,and there's others like them, except for adding that Russian figures may be higher. Not saying if their civilian or military.
I think that just referencing links to web sites, may be a waste of time on most occasions, as you pointed out with those sites above for instance.
Many of them are fairly sketchy, and they often contradict each other as we've seen.
In depth studies by top writers, such as Erickson's 'The Axis and the Allies', 'Hitler Versus Stalin', 'The road to Stalingrad', Clarke's 'Barbarossa', Stephen Walsh's, 'Stalingrad', The Infernal Cauldron 1942-1943', Liddell Hart, 'The other side of the hill and in particular the works of David Glantz are very good. Glantz is very hard to come by down here, have you read any of his books?
One of the best German accounts of the war is the Federal Republic of Germany's military history Dept,
Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg.[Germany and ww2]
This effort is important because it underlines the degree to which criminal ideology formed a crucial part of the Wermacht's participation in the war, particualarly the war in the east.
These books naturally go into much more depth and accuracy then most web sites.
Your Axis history link you gave me is interesting, but is just another forum board, like this one, and I dont know how qualified anyone on it are.
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I cannot vouch for the Cambridge History of Warfare (which appears to be a publication with a very wide ranging scope) as I've never read it.
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It's a very good overview of the war on the Eastern front [ ISBN 0 521 44073 4 ] Published by the Cambridge University Press.
Not as in depth as some of the books above, but it's contributing writers are top academics from England and America, it's edited by Geoffrey Parker, educated at Cambridge, professor of history, Ohio state university, Deputy chair at Yale, and widely published author, as well as other contributers like...
William Murray, BA, MA, PhD from Yale, served in the U.S.A.F., visiting professor at air war collage U.S. military academy, and naval war collage.
Books, Luftwaffe '85, Path To ruin '84, German military effectiveness '92.
Victor Hansen, university of California, Stanford university, author of many military books.
And many other highly qualified contributers.
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I don't think I've stated that in 1941, before the November timeframe that the Soviets had numerically superiority in the field.
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I think you said on another post that early in the war the Russians outnumbered the Germans. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
The problem I have with Alan Clarke's work is that it was published in 1985. Therefore, it does not take into account new information that was forthcoming after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (and therefore communism) from Soviet archives. Much of the material in older historical works (particularly relating to troop and material numbers) are the result of Soviet disinformation or propaganda. So whilst in older works the German numbers appear to be generally accurate (as we've had numerous German general memoirs and other sources of information) the Soviet numbers had to be taken from either German records or estimates or the then official Communist Soviet records. Now that we have balanced Russian records we can get a better and more accurate figure of material numbers.
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Now I think you might be getting to the heart of the debate on some of the misleading facts and numbers.
But it seems to work both ways, German, as well as Russian, mistakes.
It seems to be one of the myths of the war that it was only the Russians that misinterpreted the numbers.
As Glantz says, after the war, the Russians soon became the 'evil empire' and Russian historians were quickly dismissed, like you yourself have said, as "Soviet disinformation or propaganda" while German writers, in particular the German Generals Memoirs, were believed as the accurate account of the war, particularly in America.
The only problem with this, is that the German writers, especially many of the Generals, were just as loose with the facts and numbers as the Russians.
The 'Cambridge History of Warfare' goes as far as to state, in a review of post war German Generals writings........
"The new wave of historical research has underlined what most historians have generally suspected, the complete unreliability and intellectual dishonesty, even by the standards of the genre, of post war memoirs by German generals."
Just a few examples, From David Glantz and Liddel Hart, [among others]..........
Kleist's version of the Stalingrad campaign, according to Liddell Hart, [ and published in 'The other side of the hill ] p 220, is extremely inaccurate, and takes the traditional avoiding action by blaming Hitler, and where factual, runs counter to the other evidence, namely that of Manstein and the OKH movement orders.
Figures in Mansteins book 'Lost Victories' of opposing force ratios are in conflict with those shown by archival materials of Fremde Heeres 0st (Foreign Armies East), Gehlen's organizations, and of the OKH.
Again Soviet superiorities are overstated.
Paulis often exaggerated Russian figures at Stalingrad, having a rough time in taking the city, he always wanted reinforcements, so kept sending reports to OKH stating numerous new Russian divisions they kept coming up against, where in reality they were just stragglers of divisions and brigades that hardly existed, some consisting of just a few hundred men, but they were listed as a full divisions.
Sometimes it might have been just expediency, but it was certainly unreliable, and exaggerated the Russian overall figures out of context.
These, plus many more errors, [plus Russian errors] are explained fully by the editor of the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, retired U.S. Army Colonel David M.Glantz on.....
http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/fmsopubs/issues/e-front.htm
[Zucchini posted it on another thread.]
He is generally noted as one of the foremost western writers on the Eastern front, spending decades studying it, and has written many books on the subject.
In this article he also explains some of the myths of the Eastern Front.
This is just a small part of it............
"Conclusions: The Reconciliation of Myths and Realities.
The dominant role of German source materials in shaping American perceptions of the war on the Eastern Front and the negative perception of Soviet source materials have had an indelible impact on the American image of war on the Eastern Front. What has resulted in a series of gross judgments treated as truths regarding operations in the East and Soviet (Red) Army combat performance. The gross judgments appear repeatedly in textbooks and all types of historical works, and they are persistent in the extreme. Each lies someplace between the realm of myth and reality. In summary, a few of these judgments are as follows:
- Weather repeatedly frustrated the fulfillment of German operational aims.
- Soviet forces throughout the war in virtually every operation possessed significant or overwhelming numerical superiority.
- Soviet manpower resources were inexhaustible, hence the Soviets continually ignored human losses.
- Soviet strategic and high level operational leadership was superb. However, lower level leadership (corps and below) was uniformly dismal.
- Soviet planning was rigid, and the execution of plans at every level was inflexible and unimaginative.
- Wherever possible, the Soviets relied for success on mass rather than maneuver. Envelopment operations were avoided whenever possible.
- The Soviets operated in two echelons, never cross attached units, and attacked along straight axes.
- Lend lease was critical for Soviet victory. Without it collapse might have ensured.
- Hitler was the cause of virtually all German defeats. Army expertise produced earlier victories (a variation of the post World War I stab in the back. legend).
- The stereotypical Soviet soldier was capable of enduring great suffering and hardship, fatalistic, dogged in defense (in particular in bridgeheads), a master of infiltration and night fighting, but inflexible, unimaginative, emotional and prone to panic in the face of uncertainty.
A majority of Americans probably accept these judgments as realities . In doing so they display a warped impression of the war which belittles the role played by the Red Army. As a consequence, they have a lower than justified appreciation for the Red Army as a fighting force, a tendency which extends, as well, to the postwar Soviet Army. Until the American public (and historians) perception of Soviet source material changes, this overall perception of the war in the East and the Soviet (Red) Army is likely to persist"..........
Like you, I believed western [ or German ] versions of the war, but to be fair, as Glantz says, it has to be concluded that both sides were, at times, overstating facts and numbers.
Anyhow you've given me the benefit of the doubt on Leningrad, so perhaps that's one battle won against the odds, although I know you don't regard it as so important.
Cheers Ashes.