Talk:World War II casualties/Archives/2015/June

Semi-protected edit request on 6 June 2015

please change population figure for Portuguese Timor in 1939 from 500,000 to 450,000 reliable source is : "Ferreira de Carvalho, Manuel Abreu - "Relatório dos Acontecimentos em Timor (1942-1945) published in 2003 by Instituto de Defesa Nacional - ISBN 972-762-245-3 As for the number of estimated casualties change 40,000 to 50,000 - source is : Ruas, Óscar Vasconcelos, "Relatório 1946-47", AHU The percentages should be altered accordingly. also, I would like to point out that "note 394" refers to a page which contains several factual errors and therefore should not be considered a reliable source. Palha (talk) 22:00, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

I made these edits [1] and [2] to include this information. I have retained the estimate of 40-70,000 war dead by the Australian DOD which is a reliable source.--Woogie10w (talk) 23:52, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Problem with Human losses of the Third Reich

The section "Third Reich" features internal link to German casualties in World War II as the main article, but I'm posting my question on this talk page for greater visibility. The section's table provides four options for the country of origin: 1) Austria, 2) Germany (within 1937 borders), 3) Ethnic Germans [Volksdeutsche] from other nations, and 4) Soviet citizens in the German military. One category is missing from the table. Please compare with the article Poles in the Wehrmacht. Read the whole opening paragraph about the Poles forced to sign the Nazi Deutsche Volksliste in Upper Silesia and Pomerania. – The German minority in Poland who formed Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz were never categorized as Volksdeutsche by Hitler, but as Reichsdeutsche (!) in disregard for international law. We have plenty of references for that. The ethnic Germans of interwar Poland (one of country's several minorities) were proclaimed "rightful citizens" of the Reich by the Führer through the so-called "Annexation Decree on the Administration of the Occupied Polish Territories" of October 8, 1939. In other words, we should have a section about the Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany also, because these Reichsdeutsche who in fact were not from Germany might be inflating at least some of the postwar figures for the Reich. Poeticbent talk 13:39, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Further reading: Prof. Diemut Majer, University of Bern (2003). "Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany and Occupied Eastern Europe with Special Regard to Occupied Poland, 1939-1945. JHU Press. pp. 236–246. ISBN 0801864933. Retrieved 14 May 2015. Völkisch Inequality in Public Law. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)

The bi-linguals are not missing they are included in German figures for E Europe not with Germany proper, the article is true to the source and correct. In the 1958 German statistics the losses ethnic Germans from Poland are given as 108,000 (70,000 monolingual and 30,000 bilingual) Many Poles on cat 3/4 of the Volksliste were conscripted into Volkssturm in 1944-45 not the Wehrmacht, nevertheless they are included with the ethnic Germans in the German statistics. Do you have a reliable Polish source that provides details of these losses?--Woogie10w (talk) 13:59, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

In general the issue of bi-linguals in Eastern Europe is contentious becuase these men were forceably conscripted but nevertheless in the German ranks, the Soviet citizens in the Wehrmacht were treated differently in German sources, they are not included with German casualties.--Woogie10w (talk) 14:07, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

The details of the 432,000 German losses in the 1958 West German figures are provided for each nation in E Europe, however Overmans lumps together these losses as 206,000 in the annexed territories(Poland, Sudetenland) and 328,000 in "east and SE European" regions. The figures on Wikipedia need a reliable source that can be verified. Do Polish sources have figures that we can cite?--Woogie10w (talk) 14:24, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Also the 1958 German sources and Overmans are quite clear, the figure for Reichsdeutsche includes only Germans in the 1937 borders, ethnic Germans from Poland are definitely not included with the Reichsdeutsche--Woogie10w (talk) 14:29, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

• I agree with you that the issue of "bi-linguals" in Eastern Europe is contentious. However, I'm not talking about bi-linguals in Poland. I'm talking about Germans living in Poland. I'm making a clear distinction here between those who were "forcibly conscripted" in the annexed territories after the invasion, and those who were not forcibly conscripted, but in fact, joined the invading Nazis of their own free will and murdered Poles with impunity. Polish Census of 1931 listed 740,992 Germans in Poland by first language (or 2.32% of the population). This is a considerable number. Also, this is exactly what the Führer's decree of October 8, 1939 was for. – The question is, how many of them are being included in the number of "German" war dead? Probably all. The West German figures from 1958 are most controversial due to Cold War politics as well as statistical interference from the pro-Nazi lobby under Konrad Adenauer which (before the 1960s) included Holocaust perpetrators. Polish historians try to exclude Polish Germans from the number of Polish casualties of WWII (see: Kaczmarek, Ryszard (2010), Polacy w Wehrmachcie [Poles in the Wehrmacht] (in Polish), Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, ISBN 978-83-08-04494-0, Paweł Dybicz for Tygodnik "Przegląd" 38/2012.) but this is a gray area, because they were not German citizens per se. Poeticbent talk 18:42, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

The 1958 figures include all German military war dead of all Polish citizens living within the pre war 1939 Polish borders regardless of the primary language spoken. The toal German figures are for the entire armed forces, they break this total out by geographic area, pre war Germany, Austria and conscripted persons outside of the 1937 borders. The 1958 figure is an estimate for each eastern European nation, Overmans based his figures on a statistical sample of the actual personnel records. In any case this is what is outlined in the article which is correct and cannot be changed.--Woogie10w (talk) 18:55, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

I changed the description to conscripts from other eastern European nations with the details in the footnotes. The description is NPOV, because some of these men spoke German poorly as a second language. --Woogie10w (talk) 19:45, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

I have requested the book Polacy w Wehrmachcie / Ryszard Kaczmarek at the New York Public Library Stay tuned.--Woogie10w (talk) 21:34, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

• Please take a look also at: Hubert, Michel (1998). Deutschland im Wandel. Geschichte der deutschen Bevolkerung seit 1815 Steiner [Germany in Transition: Population since 1815]. Franz Verlag. pp. 268–272. ISBN 3-515-07392-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) — I would very much like you comment on the opinion of some contemporary historians who continue to dispute the number of war-related deaths among the Germans, because the governments of West Germany routinely included in their estimations not only foreign Volksdeutsche but also expellees from Eastern Europe as actual "citizens" of Germany. Poeticbent talk 14:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

You wrote "the opinion of some contemporary historians" which historians--Woogie10w (talk) 15:14, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

• Please comment on what Hubert says first, because I don't speak German. The "expellees from Eastern Europe" was a very broad term in postwar politics and included actual "settlers" in the annexed territories of occupied Poland brought in from the Soviet Union, Bessarabia, Romania and the Baltic states by SS Obergruppenführer Arthur Greiser before the war's end. This is a theme recurring in a number of Wikipedia articles. Poeticbent talk 15:28, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

* None of the above mentioned people would be considered "German" by international standards, but remained in Germany after the war as rightful citizens nevertheless. — There's a number of sources I'd love to be able to check out, but have no access to due to my location. Therefore, I can only assume that the opinions expressed in some other articles in Wikipedia might have some merit if the subject was a part of a separate focus study. Poeticbent talk 15:56, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

1. Wysiedlenia, wypędzenia i ucieczki 1939-1959: atlas ziem Polski : Polacy, Żydzi, Niemcy, Ukraińcy by Witold Sienkiewicz, Grzegorz Hryciuk, Demart, 2008 - History - 240 pages
2. Ludność niemiecka na ziemiach polskich w latach 1939-1945 i jej powojenne losy: materiały z konferencji Wyższa Szkoła Pedagogiczna w Bydgoszczy - 1995 - 271 pages
3. Zrozumieć historię--kształtować przyszłość: wybrane aspekty stosunków polsko-niemieckich w latach 1933-1949 : materiały pomocnicze do nauczania historii by Kinga Hartmann - 2009 - 314 pages
4. Przesiedlenia ludności w Europie 1915-1959 by Jan Czerniakiewicz - 2005 - 183 pages

   ---

See Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50)# Expulsion area for a detailed description of expelees in the eyes of German law. Readers should be abel to judge the merits of the West German POV--Woogie10w (talk) 16:05, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Good question, Hubert refers to Germans resettled in Poland during the war. Some were from the Baltic States and Romania and are included in the 1958 expulsion death figures. In addition there were Germans like Erika Steinbach who's parents were from Germany, these Germans are not included in the 1958 figures of expellee dead or by Schieder, however Reichling does include them in his 1985 study. In any case in the eyes of German law little Erika was an "expellee" and her parents could collect benfits. The expellees had a powerful lobby in post war West Germany and could deliver votes to the CDU/CSU. --Woogie10w (talk) 15:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Cleanup

This article needs a major cleanup. Way too much content is duplicated in other articles, there are numerous dead links and a general copyedit is needed. --Woogie10w (talk) 23:26, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

OK for now?--Woogie10w (talk) 00:07, 29 June 2015 (UTC)