General World War 2 Discussion Thread

As the two previous post by CoH 2 player and Death Head point out, the Germans could only shine in short, spirited wars. Which are also called "limited Wars" and consists in taking concise strategic, territorial or political objectives in which the belligerents participating in the war do not expend all of each of the participants' available resources at their disposal. it's typical of the European wars between monarchs and aristocrats before the rise of Nationalism.

I would say that was the case against the the Czechs for the Sudetenland, against Poland for Dantzig and against France for revenge and punitive reasons. So the German armed forces shined in said limited wars.

What baffles me, is that the German leadership, as the aggressor has the greatest chance to dictate which kind of war they are going to fight. When the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union, they intended to exterminate the soviet people as they were considered "Untermensch".Then take their territory and repopulate it with Aryans. That was the objective, and that's TOTAL WAR, a war Germans could never win.

Edit: Found this quote by Professor Christopher Browning: "This is certainly going to be a military campaign, but it is a territorial war for Lebensraum, it is an ideological war against Bolshevism, and it is a racial war against the Jews and Slavs. So this is going to be the war out of which his historical meaning, his manifest destiny, is realised".

What was the German high command and the Nazi leadership thinking?!

They expected to win a total war without mobilizing the whole German workforce and industry into the war effort from the start. Hoping for the soviets to cross their arms and let themselves be exterminated?

On the contrary I think that when news of the war crimes in Poland and then during the early stages of Barbarossa spread out to STAVKA, they were certain this was not a limited war like the ones against France, Poland or the UK. So the Soviets fought harder and mobilized the whole nation into the war effort early on. They would never surrender even if they would have lost Moscow. Ironically, the Red Army was also founded by Leon Trotsky, a Jew.

I'm not that into WW2 history even less into operational history, but I strongly believe that 1941 Operation Barbarossa progressed into soviet territory with such celerity because they caught the Red Army during a transitional phase, thus it was truly vulnerable. The Red Army was changing it's doctrine from a defensive one to an offensive one. Stalin was also worried about a possible Japanese invasion in the Far East, so the armed forces were split on two fronts.

the biggest mistake the German High commands did was never acknowledging this critical point. the Red Army they fought in 1941 was not the same they fought in 1943, they had changed everything from the tactical level, the operational level and all the way to the Strategic level (STAVKA).The soviets thought and operated in radically different manner, the Germans did not.

And so I believe that at first the allied armies, which were caught off guard, had to gain a sense of themselves. I don’t want to personify them too much and say they were like individual personalities, but I do think there’s something to it.

They had to get a sense of themselves, a sense of the possibilities that they were able to explore. And I think to do that first of all they had to survive, and that’s why those anchoring moments are perfect. For the Anglo-American alliance it was North Africa, specifically the Battle of Kasserine Pass/El Alamein And, of course, for the Soviet Union it was the great counter-offensives North and South of Stalingrad. The Soviets were still there, still alive, the Germans, they’re flesh and blood like the soviets, they are not supermen despite Nazi propaganda proclaiming them to be übermen. So suddenly those armies has anchored themselves. And from that point, once the Germans had lost operational superiority, only at that point I think could we say that the superior resources of the allies could begin to make a difference.

On the contrary, the Wehrmacht still operated quite similarly in 1943-1944 like they used to operate and thank back in 1939-41, , they never managed to anchor themselves after their setbacks, nor accepted the grim circumstances, they needed to reform they whole military thought. But as CoH2 player said, German General Staff was myopic.

Also, at the strategic level, the type and quality of the supreme leader influenced immensely the outcome of the war. Hitler and Stalin might both be tyrants with blood on their hands, but they were very different.

Stalin was a great learner. He wasn't a very good forgiver, but he was a fast learner when his personal interests were at stake. And he came to the conclusion that he was running the army too brutally, that he had to trust the professional judgement of his own high command.

Trusting people did not come easily to Stalin, but he knew that if he didn't start trusting his generals that he might lose the war.

The single best decision was Stalin’s decision to listen to his generals. That's a sign of true leadership, knowing to delegate power and responsibility to competent specialists.

Hitler never trusted any of his high commands, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) nor Oberkommando des Heeres(OKH). Only fully trusting General Model, dubbed Hitler's fireman, and Field-Marshalls Goering and Schorner (AKA Yes men). But I have a feeling that Hitler trusted the OKW a bit more than the OKH, as he had made the OKW chief, Keitel his bitch (Honorary Party member) whereas Guderian and Von Mainstein were more grumpy back at the OKH (Eventually they always came back into thee fold with bribes). So he progressively transferred more and more influence away from the OKH and into the OKW as the war progressed.

Well, Adolph poked his nose way too often into the High Commands plans,often disrupting them. This suggests Hitler manipulated the bipolar system to keep ultimate decisions in his own hands.

Moreover he actually believed to posses strategic genius (In a military, martial sense) . Stalin would have never fallen to such delusions...

But that does not remove any blame from the German High commands, they also were bad learners. Ultimately, the rivalry between the OKW and OKH was detrimental to the conduct of the war.That rivalry and bipolarity limited the strategic flexibility and even operational flexibility of their armed forces (OKH forbidding the retreat of entire army groups on the eastern front, against the advice of the field commanders, OKW abandoning Rommel in North Africa). Whereas the Red Army benefited from an unified High Command under STAVKA, I believe this to be fundamental for understanding the success of the Red Army's doctrinal and operational shift post-Barbarossa starting with Operation Uranus. An unified command has much, much better RETEX.

I think that is why so many pop-history sources mark Stalingrad as this epic "battle for the fate of the world", because it was during and at the close of that battle that both sides realized that "German military superiority" no longer applied, that is if it ever existed in the first place.

The Axis powers in general were the little tough guys of the world in the geopolitical sense, they had to take out the figurative (or literal) giants before they woke up or else there would be no chance at all.

The Japanese and their naval Blitzkrieg tried to accomplished in SE Asia what Barbarossa was trying to do in Russia and were much more successful. Pearl Harbour was supposed to have sealed the deal but it wasn't enough, and at Midway (essentially the Pacific theatre's Battle of Stalingrad) the Japanese were dealt a blow from which they could never recover and like the Germans they were fighting on multiple separated fronts...The show was basically over at that stage.

As the two previous post by CoH 2 player and Death Head point out, the Germans could only shine in short, spirited wars. Which are also called "limited Wars" and consists in taking concise strategic, territorial or political objectives in which the belligerents participating in the war do not expend all of each of the participants' available resources at their disposal. it's typical of the European wars between monarchs and aristocrats before the rise of Nationalism.

I would say that was the case against the the Czechs for the Sudetenland, against Poland for Dantzig and against France for revenge and punitive reasons. So the German armed forces shined in said limited wars.

What baffles me, is that the German leadership, as the aggressor has the greatest chance to dictate which kind of war they are going to fight. When the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union, they intended to exterminate the soviet people as they were considered "Untermensch".Then take their territory and repopulate it with Aryans. That was the objective, and that's TOTAL WAR, a war Germans could never win.

A few things:
The German leadership did not aim to "exterminate the Soviet people" - the fate of genocide was reserved for the Jews, and the decision to actually physically exterminate the Jews en masse was not formulated until Barbarossa was well under way. As far as we know, the Germans intended to reduce the Soviet populace to a "Helotic" state - their lot was to serve as a nigh endless source of uneducated, literally disposable labour. Even in long-midterm planning, the amount of "Aryans" settling inside what was to be the former territory of the Soviet Union never exceeded a single-digit million figure.

What was the German high command and the Nazi leadership thinking?!

They expected to win a total war without mobilizing the whole German workforce and industry into the war effort from the start. Hoping for the soviets to cross their arms and let themselves be exterminated?

Hitler (and most of his coterie) was literally obsessed with public opinion. He genuinely believed the narrative that a moral failure of the "home front" rather than strategic attrition per se had doomed the German war effort in WW1. WW1 had been hugely traumatic to the German civilian population with widespread starvation (Steckrübenwinter etc.), a good deal more so in fact than it had been ie. to the French or British populace, with the Germans suffering in excess of 700 000 civilian deaths to the effects of the blockade. Therefore, Hitler sought to mitigate any and all unnecessary stresses on civilian morale, ie. implementing just a limited industrial/demographical mobilisation until 1943 etc. "Hitlers table talks" are very informative in this regard.

I'm not that into WW2 history even less into operational history, but I strongly believe that 1941 Operation Barbarossa progressed into soviet territory with such celerity because they caught the Red Army during a transitional phase, thus it was truly vulnerable. The Red Army was changing it's doctrine from a defensive one to an offensive one. Stalin was also worried about a possible Japanese invasion in the Far East, so the armed forces were split on two fronts.

the biggest mistake the German High command did was never acknowledging this critical point. the Red Army they fought in 1941 was not the same they fought in 1943, they had changed everything from the tactical level, the operational level and all the way to the Strategic level (STAVKA).The soviets thinked differently, the Germans did not.

There were a number of factors in play, obviously. First of all, and apart from the RKKAs shortcomings, the Soviet state itself actually enjoyed only very limited legitimacy in the eyes of its people at the onset of the invasion. Then there were strategic factors such as the exposed forward deployment of the RKKAs Western military district, Stalins failure to heed his own intelligence, etc. a host of tactical and operational shortcomings, and most of all the limited relative combat capability of the Soviet formations, especially in comparison to the German maneuver elements. Soviet doctrine had been "offensive" for years prior to Barbarossa.

"The" Germans (we have multiple actors and layers with often wildly different perceptions here, even at the high-command echelon, OKH, Hitler himself, different groupings of generals, the administration, the Abwehr, etc., mind you, Nazi Germany truly was polycaesaric) massively modified their tactical and operational approaches throughout the campaign, starting in 1941. The notion that the Germans were not adaptive is highly flawed.

Nazi Germany had no hope whatsoever of "winning" a decisive global conflagration given the geopolitical constellations of its day. Even allied with Italy, Japan and minor powers such as Romania/Hungary etc., it lacked the demographic base, industrial strength, and access to natural ressources to ever compete with the Western powers by themselves, let alone in conjunction with the Soviet Union. That the war lasted as long as it did is truly difficult to explain ex post.

Well the US President at the time had a HUGE influence on the course and outcome. If the Americans had elected another isolationist instead...who knows...

Well, true, it was a "tough sell" to the domestic audience, but keep in mind it was actually Hitler that declared war on the US, even though naval hostilities had been ongoing for some time. He considered the confrontation to be inevitable anyways.

A few things:
The German leadership did not aim to "exterminate the Soviet people" - the fate of genocide was reserved for the Jews, and the decision to actually physically exterminate the Jews en masse was not formulated until Barbarossa was well under way. As far as we know, the Germans intended to reduce the Soviet populace to a "Helotic" state - their lot was to serve as a nigh endless source of uneducated, literally disposable labour. Even in long-midterm planning, the amount of "Aryans" settling inside what was to be the former territory of the Soviet Union never exceeded a single-digit million figure.

Reducing the soviet population to disposable slave labour it not long stretch from genocide, and there were plenty of villages massacred during the German advance. Pretty sure the Soviets were not keen on such a fate, death or slavery, either way this emboldened the fighting spirit the Soviets, they had no alternative but fighting, and winning. Diplomacy was not an option. I also believe that the Nazi leadership aimed to force a regime change in the Soviet Union, and oust communism. There was an ideological and racial element present on the eastern front that was not present on the western front.

For example, that was not the case against France. Yes there were horrible massacres by the SS Totenkopf in the 1940s in Beauvry, Paradis Lestrem, Chasellay (Black Senegalese Troops) etc... But the whole French population was not to be reduced to a subhuman workforce. Would the French III Republic have yielded if were they to suffer the same fate as the Soviets? I'm certain they would not have surrendered under such bleak outcome.

Instead the German wanted to humiliate the French, so an armistice was signed, it ended with a political and diplomatic agreement because the German left the French a sour, yet acceptable alternative.

Hitler (and most of his coterie) was literally obsessed with public opinion. He genuinely believed the narrative that a moral failure of the "home front" rather than strategic attrition per se had doomed the German war effort in WW1. WW1 had been hugely traumatic to the German civilian population with widespread starvation (Steckrübenwinter etc.), a good deal more so in fact than it had been ie. to the French or British populace, with the Germans suffering in excess of 700 000 civilian deaths to the effects of the blockade. Therefore, Hitler sought to mitigate any and all unnecessary stresses on civilian morale, ie. implementing just a limited industrial/demographical mobilisation until 1943 etc. "Hitlers table talks" are very informative in this regard.

Very informative, I did not know about this. It all makes more sense now! Still prioritizing public opinion over a multiplied strategic production output was a huge mistake.

Nazi Germany had no hope whatsoever of "winning" a decisive global conflagration given the geopolitical constellations of its day. Even allied with Italy, Japan and minor powers such as Romania/Hungary etc., it lacked the demographic base, industrial strength, and access to natural ressources to ever compete with the Western powers by themselves, let alone in conjunction with the Soviet Union.

Agreed, they knew that, yet, they still ended up doing exactly what they weren't supposed to do... Also Hitler declared war on the USA, not the other way around, baffling. Why bring the USA, which was in a state of active neutrality (Just sending armament and supplies) to a fully fledged belligerent when you are wrestling with the Soviet Bear?!

The German leadership started it, so one should expect them to know what they are getting into. Hitler had made so many gains through diplomacy, fairly artful diplomacy, and bluff and the threat of force that I think what doomed the Germans was focusing on the racial and ideological misconceptions the Nazi were harping about, and that started on the eastern front. Had they sticked to a limited war against the Soviets, the outcome might have been an armistice and some territorial gains.

That the war lasted as long as it did is truly difficult to explain ex post.

Logistics.

As the Germans themselves learned in '41 and '42 you can only amass the huge numbers needed for the attacks on a front-wide scale over a great deal of time. Each major offensive took months to stage. The staging of D-Day took years because you have to have most of the material you would need already staged in the UK and to get it first onto and then over the beaches meant no ports, roads or rail.

And none of these massively staged offensives was able to supply an army on the move farther then a several hundred mile advance. At that point your forces outdistance your bases by too much to keep them supplied. This happened in Barbarossa, it happened in France '44, during Bagracion. Meanwhile the opponent prepares a defense while you await your resupply, and then you need another massive offensive, which entails months of resupply and stockpiling for the next push.

The allies had a shorter distance to cover, so one operation got them to the German border and the next over the Rhine. The distance of the breakout from Normandy until they ran out of steam was similar to the distance covered by the Germans in '40. The Russians also covered the greater distance in fits and starts. The Germans covered more in '41 because their opposition was unprepared to put up the kind of fight that would reduce the potential progress (use up materiale), but they too sputtered after the first several weeks. Likewise the Russians were able to push a bit further than average in '45 because they had a lot less opposition by that time.

Reducing the soviet population to disposable slave labour it not long stretch from genocide, and there were plenty of villages massacred during the German advance. Pretty sure the Soviets were not keen on such a fate, death or slavery, either way this emboldened the fighting spirit the Soviets, they had no alternative but fighting, and winning. Diplomacy was not an option. I also believe that the Nazi leadership did want to force a regime change in the Soviet Union, and oust communism. There was an ideological and racial element present on the eastern front that was not present on the western front.

for example, that was not the case against France. Yes there were horrible massacres by the SS Totenkopf in the 1940s in Beauvry, Paradis Lestrem, Chasellay (Black Senegalese Troops) etc... But the whole French population was not to be reduced to a subhuman workforce. Would the French III Republic have yielded if were they to suffer the same fate as the Soviets? I'm certain they would not have surrendered under such bleak outcome.

Well, this could delve into the realm of semantics, but just consider this, which I think illuminates the difference quite clearly: At the end of the day, Nazi Weltanschauung considered the Slavic peoples of the East a cow to be milked, a resource to be utilised, however ruthlessly. The Jews on the other hand, in the tradition of scientific racism, literally figured as vermin to be eradicated.
The initial Nazi foreign policy goal towards the Soviet Union, as outlined by Hitler, was its utter destruction. In fact, Hitler envisaged that no sovereign (Russian) Slav state should exist West of the Urals. While Hitler proved surprisingly pragmatic in many things (ie. his decision to sell the South Tyroleans down the river in order to cement his alliance with Mussolini) he was utterly unyielding in this regard.
When it comes to Barbarossa, what is perhaps less commonly dwelt upon is that within living memory large parts of the Ukraine and in fact European Russia had already once been occupied/administered by the Germans, during WW1,(OberOst) And while this was far from a picnic, mass murder, systematically induced starvation and the other hallmarks of the German occupation during WW2 were unheard of then. In conjunction with the incredibly traumatic Soviet policies prior to the war (Holodomor, Dekulakisation etc) this might go some additional way in explaining not only why Soviet resistance collapsed somewhat quickly, but also might account for the fact that the German forces were in fact initially often warmly received by the Soviet population during Barbarossa. Needless to say, the mood changed rather quickly.
Still, the sheer amount of murderous callousness and outright barbarity exhibited by the Germans during Barbarossa therefore came as quite a surprise to most Soviet citizens; heck, it came as quite a surprise to many Germans, even though one would think in hindsight they should have known better. Well, hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

Agreed, they knew that, yet, they still ended up doing exactly what they weren't supposed to do... Also Hitler declared war on the USA, not the other way around, baffling. Why bring the USA, which was in a state of active neutrality (Just sending armament and supplies) to a fully fledged belligerent when you are wrestling with the Soviet Bear?!

The German leadership started it, so one should expect them to know what they are getting into. Hitler had made so many gains through diplomacy, fairly artful diplomacy, and bluff and the threat of force that I think what doomed the Germans was focusing on the racial and ideological misconceptions the Nazi were harping about, and that started on the eastern front. Had they sticked to a limited war against the Soviets, the outcome might have been an armistice and some territorial gains.

Well, at the end of the day, Hitler was Hitler. Trivial, I know, but true. He believed an outright apocalyptic confrontation to be inevitable, he also yearned for it, and there was no appeasing him in the long run.

Hitler declared war on the US for the prestige of being the attacker rather than the attacked. This again was a public opinion issue. But there was no real need for it as such; the alliance with the Japanese was a defensive pact, not one to join in wars of aggression. Hitler might alternately have considered that the outbreak of war with Japan would draw off American attention, reduce their willingness and ability to support the British and Russians, and effectively keep them out of the war in Europe. This, IMO, is the strangest strategic decision he made.

On the other side of things, the Soviets also thought a war of some kind was inevitable. After all, there had been forces from no less than 17 foreign states involved in the Russian Civil War on the side of the Whites, including the USA, and the more recent Spanish Civil War had also had an explicitly international dimension. The worst case scenario was a German-lead crusade against the USSR backed at least by Britain, as Hitler had hoped, and possibly the other European states and the US as well. From this perspective, the outbreak of a war between the European capitalist states was an immense stroke of good luck. And as WW2 almost immediately turned into the Cold War, neither side was significantly mistaken about seeing things in these terms. Indeed, Patton had wanted to go to war with Russia as soon as matters with Germany were concluded, while US forces were still mobilized and present in Europe.

So I don't think Hitler was nuts to expect some sort of showdown. On the other hand, many Nazi beliefs certainly did impair their effectiveness. The bizarre conviction, for example, that "will" could overcome any and all adverse material circumstances was certainly one of them, leading to setbacks being interpreted as failures of personal character rather than tactical or strategic errors, or even just plain physical reality. Equally, the view that Communism was merely a branch of the supposed "Jewish conspiracy" lead to a complete failure to understand how the Soviets thought and operated.

snip

In regards to Barbarossa being a TOTAL WAR and not a quick one. You have to remember the germans 'gambled' on the idea that they would be able to quickly destroy the RKKA west of the Dnepr and that this would lead to political turmoil within the USSR, people would revolt, the internal political leadership would fight amongst themselves, just like happened in 1917.
Then Germany could sweep up the remains and hey, GG. "Kick the door in and the entire rotten structure will collapse."


People often stare blindly at military matters and forget political ones. Kiev is my favourite one.
600 000 losses for the RKKA that could have been pulled out sounds like shit decision making.
Or abandon the 3rd city of the country and the historical cradle of your civilization without firing a shot? Good luck maintaining morale and trust in the government by regular people. Especially in that region of the country if you ever manage to get it back. "Hi, we kinda left you to fend for yourself for two years under occupation, hope you don't have any grudges against us, anyway we want you to listen to us again now"
Much better to try to fight and loose horribly in military terms, but using it to get people on your side; than it would be to retreat the army intact and loose the people.

Intrested about Battle of Lake Balaton aka Operation Spring Awakening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_hn4bdvvqk&t=12
1) Use subtitles
2) fragments from WoT is crap.

Well, this could delve into the realm of semantics, but just consider this, which I think illuminates the difference quite clearly: At the end of the day, Nazi Weltanschauung considered the Slavic peoples of the East a cow to be milked, a resource to be utilised, however ruthlessly. The Jews on the other hand, in the tradition of scientific racism, literally figured as vermin to be eradicated.

Reality shows another: 3-6 million "eradicated Jews" and 16-18 million exterminated soviet non-combatant.

57% captured Soviet soldiers died.
For comparison. In the Soviet camps died 12.7% captured Wehrmacht soldiers.
Reich ally (Hungary, Italy, Romania, Finland, Slovakia) similar loses 17.2%.

And Leningrad blockade. Germans were not going to take the city, with a population of several million. Jast waiting until all die of hunger.

This is why the Russian celebrate Victory Day on May 9th. This is not just a day when our ancestors kicked Nazis asses and got a lot of trophies.
It's more like a movie of Hollywood from about horrible aliens who want to kill all humans. Well, one of those movies with a bunch of heroism and a bunch of cry of joy and hugs in the end after the victory. Only it was not a movie for USSR/RF.

Intrested about Battle of Lake Balaton aka Operation Spring Awakening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_hn4bdvvqk&t=12
1) Use subtitles
2) fragments from WoT is crap.

Reality shows another: 3-6 million "eradicated Jews" and 16-18 million exterminated soviet non-combatant.

57% captured Soviet soldiers died.
For comparison. In the Soviet camps died 12.7% captured Wehrmacht soldiers.
Reich ally (Hungary, Italy, Romania, Finland, Slovakia) similar loses 17.2%.

And Leningrad blockade. Germans were not going to take the city, with a population of several million. Jast waiting until all die of hunger.

This is why the Russian celebrate Victory Day on May 9th. This is not just a day when our ancestors kicked Nazis asses and got a lot of trophies.
It's more like a movie of Hollywood from about horrible aliens who want to kill all humans. Well, one of those movies with a bunch of heroism and a bunch of cry of joy and hugs in the end after the victory. Only it was not a movie for USSR/RF.

May I ask how old you are? I am serious here, not loaded question.
In any case, allow me to point out a few inaccuracies:
The number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust is commonly held as between 5,2 and 6,2 millions, see Hilberg, or Yehuda Bauer etc..
I am not aware of any serious scholarship that puts them lower.
Mortality of Soviet PoWs was "only" at pretty exactly 46%. The often quoted 57% number stems from Streit, Keine Kameraden... which contained a number of documented computing errors but keeps getting perpetuated in these sort of settings since people rarely take note of the more recent scholarship.
German PoW mortality was at 35% as of Maschke/WaST.
Italian PoW mortality, while difficult to precisely establish, for one was actually in excess of 50%.

As far as Leningrad is concerned, how does that contradict my point? The reasoning for letting the city starve was simple: Hitler in particular saw no military use in actually investing it, and believed the issue would "solve itself", saving Germany manpower and resources in the process. Obviously Hitler, being Hitler, had no problem letting millions of Soviet citizens die a gruesome death if he considered it militarily/politically opportune, but that does not mean he had intended to inflict the same fate on the Soviet people that he envisaged for the Jews. Perceptions, however understandable, are not necessarily accurate.

May I ask how old you are? I am serious here, not loaded question.

Thirty.

The number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust is commonly held as between 5,2 and 6,2 millions, see Hilberg, or Yehuda Bauer etc..

And i say: 3-6 millions. This means "3-6 millions from different sources". This does not deny the figures that you have brought.
And I will not discuss the topic which is the correct figure. I am not a historian and I have enough understanding of the overall level.
This does not negate the obvious: the Germans killed Soviet (including Jews, yes) more than anyone everything else.

Mortality of Soviet PoWs was "only" at pretty exactly 46%. The often quoted 57% number stems from Streit, Keine Kameraden... which contained a number of documented computing errors but keeps getting perpetuated in these sort of settings since people rarely take note of the more recent scholarship.
German PoW mortality was at 35% as of Maschke/WaST.
Italian PoW mortality, while difficult to precisely establish, for one was actually in excess of 50%.

Probably again different sources. In all Russian sources indicate that the Soviet prisoners of war was between 6 and 4.5 million (the second digit of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation). Returned only 1,836,562 of them. For comparison.

Prisoners of war Germany's armed forces and allied countries it on April 22, 1956

Wehrmacht: 2,733,739 million.
Exemption: 2,352,671 million.
Died in captivity: 381,067

Germany's allies:
Total: 752,467
Exemption: 615,014
Died in captivity: 137,753

Well, this could delve into the realm of semantics, but just consider this, which I think illuminates the difference quite clearly: At the end of the day, Nazi Weltanschauung considered the Slavic peoples of the East a cow to be milked, a resource to be utilised, however ruthlessly.

As far as Leningrad is concerned, how does that contradict my point? The reasoning for letting the city starve was simple: Hitler in particular saw no military use in actually investing it, and believed the issue would "solve itself", saving Germany manpower and resources in the process.

Scored cow meat?

^^ Well, according to Boris Chavkin russian historian and professor at the state acadamy of military science of moscow since 2005, the russian -better- soviet sources regarding the death´s of german PoW´s in the soviet union are not correct.

In his research about the "German prisoners of War in the Soviet Union 1941-1945" he comes to the conclusion that the administration for PoW´s and internees of the mininstry of interior (GUPVI), where your statistic comes from, counted f. e. only those PoW´s who entered the PoW Camps in the Hinterlands.

PoW´s who were executed by soviet soldiers or just died at the front after their surrender were not enumerated. Furthermore PoW´s who died on their way to the camps were not enumerated either.

Another problem with those data Chavkin mentions, is the proven attempt of the government to manipulate the statistics of the death´s of german PoW´s in the soviet union.
(Chapter "The statistics as epitome of a lie.")

Why is it so difficult to get exact numbers today? Because most documents in russian archieves which could be important on this topic are still not for the public´s eyes nor for researches of historiens, even russian historiens.

How do german or western historiens, if you like to call them so, come to such a high estimated number of death´s of the german PoW´s in the soviet union?

According to Chavkin the answer is simple: F. e. in germany the research on this topic has been since the 1950´s. In the USSR this topic, better PoW´s of WW2 in the soviet union in general, simply was taboo. The modern russian historiography is just at the beginning of their research on this topic and cannot give exact numbers due to this fact and f. e. closed archives at this moment. But believing in and argueing with unprooven unelaborated soviet statictics is not an option for todays modern russian historiography.

Why is it so difficult to get exact numbers today? Because most documents in russian archieves which could be important on this topic are still not for the public´s eyes nor for researches of historiens, even russian historiens.

Hehe, "today" that text was written in 1997 man, archives open (and close, and open, and close.....) but history moves forward.

(and you should give a source, german here and Russian here )

But yes your point is in essence you are very much correct. It is incredibly hard, if not impossible to say for sure how many Axis soldiers died in captivity. People starving, getting shot whilst surrendering, going missing and later written off as captured or what have you.

I think the only thing we can say from archives is that the GUPVI did take in X number of people and returned X - y, does the numbers really matter? the stories from the returning people kinda gives us a picture they where not treated alright.
How many did surrender, especially in 1945, but where killed by starvation, disease or getting straight up shot I don't think we'll ever know.

So why argue for numbers? Millions died, if it is 1,5 - 2 - 4 or 20, does it matter? We simply cannot comprehend with our minds who fucking awful that is.
Imagine 10 people in a field, usually works. Now 20, getting trickier. Now 100, you need to have been in a lot of crowds. 1000? 10 000? 100 000? There comes a point I think where we just can't grasp the concept anymore.

Thanks for the article, but Chavkin seems to not have registered at least part of the more recent scholarship on the issue. I don't have the time (or honestly the inclination) to address this en detail in this forum, so I'll just link a few things here, if anybody is seriously interested in the numerical dimensions of Soviet PoW mortality the articles and their references will offer a pretty exhaustive picture - as far as that is possible - in German:
http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/2008_4_2_otto.pdf
http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/2001_1_5_hartmann.pdf

But ye, there comes the point where htis sort of arithmetics is just nauseating.

snip

"Today" was meant in relation to todays historiography not the Chavkin-article.
Arguing numbers? No, I don´t care about them. My intention was to clarify the problem of the wide field of various numbers with an russian scientist, before the western phobia and propaganda punshes.

And yes I forgot to link not to qoute. Btw thanks for the links. But I have it on paper.