VeenenbergR:
It´s interesting your check based in the quantity of divisions deployed. The problem that I see with this, at least on the German side, is the attrition those units were subjected, specially since summer 1943 and the capability of replace the losses. So, my point is two fold:
1. The Germans never had a superb capacity to replace their losses, which is one of the reasons they lost the war.
2. The German divisions on paper were bigger than in real life. The same Germans accounted, by winter 1941-1942, for 136 division facing the soviets which in reality, according to OKH, were "just" 83 full fledged divisions.
If by the winter 1941, when the German Army was far from being beaten and the German nation intact the musted of the main military effort was on the order of 61% of the nominal strenght, what can we expect of March 1945, when Germany was a broken country?
I will mention another example that is very important: the Battle of Kursk.
Previous to that battle the Germans had lost the battle of Stalingrad and with it not only Sixth Army but many allied units at the Northen and Southern flank of Germans. The losses were huge but the Germans had enough time, according to the "replacing" theory, to replace them until June - July 1943 which is when Zitadelle started. Now, in view of that, how can it be that the Germans can only "fielded" some 900,000 men against the massive defenses the russians had? In 1941 the Germans could muster, for their Barbarossa offensive some 3 million guys. Now for a desperate battle they can only field 900,000. It´s obvious that by 1943 the Germans had to cover an enormous front but still, for such a gamble, they must have had allocated more resources. WHy they didn´t? Because those replacement didn´t even exist: they couldn´t recover as fast as their soviets enemies.
The fact remains that the German forces, by the moment the allies were invading the German territory were less than the nominal strenght, in this case 300 divisions. Maybe that is what Hitler saw on the map when, desperate in April, May 1945, he told his close colaborators of Germans units that will save Berlin.
Glantz is very clear on this and insists on the forces gathered for the final episode of that war. The Germans put on the field some 1,5 million (1,8 according to other sources) at the Western Front Campaign and were only able to muster some 1 million for the last stand. To that the western allies put 4-5 million on their end of the battle and the soviets from 6-7 million on theirs. Basically, the Germans were outnumbered in a 300% at least on both fronts.
mkenny:
Like :
Panzer Lehr
1st SS LAH
2nd SS Das Reich
9TH SS
10th SS
12th SS HJ
17TH SS
sSS PzAbt 101
sSS PzAbt 102
Ackowledging that you have a great amount of books and sources can you kindly made a comparative chart of the relative strenght those units had:
1. Eastern Front, summer 1942
2. Eastern Front summer 1943
3. Western Front July-September 1944
Please. When doing that you will kindly, after your extensive research in this thread, post also (or admitt that it was never done) the quote in which I said that the Germans fought to their deaths.
By the way, I don´t have the Krivochiev book but when stating the origin of the PoWs I wasn´t using that source (that if I have I will partially use it, too) but the numbers from Glantz. However the fact remains that, even in the case of 6 million PoWs made by the combined allied forces, those were captured during 6 years of confict from various theaters and they did not, as you imply, surrendered to Ike,
en masse, on March - May 1945.
If the previous afirmation of mine is correct, then the highest tally of the German forces could have never been higher than what experts had put them: 1,5 million on the Western Front and some 2,25 million on the East.
About Krivoshiev`s reliability, answering
VennenberR`s question: I can`t really say. What I can say is that whatever he says is more reliable than what mkenny`s says because, I was checking last night, I can´t find a single researcher or published book of someone with last name Kenny and given name starting with an M.
Warmest regards, on my way to work.