German Casualty discussion

[phil andrade]

Jack,

What do you mean by "GE" ? Forgive my ignorance.

Churchill commissioned researchers to investigate German archives when he was writing the World Crisis.

This was when the Prussian figures were available and intact. I think that he did his best to be objective in his analysis of German casualties : he was anxious, in view of his criticism of Entente attritional strategy on the Western Front, that he should be seen to be fair.

He made a series of assertions about the likely total of German losses, and arrived at an estimate of 5,383,000 casualties, including 1,494,000 dead for the war on the Western Front.

If it is true that the 136,000 Germans buried in Belgium need to be supplemented by an additional 90,000 of their unrecovered dead - and the same ratio applies to France - then the overall figure would be in the region of a million and a half, in remarkable harmony with Churchill's estimate, and, also, with the indications from casualty lists that three quarters of German losses 1914-18 were sustained on the Western front. That, of course, implies acceptance that the two million total for deaths is correct.

Phil (PJA)

[ph0ebus]

Hi Ralph, all,

This is making for some very interesting research, though I have to admit, my not being familiar with many of the various sources and such is requiring of me an extra effort to absorb everything that is being said. Your efforts and discussion of those efforts is quite an education.

Thanks,

-Daniel

[Jack Sheldon]

Phil

Sory about the obscurity GE = German. Ralph is right about repatriations during the war, but there were significantly more after the war - and they are not by any means all recorded. Here, to illustrate the point, are three prominent airmen, all of whom lie in graves in Germany but are not mentioned by the Volksbund:

Max Immelmann

Oswald Boelcke

Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen

Jack

[phil andrade]

Thank you, Jack.

You have been kind enough, earlier in this thread, to provide us with two statements from states within the German Empire : one of them, from Wtbg, corroborating the two million deaths in per capita terms, the other - from Saxony - very much refuting it ( twice as high, in proportion to numbers served, as the Wtbg. sample) The Saxon commemorative plaque - to my mind - seems a little hyperbolic.

Are there any other such statements, either from the individual states or from very large cities, that you might know about which could throw light on this ?

Edit : those Saxon figures just didn't look right to me. Now I can see why. The overall German losses, as officially tabulated, yield a proportion of just over two men wounded and survived to every one who was killed or died viz. 2 million dead and 4.2 million wounded ; in the case of Wtbg. 83 thousand dead and 192,000 wounded ; not much difference from the overall ratio. Now Saxony presents a total of 213,000 dead and 334,000 wounded....the number of deaths, I suspect, being inflated by the inclusion of men who were posted as missing, but were still alive : maybe wounded, perhaps deserters. Why would the normal ratio of 2.1 wounded to every one killed be reduced to barely 1.5 in the case of Saxony ? Something of hyperbole rings out in that proclamation about Saxony's unique record for military valour....protest too much, methinks.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

I haven't read the whole thread, yet, i will some day. I just happened on some figures from April 1917, and thought would add them into a pot that has not been stirred for some time. They may, or may not, be useful to you serious number-crunchers?

Tuesday 22/5/1917 British Newspaper Archive The (Dundee) Courier

German Casualty Lists

Over 40,000 Reported During April-The German casualties reported in German official casualty lists (exclusive of corrections) during the month of April, 1917, are as follows

Killed and died of wounds 8,297
Died of sickness 2,682
Prisoners533
Missing 3,775
Severely wounded 6,576
Wounded 3,168
Slightly wounded 13,620
Wounded remaining with units 4,187

The above casualties added to those reported in previous months, and including the corrections reported in April 1917, brings the total reported in the German official lists since the beginning of the war to:-

Killed and died of wounds 975,373
Died of sickness 66,656
Prisoners 293,282
Missing 240,610
Severely wounded 558,269
Wounded 307,295
Slightly wounded 1,563,973
Wounded remaining with units 240,346

Total 4,245,804

The above figures include all German nationalities-Prussians, Bavarians, Saxons, and Wurttembergers. They do not include naval casualties, or casualties of Colonial troops. It should be noted that the above figures do not constitute an estimate by the British authorites, but merely represent the casualties announced in official German lists. It should also be noted that the casualties are those reported during the month of April-not reported as having occurred in April.

Mike

[phil andrade]

Good evidence there of the time lag between occurrence and reporting.

April 1917 was a very bad month indeed in terms of casualties. Arras and the Nivelle Offensive alone would account for nearly four times the total cited- and that was without counting the May fighting. That, by the way, is based on the sanitatsbericht, the German Medical History, whch tabulated 164, 545 battle casualties on the Western Front alone for the month of April 1917.

The forty thousand figure seems about the right size for March of that year, when fighting was not nearly so intense.

A time lag of a month, more or less ?

Phil (PJA)

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

You always learn something new it seems. Part of the original discussions centered on the accuracy of the German loss numbers and from my point of view, the different methods used during the war to verify losses, track losses, etc. With each new method, I feel that the idea of somehow hiding 1-2,000,000 fatal losses that some people think occurred becomes that much harder. The attached postcard is a reply to an inquiry regarding Johann Friedrich Spitzenberger, 9 Coy, RIR 111 who went missing sometime in July or August 1915 or thereabouts judging from the initial dates of the response.

The card was sent to the National Women's Service that provided information about men who were wounded or missing. The card was written by Feldwebel Reitze in which he verified the soldier's name, date of birth, location and his company number. I am working on the translation of the remaining sentence but a rough look states that they had no further information regarding this soldier. This answer, to an inquiry, was sent on 12 August 1915. Spitzenberger was listed in the VL on 4 November 1915 as missing. His name does not appear in the 9th Company roll of dead so that leaves two possibilities. He was either captured at some point and this should also appear on the VL list later on, or he was ill or wounded and had left for treatment and was not counted accurately. I do not feel the second reason is a probability as the time difference between the postcard response and the listing date in the VL.

This means he was probably captured and further checking will be needed to see if this can be confirmed. My point in bringing this up was that here is another example of where a service was making inquiries regarding missing or wounded men. If the 1-2,000,000 additional dead are to be believed, just how would all of them be missed by such services and how could they coordinate with the services, the families, etc. to ignore the fate of so many men. Once I have the full translation on the rear I will post it.

Ralph

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

On the reverse side it says: Friedrich Spitzenberger 12/08/1915
Reservist Johannn Frederick Spitzenberger born on 29/03/1888 in Koldorf wore identity tag No. 161 Unfortunately, nothing is known today of his whereabouts by the company. Respectfully Reitze Feldwebel

[phil andrade]

In the light of your example, Ralph, in which a man goes missing in summer but is not counted in the VL until autumn - and also in Mike's rendition of the figures posted in the official casualty list for April 1917 - I feel very emboldened in my contention that the official posting of c. 850,000 German casualties up to the end of 1914 is very incomplete ; and that this reflects nothing in the way of deliberate distortion or suppression, but attests the sheer magnitude of the task and the inability of the authorities to keep up with it.

The suspiciously huge number that I have alluded to for 1915 ( 1.7 million approx) does, I suspect, include a significant proportion of men who became casualties in 1914.

The estimates that were provided to Churchill's research team by the reichsarchiv indicate three quarters of a million plus for 1914 on the Western Front alone, which is irreconcilable with a figure of 850,000 for all fronts.

Thanks for all your hard work,

Phil (PJA)

[joerookery]

but attests the sheer magnitude of the task and the inability of the authorities to keep up with it.

Phil,

I figured out who you are – not so bad for an old man! I'm amazed by the detail that you all can do with this. It was easier for us maybe lazier – to just take figures from Neiberg in our last book. In the current book on Halen I am literally giving up on the whole casualty thing as just too hard. Granted it is a micro examination but there are so many variables and poor reports – missed reports and just plain out errors that I cannot keep up with it. I am impressed by what you all have done.

V/R

Joe

[phil andrade]

Kind comments, and deeply appreciated, Joe.

Your book is a major milestone for me ; this is the first time that I've been made aware of just how patchwork in nature was the Germany that went to war in 1914. Thank goodness you've done this !

As for the casualty statistics, it's never been my intention to seek exactness....just to get a " feel" for the kind of magnitude involved and a sense of how far the Germans succeeded - or failed - in their endeavours to hold the advantage in the exchange rate.

One thing especially comes over loud and clear in my research : it's not necessarily the total numbers that mattered ; it's how they were comprised that determined the impact. Two opposing armies at Verdun sustained remarkably equal casualties ; yet on the one hand the proportion posted as killed or missing was significantly higher than it was on the other. That mattered, and implied damage of a very different nature and extent.

I just cite Verdun as an example.

You could make comparable deductions in regard to British casualties, too. July to November 1916, with the Somme fighting, and July to November 1918, with the victorious final battles....both produced very similar totals of casualties ; but those of the Somme in 1916 were far more fatal, entailing perhaps fifty per cent more deaths.

I have no doubt that the Germans aspired to thoroughness and accuracy in the tabulations of their casualties.

The strain of war might have proved too much for these records to be kept up to the mark; but every effort was made, apparently, in the post war years to make good any defects.

Phil (PJA)

[joerookery]

Your book is a major milestone for me ; this is the first time that I've been made aware of just how patchwork in nature was the Germany that went to war in 1914. T

Phil,

I really look forward to your thoughts in the book review section. Patchwork is an interesting word. I like "ad hoc". However probably both of them are inaccurate in some way.

The tabulation of the casualty thing is just too much for me. Far easier to sit back and let the good minds figure this one out!

[Guest]

This is a truly fascinating thread. Very educational.

[Martin Feledziak]

I am just going to drop a note on here.

I am doing my own family history study and The Verluslisten is probably just about the only resource I have.
The volunteers are doing a superb job of indexing the soldiers and recently found an entry for my Grand Father,
Marcin Feledziak Born 14 10 1897.

I only recently discovered he had served in the German Army because he never disclosed any details to my Father.
I did know his cousins had served and indeed his brother was killed in 1915, ( covered in the thread in my signature below )

So I also had the problem that I had no idea with which regiment he served until he was indexed by the volunteers this month ( May 2014 ).
I now know he was with 10 Kompanie infantry Regiment 171.

His entry appears in the report for 22 February 1919, so this is some 3 months after the end of the war.
Also it lists his status as missing.

As it stands I could now open up every report after 22 Feb 1919 and look for another report in the section where 171 regiment will logically appear. Or just wait for the indexers to find his next entry , if there is one.
In theory there should be another report showing a status as "Not missing- Lightly Wounded"

I do have an army Hospital photograph from 1918 featuring Martin and a group of other recovering soldiers.
Also my Grand Father survived both wars and died of mining related complications in 1968.

I have also added various snippets about Grand Father on the same "Johanns Thread" Post 316

[phil andrade]

This is a truly fascinating thread. Very educational.

Would you be willing to venture an opinion here, Martin ?

Not having your input here is a bit like staging Hamlet without the Prince.

Apologies to Ralph Whitehead......he is also The Prince of Denmark !

Phil (PJA)

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

The Prince here.... Hello Martin, I was looking at your recent find. In one way you are fortunate. From late 1916 to the lists at the end of the war there was no mention of regimental numbers. Once the war ended the regiments reappeared as there was no need to omit them for intelligence purposes. It is very likely your relative was listed as missing from a period at the end of the war and between the large number of losses and confusion, entries were falling behind in being entered. If you check the regimental history (if one exists) it might contain an Ehrentafel listing the losses by name and date. Hopefully he was listed in a later Verlustlisten when his status was determined.

Ralph

[phil andrade]

Ralph,

You allude to the cessation of citing regimental numbers in the list from late 1916.

What inspired this change in method, do you think ?

It's not as if the scale of casualties in 1916 exceeded that of the earlier part of the war : if censorship was the motive, I wonder why it took so long to impose it.

John Terraine wrote that this change was an indication of Germany's dreadful predicament : that in this we can see the effects of the attrition that had been brought to bear on the battlefield, especially the Somme.

The implication in his argument is that concealment is evidence of Allied success.

Are you convinced ?

Edit : Maybe it was Edmonds, not Terraine, who cited an enormous number of " concealed " German casualties that were revealed after the war...or perhaps it was Terraine citing Edmonds. These subsequent additions amounted to about half a million in an overall total of more than seven million. To cite these as a function of deliberate falsification strikes me as a case of over egging the pudding.

Phil (PJA)

[Martin Feledziak]

I decided to have a look through all the reports after 22 February 1919

I was only looking for items relating to Infantrerie Regiment 171.

I have screen grabbed cuttings out of those issues to produce an image. ( Posted 318 on my thread )

the report number and date for each entry is the file name. ( I had to reduce the size to upload so it is difficult to read )

Conclusion -

There are around 28 soldiers added for IR 171 since my GF's report. Many of the soldiers are reported POW or Dead and from a time much earlier in the war.

I have not found any more information about my GF.

I may have missed some reports because I am poor at reading German, I may not even properly understand how the reports are laid out.

But I have done my best.

N.B issue 2365 for March is missing

There is a history for 171 but it is difficult to get hold of.

[Guest]

Would you be willing to venture an opinion here, Martin ?

Phil (PJA)

Phil - It is with some trepidation that one ventures through this low-wire entanglement.

This seems to be an extraordinarily complex subject that needs expert knowledge and I can safely say I am not an expert in anything. I think it would take a year just to come up to speed. There are a few critical topics where emotions tend to run high and casualties seem to be one of them. It is a fascinating debate nonetheless and I really have to take my hat off to the Prince. Very measured analysis from my perspective and incredible detail.

I was going to ask why so many people doubt the German sources and don't doubt the British ones with similar passion. The British were not particularly good at recording their casualties in certain periods of the War - 1914 in particular. One only has to look at the gaps in Statistics 1914-1919 and the gaps in the Medical OH to realise the British records were incomplete. James Edmonds and the OH seems to be at the root of lot of British attitudes towards the reliability of German statistics. This is interesting in itself since he appears to have approximated the German numbers rather than simply saying no-one knows. His numbers for Le Cateau for example do not tally with the evidence in the diaries.

I would venture to suggest getting an absolute number is more or less impossible for both sides, so the debate (as I see it) is which set of numbers are the best approximation and why.

As an example I have just trawled through Brig E A James' "British Regiments 1914-18" for Regimental level fatal casualties for the Great War. As a check I ran the searches through the CWGC database using 11th Nov 1918 and 4th Nov 1919 (Russia) as end dates. The variations between James' figures 'complied with very great care from many sources' primarily SDGW in 1976 for the British Infantry are off by 18,377 men or some 3.2% with his estimates for the King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regt) out by over 20% and other battalions out by 16.9% (Devonshire Regt) 11.4% (R Sussex Regt). There may well be a simple explanation for the difference but it isn't the Russian campaign. James's number have sometimes been used as benchmark. I am wondering how one in five King's Own men can be missed. In theory the only sub-category of casualties we should be able to get close to are the fatal casualties.

Take the Devonshire Regiment's fatal casualties as an example:

CWGC 4th Aug 1914 -11th Nov 1918..........................................6,461*

CWGC 4th Aug 1914 -4th Nov 1919............................................6,770* ( difference of 309)

The Devonshire Regiment 1914-1918 by CT Atkinson................5,787** (difference of 674 men from the CWGC 4th Nov 19 figure which is 11.7% higher, the CWGC 1918 end date figure is 11.6% higher )

Brig James: British Regiments 1914-1918...................................5,790***

* these numbers do not include Devonshire Regt as secondary Regiment which total 50 men to Nov 1919 or 47 men to end 11th Nov 1914.

** C T Atkinson was member of the Historical Section that wrote the OHs, so had access to the definitive data. The book was published in 1925

*** published in 1976. Presumably based on the 1925 publication.

Perhaps illustrating just how difficult it is to trace the killed. The wounded and sick would make any accurate calculation significantly more problematic so I am not surprised that the Germans found it equally difficult to track casualties.

Any mistakes in the numbers are mine.

MG

[phil andrade]

Martin,

You ask why people doubt the German sources but tend to accept those of the British.

My answer is that the German sources are so inimical to those seeking to present the outcomes of the Somme and Passchendaele in a light favourable to the Allies that they resort to the argument that the German losses are understated. This understatement is attributed either to exclusion of lightly wounded men from the casualty figures, or to a policy of deliberate falsification, or both.

Since this approach has been endorsed, or espoused, by the British Official Historian it is understandable that his arguments have been accepted by people.

There is another argument that the destruction of German archives at Potsdam in the Second World War prevents historians from finding out the true extent of German casualties 1914-18. The fact that Winston Churchill's researchers had access to these archives in the 1920s appears to be ignored. Again, the evidence of their research is harmful to Edmonds's case. I will risk labouring a point by reiterating that the evidence of the sanitatsbericht is also avoided by Edmonds. If he had reason to doubt it, he failed to address it.

Apropos disparities in British figures, we need only cite the aggregate of fatalities published in the Statistics of the Military Effort - about 947,000 - and compare it with CWGC registers which give a figure of more than 1.1 million , to realise that there are divergencies of significant scale. You make that all too clear in those examples above.

I find it hard to accept that the official German total of about two million military dead was deliberately falsified, any more than was the figure published for the British Empire in the Statistics of the Military Effort. The German figure might well be understated at two million, just as was the British Empire figure at 947,000. If the latter figure is increased by CWGC data to more than 1.1 million, then so might the German figure be raised equivalently to some 2.3 million. I believe that data from the VDK indicates well over 1.6 million German military dead interred from the Great War, and if we allow for unrecovered dead in the same proportion as those from the British Empire, then a figure in the order of 2.3 million is feasible. Understatement applies in both cases, but in no sense was this the result of deliberate concealment. The task was daunting, and failure to record everyone properly all too understandable.

In the meantime, I would afford the official German figure the same degree of respect and authority that I would give to the tabulations of the Military Effort....something which Edmonds and Co absolutely refused to do.

Phil (PJA)

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

Phil, In looking at the numbers and formats, I suspect that the reasons for the change are numerous. It was a time when the army was combing all industries for eligible men as replacements. Also, there was an interest in hiding the regimental/unit designations as a means of preventing the enemy from identifying specific areas where the losses were occurring. Then, there is the complete opposite result as dates of birth were then provided so that the annual class of men could be determined as well as the total losses reported each day, week, month, etc.

I suspect that the Germans, while realizing the intelligence information being given out they were still dedicated to providing the public with the details of each loss. I believe it was a mindset going back to the earlier decades when intelligence did not play such an important role in wars as it did then. Whatever the actual reasons are might take time and research to determine but I believe it is a combination of many.

Ralph

[phil andrade]

Ralph,

One senses the hand of the Hindenburg Ludendorff duumvirate here. The timing of the change suggests that.

The rationale behind the different presentation is moot.

If, as the Edmonds school of thought would have us believe, it was a conspiracy to conceal casualties that were only allowed to be revealed after the war, then the number - just short of half a million - would surely have been much greater.

It's my gut feeling that, of that half million addition, roughly half were attributable to the July to November 1918 fighting : of the balance, the greater part occurred in 1914, which implies about one million for those first five months, rather than the c.850,000 that were posted.

I think that about one quarter of the seven million plus total casualties were from 1918.

This is presumptuous of me, because I haven't done the heavy lifting work that you have accomplished. What reaches out and grabs my attention is the tabulation provided by Churchill in the appendix to his World Crisis, dealing with the German casualties on the Western Front, distributed by periods of time, and, for the greater part, between those suffered in the French and British held sectors of the front.

The period August 1914 to January 1915 inclusive had to be compiled from general estimates and were different in composition from the succeeding figures. These, it should be noted, were provided by German officials who were doing their best to provide Churchill's team with statistics. As those figures stand, they indicate more than 677,000 for August to November 1914, and 170,000 for December 1914 and January 1915 : a total of nearly 850,000 which applies to the Western Front only. Bearing in mind the heavy fighting against the Russians that occurred in that period, I feel confident that the figure of overall German casualties for 1914 was around one million as opposed to the 850,000 officially tabulated. No deliberate concealment, surely, just too much happening too quickly. It's significant that the total by the end of 1915 rose massively to well in excess of 2.5 million; my suggestion is that this does not mean that German casualties for 1915 were nearly 1.7 million - that's a suspiciously high total that cannot be reconciled with returns from the different fronts....I suspect that about one tenth of that huge number were attributable to the 1914 fighting.

I worry that I repeat myself. This has been alluded to before somewhere in this thread. But it bears repetition.

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

Rather than just spouting off my " rough and ready reckonings" it's time for me to take a leaf out of Martin's book and do some proper tabulations from the sources.

Here are the year by year figures for losses of men in the German Land Forces, as compiled by the Central Enquiry Office ( Zentral Nachweiseamt ) for War Casualties and War Graves. This is how things had been tabulated up until the end of June 1923. Totals include deaths from all causes ; number of woundings in so far as they were not mortal ( the number of individuals wounded and the number of wound cases is not given separately ) and the numbers of prisoners and missing, not including those known to have died in captivity :

1914.......837,810

1915.....1,706,195

1916.....1,391,908

1917.....1,180,900

1918.....1,496,430

Total posted up until end of 1918 : 6,586,243.

Additional casualties revealed after investigation post war : 494, 128

Grand total : 7,080,371.

It is apparent how the figure for 1915 stands out as excessive : hence my supposition that these are inflated by a significant number of 1914 casualties who had not been tabulated in the first frantic months of fighting both West and East. The 1918 figure is equally clearly understated, obviously because of the failure to keep control of records after July 1918. The shortfall here, I believe, accounts for at least half of the nearly five hundred thousand " concealed" casualties that were revealed in the months and years after the Armistice. The figures for 1916 and 1917 are understated - I think - by just a few per cent.

The totals above include men who died from accidents and disease and other non battle causes : they account for a relatively small number of deaths....in the order of 150,000 all told.

If we are to focus on battle casualties proper, the figure of seven million has got to be very near the mark if the tabulations cited are anything to go by. The incidence of multiple wounding would, I think, certainly allow for that total. Assessed year by year, a reasonable guess is, I suggest :

1914 : One million

1915 : One and a half million

1916 : One and a half million

1917 : One and a quarter million

1918 : One and three quarters million

Total : Seven Million

These figures are generally reconcilable with the official compilation I cited, provided we accept my contention that many of the 1914 casualties are tabulated in 1915. The falling off in 1917 indicates the tailing off of the war against the Russians after Kerensky's Offensive.

I have to admit, though, at my surprise at reading how fierce some of the battles against the Romanians were, even in 1917. Heavier German losses were suffered in these than I, for one, had supposed. The 1918 figure has surely got to be at least one and three quarters million ; the figure reflects the huge casualties of the spring and summer offensives and the nearly four hundred thousand prisoners who were taken in the West after those attacks had failed.

Hope this passes muster, if only as a very general survey based on what might be faulty supposition on my part.

Phil (PJA)

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

Phil, The subject of how many losses each year, each front would take some time to resolve. It is true that the losses were entered at various times for many reasons already discussed. There is one way to see just how many losses flowed from one year to the next by checking the dates the casualties occurred in. Wile each individual entry does not contain a date it does give a range. Also, you can check those of Baden, Württemberg, Saxony and Bavaria using the Stammrolle records. This would be quite a feat as it would take ears to verify these entries.

By checking any one section to see what periods are covered, numbers of losses, historic accounts and such a good idea of the numbers can be determined. Now, take into account the Germans counted year 1 from August 1914 to July 1915 you will have to determine just what your parameters are when starting this momentous task. Just a few bits to consider in this discussion.

Ralph

[Guest]

I found this that should be useful to some. Pity I don't read German?

Seems to go up to 1916, not sure if there should be lists for 1917-1918?

Verlustliste

Mike