Hello guys.
I personally don't doubt that 11.740 German POWS were in the hands of the Allies at VE day.
But you all seem to forget that in addition to these soldiers most of the 110.000 surrendered at Stalingrad were already dead at that moment: they ONCE were POW's but ended up somewhere in Siberia
in a mass grave.....
That happened also to 80% of those 20.000 wounded soldiers surrendering at Korsun in february 1944; the 10.000 surrendering in Sevastopol in may 1944; 66% of the 200.000 surrendering near Minsk, Bobruisk, Vitebsk in july 1944 and 66% of the 30.000 surrendering near Brody; the 60% of those 125-140.000 surrendering near Kishinev in Rumania August 1944.
And still many more pocket battles would have to come: Warsaw, Budapest, Breslau, Königsberg, Heiligenbeil, Danzig, Kolberg, Thorn, Posen, Halbe.........
Their numbers does NOT appear in the Soviet inventory at VE-day: 2 million captured by the Red Army in total with 1,5 taken in may 1945.
I can recommend you the 2 books of ROLF HINZE, which dramatically describe the total anhillation of the Germans in White Russsia. Only
a few hundred men were able to break out and reach German lines.
An easy computation leads to the the fact that 500.000 of all the ones taken before (1 or 2 million?) were still or presumed alive according to the Soviets at VE-day.
This also means that the Soviets took FEW prisoners during the massive offensives starting in january 1945....... that most Germans f
ought to the death literary: 450.000 graves in nowadays Poland !!! Of them many may be killed as POW's after 1945 and burried in mass graves in Poland. But 450.000 deaths is a huge number for the offensives during those 3 months in Poland (Pommerania, Ost Preussen, Brandenburg, Silesia). Source: DRK statistics.
Yes mkenny you have to face it again: of the German garrison of Budapest 30.000 survivors broke out during the last night: of those 25.000 were killed during that break out: this was THE example of fighting to the death and NOT surrender to the Soviets. The remaining 5000:
most were too wounded to be able to fight, some (very few) escaped.
Halbe was also such an example: of 100.000 men surviving in the pocket almost 50% were killed in only a couple of days at the end of april 1945.
German losses were huge during the last year of the war in the East: almost the same number as all 3 years before on the Eastern Front. And more dramatically: they were also relatively high if you realize that only 2 million German soldiers were in the front lines until the end and during this proces 1,25 million (including Volkssturm, Hitlerjugend, Polizei) were killed.
I can recommend you the book of Krisztian Ungvvary: Battle for Budapest: 100 days in WWII. A terrible battle and again the Germans suffered an insame, inhuman carnage and prize. Like Stalingrad, Like Berlin.
The breakout battles of Halbe, Brody, Korsun and Budapest were hug slaughterhouses: in Budapest 50.000 men Soviets, Germans and Hungarians were killed in ONE SINGLE NIGHT (11-12 februari).
But on 3 februari Berlin was hit by the most terrible air attack, killing over 20.000 in one day attack! Hamburg, Dresden and Swinemünde were even worse attrocities.
What I find strange is that according to Glantz in France 340.000 Germans are burried (65.000 in Normandy); in Italy 150.000 and in the Balcans 102.000, were losses of all the campaings are about 50% of these totals. One explanation is that many East-Front wounded died in those former "peaceful" areas and were burried near the hospitals in France and Italy.
In France the number of German POW's (970.000) which died of malnutrition may be much higher than the French authorities officially published, but it fits perfectly to fill the gap between the 40.000 died in 1940; the 15.000 which died between 1940 and 1944, the 65.000 died in the battle for Normandy (with the 15.000 burried there on the same cemeteries) and the other KIA"s during the battles for Brest, Marseiles, Toulon, Valence, Calais and Elsace/Vosges/Lotharingen: at least another 60.000. 180.000 died in France because of the fighting, but 160.000 died of other reasons: 50% because of being wounded and 50% because the French starved them after the War?? Mkenny: is this not a very interesting analysis? I am curious to your views about these casulaties. You are an eager guy!!
In Italy all German KIA's during 1943 and 1945 was 75.000, but double that amount is burried there. After the war NO German POW's were starved here so they all must be attributed to death because of being severely wounded on the Eastern Front. Who can help me with these intangibles???