Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

[RF]

It is also obvious that the western propaganda has underated everything soviet (from the T 34 to Zhukov) in order to proclaim "Ike" , in a clear error, as "the man that defeated Hitler".

Not in Britain. Even at the height of the Cold War the part played by the USSR in defeating Germany in WW2 was fully recognised.

[VeenenbergR]

Bgile: according to the Survey 8420 USAAF fighters were lost over Europe and ME.
Most against the Germans and few to the Italians I suppose.
Of those 3014 against the Luftwaffe fighters and more than that number obviously to German Flak.

IF the Luftwaffe lost 16.400 fihters it would be interesting to know how many to:

- enemy fighters of that total (probably the majority);
- how many of that total against the USAAF, RAF en VVS

Sundin & Bergström state:

- 13.000 lost with the W. Allies and (only!) 4000 lost over the Eastern Front!!

Please note that many German fighters fighting the heavy bombers may have been shot down by the
heavy USAAF bomber defenses.... and did not fell prey to the hordes of deadly P47's and P51's.

Of the 13.000 quite a substantial number were lost over Britain and the Med.

For those 4000 bad luck, because if caught behind Soviet lines alive they were instantly killed (= murdered).
2700 LW fighter pilots are still missing in action, most on the...yes..... Eastern Front.

[VeenenbergR]

Hi Karl: The book of Beevor was really shocking good (like that of Berlin). He is almost a surealistic "painter" of the War, quite different from the less prozaic Glantz (which is better in maps and the numbers).

German casualties still seem not the be clear:

- 6th army 20 + 1 FLAk divisions had an avarage strength of 8.500 men
- 6th army 100 independant batalions had an avarage strength of 250 men (?)
- many escaped from the pincers: according to Wikipedia (Engl): 50.000 men (but were that all Germans?)
- after the battle and surrender of 108.000 (all Germans?); another 12.500 Germans fought on for weeks in the Ruins
- flown out reports differ (Most: 42.000 according to "optimistic" Carell, At least: 32.500 according to other sources); depending on definitions: wounded, all, etc
- not all flown out survived........
- in 6th army strength most sources also count the 10-thousands of Soviet HIWI's

Soviet counts and after war counts come easily to 160.000+ found German bodies on the battlefield, but unclear is:
- the area of the counting (stalingrad to.... Saratov?
- were all bodies found of German soldiers?
- body count of fallen during the 2 months of attack on the city included? (easily 16-20.000 killed).

An realistic count of casualties after 19 november:

108.000 surrendered (most died after surrender)
12.500 remained to fight on
20.000 died in battle from 19 november to 2 february
20.000 died of the cold and hunger, from wounds, suicides
?? laid in the ruins wounded almost dead, not able to surrender
32.500 were flown out (at least 20.000 wounded)
----------
193.000 + ?? men were pocketed on 19 november 1942
If ?? = 13.000 than the total was 206.000 which is exact the sum of the number of avarage strengths
206.000

50.000 brushed asside
----------
256.000 = strength of 6th army on 19 november not including HIWI's and soldiers of other nations.

If summing up the ones who died:

20.000 during the attack months
65.000 after surrender to and near the POW camps (of exhaustion/ Typhus)
10.000 fighting after surrender
20.000 during the defense
20.000 from other causes
13.000 after surrender because of exhaustion in the ruins
2.000 when flown out but shot down!
----------------
150.000 (that is with probably 10.000 other killed on the perimeter around Stalingradclose to the number of 160.000 found on/ near the battlefields)

[alecsandros]

Presently engaged in the reading of Beevor`s "Stalingrad" book and trying to cross reference it with Glantz & House`s "Kursk".

It is also obvious that the western propaganda has underated everything soviet (from the T 34 to Zhukov) in order to proclaim "Ike" , in a clear error, as "the man that defeated Hitler". And it is me, the anti comunist, that is saying this.

Yes Karl, but, as we have noted previously several times, the war in the east couldn't have been fought by the russians without anglo-american help.
AND even so, without the American openings of North Africa, Italy and Normandy, the red army would have had a much bigger challenge to face.

[VeenenbergR]

Alecsandros,

The Lend-lease gave the Soviets all the neccessary mobility, surplus of Aircraft, surplus tanks and communications equipment, jeeps, halftracks, trucks.
And all of typically good sturdy quality........
So the Soviets could themselves concentrate on a few tank and aircraft designs, FLAK, guns and AT-guns, sub-machine guns and they did that excellent!!!

Soviet attacks were carried out with the benefit of the masses, wave after wave until the goal was reached.
These attacks were very costly but also quite effective. The Germans seldom could recover a major piece of ground.

The most devastating attack ever launched against the Wehrmacht came in August 1944 when the 6th Army (and part of 8th) was again surrounded with Romanian forces at the Flanks (quite like a copy of November 1942). Now the fight was over within 1 week with far more casualties than in Stalingrad. 18 German Divisions totally anhillated in 10 days!!! 210.000 men lost. Only the mobile 10th Panzergrandier Division managed to get away somehow, Ploesti lost and therefore the mobile war for Germany lost. Over 100.000 Germans died in that week..... almost the same number as in the Battle for Berlin but this battle took 2 weeks. Like Stalingrad few of the other 100.000 surrendered came back and until now almost NOTHING is written about this greatest German disaster of WWII (Alex Buchner wrote some pages.....).

Strange enough the Finnish forces did manage to stop the Red wave in the same period with help of German flown in Panzerfausts, one batalion of Stug's a Gruppe of Stuka's and only 1 Infrantry Division.

[alecsandros]

Indeed VeenenbergR, you are right. My point was that, regardless of reasons (which we shouldn't discuss in this topic, I think), if it weren't for the US, the allies wouldn't have won WW2.

With all due respect to Karl, the huge soviet losses came both from German attacks AND from NKVD mass slaughters (both retreating soldiers and civilians that were suspected of not having "done everything possible to kill the Germnas". In this way, entire villages had been wiped out). So, I find it inappropriate to base the "German collpase" upon the "huge soviet sacrifice". This is merely russian propaganda.

As for the 1 week battle VeenenbergR wrote about, AFAIK, there were a series of battles from June to August 1944, during which the German and Romanian armies inflicted disproportionate losses to the soviets (see for instance first battle for Targu Frumos, in present day Republic of Moldavia). However, due to the large numbers of soviet reinforcements, the reds managed to keep the pressure up, and, in time, the Axis troops became fatigued, full of wounded, and without proper supplies. The inevitable happened in mid-August, as you said, with the entire front collapsing.
However, this was not, a disaster "greater than Stalingrad", were at least 500-700.000 Germans were killed or captured (in a year of fighting).

[alecsandros]

Edit: My above post doesn't concern the handfull of real heroes the Red Army fielded in the great patriotic war. There were heroes that sacrificed themselves for the greater good, I'm certain of that. What I meant was that the "sacrifice" is greatly overestimated in mainstream russian historiography and that many of the so-called "heroes" (included in the "25 million dead figure" concering the total numbers of russians that died during the war) were actualy executed on the spot by NKVD.

[VeenenbergR]

Alecsandros. What you are trying to say is that a substantial part of the huge losses of the USSR can by blamed
on either the NKVD or their ruthless way of attacking, using minorities in the first waves (and getting rid of them!),
using Russians in the second wave and NKVD in the third.........
Later the huge losses were used to blame the Germans and get as much out of post war Gemany as possible (apart from the looting
and removal of machinery). This financial sum was 1000 milliard (= US billiard) Deutsche Marken.
By the way: the renovation of the DDR after 1989 also costed this amount: 1000 milliard.

Yes the battles of Targul Frumos were highly succesfull operations in which a dozen depleted Wehrmacht panzer divisions
(among them the famous Gross Deutschland) with heavy support of the Luftwaffe Kampfgeschwader smashed the Soviet forces.
David Glantz wrote a good book on this topic.

But after the Soviet major offensives in june/july 44 against Army Group Nord Ukraine and Mitte the panzer divisions
were ALL moved to the northern sectors and the 6th Army in Moldavia was left with 1 panzer (13th) and 1
panzergrenadier division (10th) as a mobile force.
The defection of the Romanian forces on the flanks meant that the Soviets could encircle without any opposition
most of the German divisions within 2 days. The Germans fought to the death with terrible losses to both sides.
If soldiers can not be fed, not sleep and have to retreat out of encirclement against blocked river positions (6th Soviet Tank Army),
this means tragic and futile attempts to get out. Mainly because they got no proper artillery or air support to force
a way out. Few managed to do so and had to retreat over 600 km's all the way up to Hungary.
This 10th Pz GRen. did a terrific job to slow down the Soviet follow-up move, but could not stem the major assault alone (like the 29th Pz. Gren in november 1942,
which almost halted two Soviet armies!!!!).

German losses to Wiki: 100.000 KIA and about 98.000 captured (of which 50.000 by the Romanians)

The German death toll (burried and MIA) acccording to Wast and DRK:

Moldavia: 150.000 KIA (& MIA) from may to september 44.
Rumania: 38.000 from may to september 44.
Bulgaria: 1.800: sept 1944

So these losses 190.000 killed within 2 weeks are the HIGHEST of the Wehrmacht in any time in WWII.
Also the ratio of Killed on the troops which took part is highest in all history of Germany: 85- to 90%of all troops !!!
killed in battle ???....The Siretul River was coloured red and full of corpses of dead bodies.... what on earth did happen here?
No one ever returned to tell the grueling stories

I suppose 80.000 were killed in many separate pocket battles along the Siretul river(which is two times the number of casualties
of the breakout of the Halbe pocket). 120.000 surrendered of which many (20.000?) were slaughtered by the Soviets,
the rest was used for work (Sevastopol) in camps and died there the next years. These were burried in the Ukraine and Moldavia.
Both 6th's armies met a tragic end with terrible casualties.

[Karl Heidenreich]

alecsandros,

Yes Karl, but, as we have noted previously several times, the war in the east couldn't have been fought by the russians without anglo-american help.
AND even so, without the American openings of North Africa, Italy and Normandy, the red army would have had a much bigger challenge to face.

For the time being I´m not prepared to engage in a long term discussion (we are trying desesperately to turn over this damn project in which I´m working, and that is time consuming, and ALSO trying to read the mentioned books from Beevor and Glantz) but we can put it the other way around: where would have been the western allies in June 1944 if 3 + million German soldiers plus thousands of tanks, planes and artillery that were being used in ther eastern front were positioned in France or surroundings? From this same thread we have now clear the balance of forces that defeated the Germans in both fronts.

Of course you are right, indeed: neither allied, western or soviet, could have won without the help of the other.

On the other hand since the reading of Glantz and now of Beevor it became also clear not only the ruthlesness of both: nazis and soviets, but also the titanic efforts in the eastern front, titanic enough to dwarf whatever happened in the west... whatever.

In the West the greatest moments of the war were: Alamein, Kasserine, El Guettar, Sicily, Anzio-Montecasino, Normandy, Cobra, Falaise Gap, Market Garden, The Bulge, the crossing of the Rhine, etc. and all of them seemed so "civilized" and "small" in comparison to some of the greatest moments of the East: Brest Litovsk, Smolensk, Kiev, Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov, Sevastopol, the Moscow counteroffensives, Demiansk, Sianiavino, Stalingrad, Uranis and Saturn, Kharkov, Kursk, Demiansk again, Rostov again, Kharkov again, Polar Star, Kiev, Krivoi, Bagration, Carphatian, East Prussian, Berlin, etc. etc. etc.

The sheer violence and the overall bloodbath of the East was something the western allies were completely un prepared to face. If the words of William T. Sherman are true, "War is Hell" then it has never been more true than in the East. In definitive: no democratic society was and is prepared to fight in such a conflict of ruthless, cruel and criminal regimes "scorched earth" scenario.

Best regards,

[Karl Heidenreich]

Uhm... for those that used to dismiss the issue of kill rates, as those of the Luftwaffe super aces or Waffen SS panzer aces, there is something else to think about: snipers.

Have someone came to think of this? Kill ratios again. The funny things is that, even "minimized" by the western pro allied propaganda apparatus in this case it applies not to the "enemy", Germany, but to the ally that fought the most: Russia.

Please see this:

Mihail Ilyich Surkov (4th rifle division) 702 kills

The second one is finnish! Simo Hayha from Finland. 542 kills.

As with the WWII air aces we have that the next 23 "Top Gun" snipers were all soviet (with a finnish) and "only" No. 24 is German. In the first 100 slots there is not a single western allied sniper with at least 50 kills. All those above Yegor Fedchenkov (473rd rifle regiment with 50 kills) were either Soviet or German, with an inmense superiority of soviets, inmense in the same sense of the superiority of German air or tank aces.

Of course there are reasons, the soviets fought non stop against the Germans from 1941 to 1945 and defended their cities with fanatical fervor, which is good soil for sniper war. Also it seems that there is somekind of culture in the russian land for being the top rifle marksmen. Again, it´s only logical that the western allies, fighting not a complete year, could not came to rank, even, in the sniper "competition". But, again, it seems that the western allies didn`t produce a fighter pilot, tank hunter or sniper equivalent to those Germans and Russians were able, in the maelstrom of violence of the East, plenty had.

Maybe it is good material never to be shown in Lee Emery`s show in History Channel.

Best regards,

[VeenenbergR]

Karl,

Yes you are damn right to state that The EAST was so much gretaer than all what happened in The West: in north Arfriac the Germans lost 16.050 KIA in TWO years!!! In Moldavia in august 1944 they lost 16.000 KIA in ONE DAY and the day after that day another 16.000 KIA and that 6 days long!!!

But let I also point out that how terrible the losses in the East, in the Soviet Union were (Stalingrad, the Ukruaine summer, fall and winter 43; Minsk 44, Kishinev 44 each with over 200.000 KIA/MIA); they were even less severe when compared to the losses in the last 10 months in the East!!! Especially the 4 months in 1945: this was THE dying ground of the Wehrmacht!!!

[boredatwork]

In the West the greatest moments of the war were: Alamein, Kasserine, El Guettar, Sicily, Anzio-Montecasino, Normandy, Cobra, Falaise Gap, Market Garden, The Bulge, the crossing of the Rhine, etc. and all of them seemed so "civilized" and "small" in comparison to some of the greatest moments of the East: Brest Litovsk, Smolensk, Kiev, Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov, Sevastopol, the Moscow counteroffensives, Demiansk, Sianiavino, Stalingrad, Uranis and Saturn, Kharkov, Kursk, Demiansk again, Rostov again, Kharkov again, Polar Star, Kiev, Krivoi, Bagration, Carphatian, East Prussian, Berlin, etc. etc. etc.

Yes you are damn right to state that The EAST was so much gretaer than all what happened in The West:

Where was the Soviet equivalant to having to defend their merchant shipping world wide? Or transport entire armies across the Atlantic in the face of hundreds of U-boat? Or fighting supplies through to Malta or Murmansk in the face of a hostile airforce/surface fleet? Or land 8+ divisions against a hostile coast within a handful of hours? Or wage a bombing campaign against the a flak/fighter combination that absorbed substantial portions of German manufacturing capacity? Or having to fight a multifront war worldwide?

Again I don't think anyone in this forum is minimising the scale and savagery of the eastern front, nor the contribution of the Soviet Ground forces to victory, but the impression one could get from reading your post is that the western allies spent the war twidling their thumbs until Normandy before landing in France in time for the victory parade.

[lwd]

...It is also obvious that the western propaganda has underated everything soviet (from the T 34 to Zhukov) in order to proclaim "Ike" , in a clear error, as "the man that defeated Hitler". ....

Nothing I've seen published here in the US stated that "Ike" was "the man that defeated Hitler" indeed most extolled his diplomatic skills and not tactical or strategic ones. Indeed my impression is and thinking back on it one that I've held pretty much since my school days is that if anyone deserves that title it's Churchill. Even that would be pushing it however.

[lwd]

Uhm... for those that used to dismiss the issue of kill rates, as those of the Luftwaffe super aces or Waffen SS panzer aces, there is something else to think about: snipers. ...

Problem here is that most countries didn't bother to even try and keep track of sniper kills much less confirm them. Then the usage was so different. For instance Japanese snipers were often left in a position that while it was a good hide there was no easy way to retreat from it. IE they sniped until they died, kind of hard to build up a score that goes much beyond the 10-20 that way, and no way to confirm as well.

[Karl Heidenreich]

boreatwork:

Again I don't think anyone in this forum is minimising the scale and savagery of the eastern front, nor the contribution of the Soviet Ground forces to victory, but the impression one could get from reading your post is that the western allies spent the war twidling their thumbs until Normandy before landing in France in time for the victory parade.

On the contrary, the world is well aware of the western allies efforts because in the last sixty five years books, magazines, documentaries and, specially, movies, have given us wide information of every single detail of their activities. Sometimes it seems that only the US with the help of Charles De Gaulle and some maquis won the war single handed. It is true that there are important pieces of work from the most distinguished authors about the Eastern Front, but it is almost for people like us, that research and buy these books, and not for the common public that, I repeat, believe that WWII started at Pearl Harbor and was won on June 6th, 1944. In this El Alamein and Monty are commonly regarded as extremely important whilst no body even knows what Plan Blue was about or what was it`s outcome.

For instance, and I think this is very explicit and helpful:

According to US military history one of the greatest feats of arms of WWII was the Bastogne phase of the Battle of Bulge. We know how the 101 Airborne Division, without it´s nominal commander Taylor, defended Bastogne against the advancing Waffen SS divisions. We know they held up from December 20th through December 27th, 1944. We have been told how they survived the attack of four German Divisions (two armoured) when in reality two of them simply ignored the place and continued their seek for the fuel depots leaving one regiment to reinforce the siege units. After those days of encirclement Patton`s Third Army units break through and relieved the exhaust paratroopers. And behold, we have an heroic stand!

Now, have you (or your country men) have heard of the Demyansk Pocket? What`s that? The Demiansk Pocket or Kessel was not "just" a 7 day encirclement but one of 72 full days (February 8th to April 21st, 1942) in the middle of the russian winter of 100,000 Germans troops surrounded not by a handfull of undermanned units but by five (5) Soviet Armies consisting of eighteen (18) rifle divisions and three (3) brigades that were pinned surrounding these brave warriors. They were relieved only after the soviets lost an unspecified number of troops, some 408 aircraft (243 of them fighters) plus tanks and artillery pieces. Where is the public recognition of 3rd SS Division Totenkopf, SS-Obergruppenführer Theodor Eicke as the 88th person to be awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross on 20 May 1942 for his exceptional command during a 72 day siege? Where?

Demyansk makes Bastonge looks like a drill in comparison.

Or what about the Kholm Kessel, which was defended by the great General Theodor Scherer and 5,500 men in an even shrinking area from January 1942 until May 5th, 1942. The area finally was barely a mile across after one hundred and seven (107) days of fighting the siege! 107, that is 1,528% more days that whatever the 101 Airborne division had to stand! The Red Army launched 2,000 asaults against Scherer unsuccesfully. Where is the conmemorative Time Magazine edition for this incredible feat?

No, boreatwork... we are well aware of what the western allies did during WWII, it has been celebrated for sixty five years. Now it´s time to address the efforts, sacrificies and feats of those that western History have been ignoring: the best pilots, the best snipers and tank aces as well the great commanders of WWII as the greatest battles and actions that has been "minimized" for so long.

We have enough of McAuliffe, we want to know of the real heroes of Schrerer.

Warmest regards,