World War II on the Eastern Front

German and Soviet Statistics Tell a Bloody Story

According to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, 5.5 million members of the German Armed Forces were killed, died of wounds, or remained missing at the end of 1946. This was approximately 30 percent of the 18.2 million German military personnel who served during the war. The population of Germany in 1939 was 80.6 million, which included 6.7 million from Austria annexed in March 1938 and 3.3 million from German-speaking Sudetenland, formerly part of Czechoslovakia, occupied by German troops in September 1938. 

Approximately 950, 000 Austrians served in the German Armed Forces during the war, of which 261,000, just over 27 percent were killed or missing by the end of the war. A total of 109,000 civilians were killed, including 20,000 to 30,000 killed by Allied bombing. About 2,700 Austrians were executed by the Nazis.

Somewhere between 350,000 to 500,000 German civilians were killed by British and American bombing during the war. Total German civilian deaths may have been as high as 2.0 million, mainly involving Polish removal of the German ethnic population of East Prussia, which was ceded to Poland after the war.

According to historian Geoffrey Roberts, approximately 80 percent of German Armed Forces combat operations took place on the Eastern Front against the Russians. At least 8.7 million Soviet military personnel were killed or remained missing after the war. Total Russian civilian deaths exceeded 18 million. The ongoing official count total for Soviet military and civilian dead exceeds 27 million. The total Soviet population in 1940 was 194 million. The Soviet population was only 175 million by 1947.  The Red Army was the largest in the world by the end of the war, at 12 million. Over 34 million men and women served in the Red Army during the war. Of these, at least 26 percent were killed or missing and presumed dead.

Ukraine, of course, was a part of the Soviet Union in 1940, with a population of about 31 million.  About 250,000 Ukrainians in western Ukraine, including Ukrainian Nazi SS units, sided and served with the Nazis during the war, but the vast majority, over 6 million, served in the Red Army. At least 2.5 million of these were killed or missing by the end of the war. In addition Ukrainian civilian deaths exceeded 5.5  million, including 1.5 million Jews, many of whom were refugees from Nazi persecution and atrocities in Poland and Germany.

Poland had 240,000 military deaths during the war but more than 5.7 million civilian deaths. Just over 3.0 million of these were Jews murdered at six death camps.

By comparison, according to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, the total American military dead and missing was 407,000. Of these, about 250,000 were on the European front. Even though Germany’s most experienced forces were on the Russian front, the German Wehrmacht managed to inflict casualties on the Americans at a rate 50 percent over their own losses. The U.S. population in 1939 was 131 million

British military deaths totaled 384,000 during the war. About 67,000 British civilians were killed by German bombing and rocket attacks.

It has been estimated that between 3 and 4 million Germans were killed on the Russian front. One German estimate was 3.72 million. This is almost 68 percent of the total German dead and missing during the war. Moreover, this may not include German casualties inflicted by the Red Army starting in November 1944, when they finally pushed into German territory. German historian Rudger Overmans estimates that the Germans lost 1.23 million dead and missing in the last five months of the war from January through May 9, 1945. About two-thirds of these were against the Red Army pressing toward Berlin. So, the total dead and missing Germans fighting the Red Army might be about 4.5 million, which is almost 82 percent of the National War Museum’s estimate of 5.5 million total German military dead and missing. This is quite close to Geoffrey Robert’s estimate of 80 percent of German combat being against the Russians.

Estimates on World War II casualties vary widely. A Wikipedia article estimates between 70 and 85 million people died from combat, destruction, atrocities, and famine caused by the war, about three percent of the world population at the time. The Wikipedia article has the same estimate for German military dead, but breaks down Soviet Union dead at 10.6 million military, 10.0 million civilian dead due to military activities and atrocities, and 6.0 million civilian deaths from starvation and disease, totaling 26.6 million. The most devastating casualty rate of the war was among German submariners. Of the 40,900 who served on German U-boats, 28,000 died, almost 69 percent.

There is a tendency among Americans to undervalue the contribution of the Red Army in defeating Nazi Germany. The German Wehrmacht was an efficient killing machine, but at tremendous sacrifice to themselves, Soviet forces accounted for over 80 percent of German military killed and missing presumed dead.

Stalin was unable to motivate the Russian people or even the Red Army with Communist ideology. He had to resort to patriotic feelings for Mother Russia and even let up on the persecution of Christianity and the Russian Orthodox Church to drive back the Germans.  Of course, the vast majority of Russians also fully recognized the deadly threat to their very existence from the brutality of Nazi ideology.

One thing that stands out in the personal histories and diaries of World War II Russian soldiers and aviators I have read lately is that the relationship between the vast majority of Russians and Ukrainians was that of brotherly or sisterly kinship, mutual respect, and appreciation. Indeed, there is a great deal of inter-marriage and common culture.

But in February 2014, the U.S. State Department backed and helped incite a violent mob revolution that removed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, elected in 2010, from office. This was financed by billions of USAID funds and assisted by CIA, British MI6, and George Soros operatives. The new pro-NATO, pro-European Union government began a campaign to instill hatred and cultural cleansing of everything Russian. This included laws against Russian language, history,  culture, and religious affiliations. Even the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was outlawed and their properties confiscated, because of their past association with the Russian Orthodox Church and its socially conservative doctrines. More than 38 percent of Ukraine’s pre-2014 population was considered Russian or mixed Russian-Ukrainian. Nine states in southern and eastern Ukraine have strong Russian majorities.

Now this absurd anti-Russian political indoctrination is destroying Ukraine. Ukraine has been pushed, misled, and deluded into a futile proxy-war in which they are being cynically used without any true regard for their good or the good of their posterity.

Truth will be vindicated.