German Casualty discussion

[Jack Sheldon]

Phil

There is, but not put quite so clearly in one place. There is a detailed analysis of officer, but not OR casualties in an annex to Die Bayern im Grossen Kriege 1914-1918 and additional figures appear in Das Bayernbuch vom Weltkriege 1914 - 1918. They do not clash, but I need to pull together a reply drawing on both. I have to go out now, but will attempt it when I return. That will provide a much bigger sample, because getting on for one million Bavarians fought.

Jack

[Jasta72s]

Interesting discussion. Nevertheless, some claims are far of the mark.

One of the participants of this discussion claimed and imagined that only some guards were left in the German barracks because of the enormous losses from 1914 to 1918.

This claim may well fit to his position but has nothing to do with the real situation in Germany. I have checked many, many German sources from the late war period in 1918 over the last decade. My impression – based on German military documents, paper reports, accounts of revolutionary actions etc – is very different. The German homeland looked rather like a huge military camp in late 1918 and the barracks had not enough capacity to give shelter to all military persons and recruits in training. Hotels, restaurants, schools, public institutions etc etc were used as accommodations for the military. Already the German Air Force – being a rather little part of the whole military – had 80 000 men in service in the homeland. Naval bases concentrated huge numbers of soldiers, e.g. 50 000 in the area around Kiel and another 10 000 near Wilhelmshaven. Every bigger garrison town was occupied by 1000s of troops. This fact is also reflected by all reports about the first revolutionary actions in late October and early November 1918! Demonstrations and revolts in all parts of Germany included huge numbers of people and soldiers were the majority of the involved people in the first time. Furthermore, one should know that Generalleutnant Groener and his staff informed SPD politician Scheidemann on 5 November 1918 about first activities to draw another 600 000 men into military service. However, the anti-revolutionary minded politician Scheidemann thought the recruitment of "bolshevist" influenced workers would not be helpful and suggested to stop recruitments and preferred to stop revolts in factories and towns at first. (Obviously both sides did not think about the effects of the new recruitment for the German industry which was already suffering from heavy shortage of well-skilled and highly qualified workers.)

So, 4 million dead German soldiers in WWI is a claim supported only by the political agenda and wishful thinking of people like Edmonds. It is also not helpful to refer to old text of German institutions – which were obviously taken out of context and heavily overexaggerated in its meaning.

Best regards from Germany

Jasta 72s

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

I know much has been said about the men who appear to be missing off the rolls and therefore the numbers called up do not add to the numbers of men who became casualties and those still in service at the end of the war. I am sure there is a chart, article or mention that I have seen along these lines and it involves the men invalided out due to severe wounds, amputations, mental disorders, etc.

In relation to these men I have often seen period posters asking for assistance for the war crippled, legless, armless men trying to find useful work and therapy. If you read about the effect of modern weapons, in particular artillery fire as used in the war just how many men did it permanently disfigure or cripple and who were then discharged from service? I will keep looking through my sources to see if any such accounting was ever done.

Ralph

[phil andrade]

According to our much derided San B, seventy three per cent of all German wounded made a recovery sufficient to allow them to return to some form of duty. And so, it wold appear, did eighty per cent of their British counterparts. I would guess that this reflects the fact that a much larger ratio of British wound casualties ocurred in the later part of the war, when medical services had (presumably?) improved. We see from the even more derided ZN tabulation that thirty five per cent of all German casualties occurred by the end of 1915. Whatever the figures are, I find it an interesting topic for reflection following from Ralph's post....these horrendous weapons, especially the artillery , could cause frightful damage and obliterate men entirely, but, thank goodness, the exponential growth in firepower was accompanied by a commensurate improvement in medical care.

Phil (PJA)

[Robert Dunlop]

There was, as you rightly point out, an improvement in medical services and care. Remember also that the 'exponential growth in firepower' was countered by the evolution in tactics. Men were more spread out, as epitomised by the German defense-in-depth tactics.

Robert

[phil andrade]

Yes, absolutely....dispersal is a function of more powerful weaponry.

I have often alluded to this on the forum, especially in regard to Verdun.

Reverting to the Wurtemburg ( forgive spelling) example that Jack cited - I might be pushing my luck a bit here - doesn't the tone of the passage suggest that these individual German states were keen to emphasise their sacrifice in the war ? I mean, if the Wurtemberger historians had suspected that the figure 83,000 dead from their Kingdom was an understatement - let alone to the extent that Edmonds would have us believe - wouldn't they have been quick to say so ?

Phil (PJA)

[ph0ebus]

Great to have you on board, Matt.

Could you find out about German War Graves data, please ?

I try and contact them, but without the ability to speak German it's hard to get the results.

Phil (PJA)

Hi Phil,

I speak almost no German, and yet using Google Translate I have been quite successful communicating with and obtaining records from Germany (LAGeSo, WAST, various archives, etc.).

One word of advice should you choose that route: write what you want to say, use the translation program to translate it to German, then translate the translation you just got back to English. You may need to do this a few times, making minor changes to your phrasing and word choices, for it come in and out of the translation software making sense.

Of course, who knows how what I write is received, but I usually preface that my letter is the result of the use of translation software and that seems to help them to get past my lackluster skill at writing in their language.

Daniel

[Jack Sheldon]

I was going to go on to Bavaria, but I have spotted that I own the Saxon equivalent to the material posted by Ralph, so I am going to attempt to upload their figures. With my connection this could be a bit hit and miss.

Plenty there to get your teeth into Phil and it saves us wading through umpteen different histories to get at the same information. There is also an interesting accompanying note, which I shall post and translate when I return from walking the dogs.

Jack

[phil andrade]

You're kind, Daniel...thanks for your advice.

I have tried, with some success, to use Google translator, and I have made some attemts to contact the German War Graves people by e-mail.

The big stumbling block for me was that I was unable to get them to understand my request about the missing bodies.

They referred to the missing in the old ZN return i.e. the missing soldiers whose fate was not accounted for by 1933 : one hundred thousand.

This is not the same as the dead who were never recovered for burial, or who, if buried, had their graves destroyed or subsequently lost.

As I understand it, there are nine hundred thousand German miliitary dead from the Great War who are currently in the cemeteries of France and Belgium. Many, many more are still out there, lost on the battlefields. Their discovery has been the inspiration behind some very moving TV documentaries in recent uears ....Ralph Whitehead has been closely involved in some of these episodes.

Obviously, many are lost forever because they were blown to bits, or they have just mouldered away into the soil.

We do know from the records of the British equivalent, the CWGC, that one quarter of all British dead in the sectors of the Western Front where fighting was at its most intense and prolonged were never recovered for burial. A comparable number were recovered, but have remain unidentified. My intention is to try and establish whether the German authorities are willing and able to venture an opinion as to what proportion of their Great War dead were not recovered, but so far I've only managed to be referred to the 100,000 still missing in the final ZN return, which is a figure based on an entirely different premise.

A PM from a battlefield archaeologist did advise me that, on a random basis, his team was more likely to encounter German bodies than Allied, which is hardly surprising in view of the fact that Germany lost the war, facing defeat, disgrace and financial ruin, and was denied the access for recovery and burial that was afforded to the victorious powers.

OTOH, it is very apparent from the story of Fromelles that the Germans went to pains to deal with the burial of the dead of their enemies, let alone their own comrades.

I see the answer to this question as a valuable clue to guaging the validity or otherwise of German casualty statistics.

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

Thanks very much for that Saxon list, Jack.

I will study that.

Any idea as to the population of Saxony in 1914 ?

That would help me to assess the per capita death rate.

I had always supposed that the Saxons were less warlike than their Prussian and Bavarian counterparts. A dangerous folly...look at those Wurttemberg losses : pretty damned heavy. Your post about their experience at Guillemont says it all.

Now I'll take the wife for a walk. Some lovely Valentine Day weather out there today, and, to tell the truth, Lynn thinks that I'm going mad, and can't believe the time I spend on the forum.

Phil (PJA)

[Jasta72s]

Saxony had 4.8 million inhabitants in 1914 - a bit more than Kingdom of Württemberg and Großherzogtum Baden together.

Some more remarks – this time concerning slightly losses:

Point 1: I do not understand the ever-lasting false claim the Germans would not have counted slightly wounded soldiers – it seems to come from an ill-informed or very propagandistic corner. Everybody dealing a bit deeper with “Deutsche Verlustlisten” should know better.

Point 2: I think it is justified to assume that a considerable number of slightly wounded soldiers did not make it into statistics. Everybody with a bit of brains can imagine quite a number of subjective and objective reasons for this lack of written data. It starts with men who did simply not report being slightly wounded because of patriotic reasons (It is ridiculous to mention this little drop of blood for my fatherland/motherland!) or being embarrassed by the very “specific type” of wound (e.g. little pain in the butt). As well everybody can imagine the loss of reports in huge combats or offensives and situations which do not allow to keep records in a proper way in military units etc pp. The dark figure of slightly wounded soldiers is unknown and wild “guess work” will not really help to find the truth.

Point 3: I can not see any reason that loss lists of other nations (French, Russian – and maybe British too?) should have been more carefully kept than German lists. To my knowledge Germans do not posses the world-wide image to be the worst record-keepers of all! (However, one should also not claim the German records would have been infailable or complete.)

Finally, I think there was never a complete loss list existing for any war in world´s history. One is ill-adviced to question the records of one side and the set the records of the other side in stone.

By the way it was claimed the number of wounded German soldiers would be linked with a constant ratio to the number of dead. The discovery of more dead German soldiers would inevitably increase the number of wounded German soldiers. That is an unproven speculation! Many soldiers died of wounds after the end of the war – so, the number of dead was increasing and therefore the number of wounded soldiers shrinking. Furthermore, one should note the huge danger to compare apples and oranges in all these comparisons. German soldiers continued to die in other conflicts immediately after WWI and also the chosen time frame is of enormous importance.

[Steven Broomfield]

So much has been read into all these figures that I will not try and infer anything from the fact that Phil takes his wife for a walk on Valentine's Day, while Jack takes his dogs.

Personally, I'll be taking the dogs after work.

[Jack Sheldon]

It reads:

[These are] figures of overwhelming force. They form an imperishable memorial to Saxon courage and faithfulness unto death. At the outbreak of war, Saxony had almost five million inhabitants, of whom about one million men were liable for military service. Of these approximately 750,000 saw active service.

Of these there were:

212,783 dead (including 90% of the missing) = 28%

334,000 wounded (including 12,326 of the missing) = 44%

40,023 PW (including 2,917 of the missing) = 5.6%

From each 100 who went to war, nearly 78 were killed, wounded or captured. On average the German armies lost 6% PW. The fact that the Saxons only lost 5.6% bears shining witness to the military discipline of the Saxons and the willpower of the individual soldier'.

What I think these figures and those posted by Ralph show is that the statisticians in the German states, as well as centrally, went to enormous trouble and in great detail to try to reflect accurately what the losses were and how the different arms and services were affected. Once again it is possible to see that the active pre-war regiments bore the brunt disproportionally. Our sample is growing most satisfactorily now and I suspect that it is already soon enough for the open minded to see that the claim that scrutiny of the regimental losses would indicate the necessity to double the number of fatalities is baseless. Quite apart from anything else, the number killed versus the number who served in Wuerttemberg and Saxony is broadly similar. To double them, the fatal casualty rate would have to be raised to more than 55%, which I believe to have no basis in truth. In my next post I shall adduce evidence to show why I think, at local level, that it would have been very difficult to continue to deceive the German population about losses during the post war period.

Jack

[Jack Sheldon]

I am now going to approach the subject from a different angle. This is Exhibit A:

[Jack Sheldon]

This is the Roll of Honour of Stuttgart's fallen 1914 - 1918, published after a great deal of work and no little expense by the city authorities in 1925. There now follows the overview of the 9,860 names it contains, divided into those who were killed serving in the Army of Wuerttemberg and those elsewhere.

[Jack Sheldon]

This is oneof the 724 pages, selected at random.

[phil andrade]

Crickey !

So much for the Saxons being less warlike than other Germans !

Actually, those figures are shocking.

If five million people suffered the death of 212,000 soldiers, then, by that criterion, a nation of sixty five million would have lost two and three quarter million ! A nasty reminder that we must not be too complacent about that two million total....and then there's that ghost of the 35-37% of the 1892-95 age group to lay to rest, too.

All the same, I remain firmly committed to the veracity of the official compilation of the ZN.

The information that Matt might be able to get from the War Graves will be illuminating.

And, Jack, thank you very much for this information.

Phil (PJA)

[Jack Sheldon]

Let us now home in on two randomly selected individuals to get an idea of the detail with which this work was done:

The first is Bernhard Rieger, former railway worker,a Reservist with 12th Coy RIR 119, born 7 Sep 1889 in Unterboebingen, Gmuend, arrived dead at Menen in Flanders 10 Jun 1916.

The second is Franz Riegg, former tram driver, a Wehrmann with 10th Coy RIR 246, born in Steinheim, Dillingen 1 Dec 1884 Killed 24 Oct 1914 during the the First Battle of Ypres at Reutel.

Now Bernhard Rieger, having been evacuated and died while being transported has a known grave, so that would have to have been accounted for. He is buried in the German cemetery at Menen Block H Grave 3419. Riegg, on the other hand, killed in the early fighting, has no known grave. Both their families would have been pleased to see their names in this book of honour. It is impossible to say if Rieger's family ever visited his grave. Eventually they could have done, but Riegg's family could not and, worse, the History of RIR 246 (Orgeldinger, Stuttgart 1933) does not contain a Roll of Honour, so although they could have read a good description of what happened when the 3rd Bn was obliterated in the assault on Reutel(and seen another if they had waited for my Ypres 1914 book to appear!), this record is the only written public acknowledgement of his sacrifice and, therefore, very important to family and friends.

This, to me, is strong evidence that the German casualty figures are accurate, or at least very near the truth. Let us suppose that the numbers of dead were really twice the number declared. For Stuttgart to have contributed a full share, the Book of Honour would have had to have detailed entries for 19,720 men. In other words in 1925 when it appeared, every second name would have been missing. How long could the sacrifice of those not mentioned have remained a secret in those circumstances? How would the relatives of those not mentioned have reacted?

Answers on a postcard please. In this instance I do not believe you could fool even some of the people some of the time. This would have been a massive scandal and it could not have been hushed up.

Jack

[salesie]

Interesting discussion. Nevertheless, some claims are far of the mark.

One of the participants of this discussion claimed and imagined that only some guards were left in the German barracks because of the enormous losses from 1914 to 1918.

This claim may well fit to his position but has nothing to do with the real situation in Germany. I have checked many, many German sources from the late war period in 1918 over the last decade. My impression – based on German military documents, paper reports, accounts of revolutionary actions etc – is very different. The German homeland looked rather like a huge military camp in late 1918 and the barracks had not enough capacity to give shelter to all military persons and recruits in training. Hotels, restaurants, schools, public institutions etc etc were used as accommodations for the military. Already the German Air Force – being a rather little part of the whole military – had 80 000 men in service in the homeland. Naval bases concentrated huge numbers of soldiers, e.g. 50 000 in the area around Kiel and another 10 000 near Wilhelmshaven. Every bigger garrison town was occupied by 1000s of troops. This fact is also reflected by all reports about the first revolutionary actions in late October and early November 1918! Demonstrations and revolts in all parts of Germany included huge numbers of people and soldiers were the majority of the involved people in the first time. Furthermore, one should know that Generalleutnant Groener and his staff informed SPD politician Scheidemann on 5 November 1918 about first activities to draw another 600 000 men into military service. However, the anti-revolutionary minded politician Scheidemann thought the recruitment of "bolshevist" influenced workers would not be helpful and suggested to stop recruitments and preferred to stop revolts in factories and towns at first. (Obviously both sides did not think about the effects of the new recruitment for the German industry which was already suffering from heavy shortage of well-skilled and highly qualified workers.)

So, 4 million dead German soldiers in WWI is a claim supported only by the political agenda and wishful thinking of people like Edmonds. It is also not helpful to refer to old text of German institutions – which were obviously taken out of context and heavily overexaggerated in its meaning.

Best regards from Germany

Jasta 72s

Jasta, perhaps someone should have told Hindenburg and Ludendorff about all these masses of German soldiers languishing at home? If they'd known, they may have opted for an autumn offensive instead of pleading for an armistice? But there again, perhaps those left in Germany in late 1918 preferred to fight amongst themselves rather than fight the allies?

Cheers-salesie.

[salesie]

A few hours unexpected respite, Gents - so here goes.

Will a couple more, narrow in scope, German lists prevent this thread from repeating earlier points and going around in circles, as a few members (including Jack) seemed to complain about not so long ago? I don't think so, nor will they explain the massive hole in the German balance-sheet. The bottom line is that until this massive hole is rationally explained then any and all lists, and any argument to support them, are suspect. Edmonds' arithmetic may be suspect, but so are some of the counts presented in German lists; at least Edmonds' seems to have recognised said glaring, and huge, imbalance in the totals. Solve the conundrum this imbalance presents, Gents, then your assumptions that the German unaccounted-for (in balance-sheet terms) are not dead, or Edmonds' assumption that a good proportion of them are in fact dead, will finally be proven either way.

Where are the millions of unaccounted-for in the German balance-sheet?

Cheers-salesie.

[phil andrade]

Anxious to ensure that I've countenanced every argument in favour of Edmonds' assertion - even to the point of playing Devil's Advocate regarding the 35-37 % of the 1892-1895 generation being killed - the points made by Jack, Ralph and Jasta are so cogent and compelling, and based on such thorough research and knowledge, that I find it incomprehensible that you have not yielded, salesie.

If three or four million German soldiers died in the war, where do you think they died ? At least two thirds of them -and perhaps more than three quarters - died on the Western Front. How do you reconcile a total of two or three million German dead in France and Flanders with only nine hundred thousand burials there ? And do you imagine that, after three years of positional warfare in which the firepower conferred the advantage on the defensive, the Germans lost more men killed than the Allies who assaulted their immensely strong positions ?

On no account imagine that I seek to downplay German casualties. Far from it. One only has to read through Jack's books to appreciate the cost of the horrific ordeal endured by German soldiers, whether defending on the Somme or attacking at First Ypres.

Let me summon up one of those old war film cliches from Pow commandants " You are either very brave, or very stupid!"

Phil (PJA)

[Latze]

Hi all,

today I scanned the relevant pages from Statistisches Jahrbuch für den Freistaat Preußen (statistical yearbook for the republic of Prussia) from 1922. Relevant are imho:

- chapter 2 which contains data about inhabitants. I have excluded statstics of marriages and the like

- addendum Sterbefälle von Militärpersonen (military deaths)

- appendix which compares 1910 census with 1919 census

The file is 20 MB large. Everybody who wants it can contact me here or via private mail. Meanwhile I will try to reduce individual pages to 100 kB. Lots of data...

regards

Matt

[Ken S.]

I don't.

I find it incomprehensible that you have not yielded, salesie.

He still needs to provide some sort of reasonable basis for believing that the real number of German dead fall within a fairly wide margin of 3 to 4 million.

If three or four million German soldiers died in the war, where do you think they died ?

[salesie]

Anxious to ensure that I've countenanced every argument in favour of Edmonds' assertion - even to the point of playing Devil's Advocate regarding the 35-37 % of the 1892-1895 generation being killed - the points made by Jack, Ralph and Jasta are so cogent and compelling, and based on such thorough research and knowledge, that I find it incomprehensible that you have not yielded, salesie.

If three or four million German soldiers died in the war, where do you think they died ? At least two thirds of them -and perhaps more than three quarters - died on the Western Front. How do you reconcile a total of two or three million German dead in France and Flanders with only nine hundred thousand burials there ? And do you imagine that, after three years of positional warfare in which the firepower conferred the advantage on the defensive, the Germans lost more men killed than the Allies who assaulted their immensely strong positions ?

On no account imagine that I seek to downplay German casualties. Far from it. One only has to read through Jack's books to appreciate the cost of the horrific ordeal endured by German soldiers, whether defending on the Somme or attacking at First Ypres.

Let me summon up one of those old war film cliches from Pow commandants " You are either very brave, or very stupid!"

Phil (PJA)

Same as the men those German commandants were addressing, Phil, "Very Stupid!"

After all, anyone who assumes that if figures don't balance then something is seriously wrong and questions as to why need asking must patently be very stupid indeed. I suppose the only consolation I have, to offset my gross stupidity, is the fact that such a trivial thing as non-balancing figures are unacceptable is enshrined in virtually every country on the planet's commercial law and accounting frameworks. Being in such austere company, though, doesn't really offset the deep shame I feel for being stupid.

Consequently, I would like you to look on what I’m about to ask next as an act of charity on your part; a kind act to further the education of a willing, but hapless, mature student. Would you please take pity on a stupid, wretched man and take the time to explain how the gaping hole in the German manpower balance-sheet can be filled?

Cheers-salesie.

[Latze]

Ok,

here are the numbers of graves Phil was asking about. So far I did not write directly to the war graves commission but will do tomorrow. The following numbers are culled from their website. If anybody wants the files I used I can provide them.

country number of graves number of cemeteries notes

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Belarus unknown more than 100 judging from my experiences in Lithuania and Poland these will be small cemeteries

Estonia more than 14 at least 2

Latvia 30.000 210 the biggest in Jelgava with 1200 graves

Lithuania unknown at least 1 not from the commission but one I have seen myself with four graves

Ukraine unknown ca. 2000 'with Russian, German and Austrian dead'

Greece 68 1

Italy 16.000 5 big ones

Slovenia 3.000

Great Br. 2.770 5 includes naval personnel, airship crews, died prisoners

Ireland 6 1

Netherlands more than 85 'less than 100'

Belgium 135.274

France 768.000

All this sums up to something like 960.000 graves. All in all not a very good number because Poland, Croatia, Russia, etc. are missing totally and most of the data for other Eastern countries is very incomplete.

As an aside, Bourdon, the cemetery all German war dead in the Somme area were concentrated in (by the French authorities) contains 22.216 graves. St. Symphorien near Mons, contains 74 German and 229 British graves.

regards

Matt