Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

German casualties in World War II

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
German casualties in World War II

Statistics for German World War II military casualties are divergent and contradictory. The wartime military casualty figures compiled by German High Command, up until January 31, 1945, are often cited by military historians when covering individual campaigns in the war. A recent study by the German historian Rüdiger Overmans found that the German High Command statistics are not reliable, he estimated German military dead at 5.3 million, including 900,000 men conscripted from outside of Germany's 1937 borders, in Austria, and in east-central Europe. However the German government still maintains that its records list 4.3 million dead and missing military personnel. Civilian deaths during the war include air raid deaths, estimates of German civilians killed only by Allied strategic bombing have ranged from around 350,000 to 500,000. Civilian deaths, due to the flight and expulsion of Germans and the forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union are disputed and range from 500,000 to over 2.0 million. According to the German government Suchdienste (Search Service) there were 300,000 German victims (including Jews) of Nazi racial, political and religious persecution. This statistic does not include 200,000 German persons with mental and/or physical disabilities who were murdered in the Nazi euthanasia program.

Contents

United States Army Figures for German and Italian Losses

According to the report of General George Marshall issued in 1945 the "breakdown of German and Italian losses against American, British, and French forces" in the war in Europe was as follows:

Source of figures: Biennial report of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army to the Secretary of War : July 1, 1943, to June 30, 1945

(A) 252,415 Germans and Italians were captured in Tunisia According to the Imperial War Museum Following the Italian surrender in 1943, 100,000 Italians volunteered to work as 'co-operators'. They were given considerable freedom and mixed with local people. Italian fascist forces fought in the Italian campaign until the end of the war with the Italian Social Republic

(B)Includes 3,404,949 disarmed enemy forces.

(C) The Biennial report of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army issued in 1945 also estimated Japanese "battle dead" at 1.239 million. However, Japanese government figures from 2003 put their military war dead at 2.3 million.

Demographic estimates of military losses

Based on information available in January 1946, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. put German military dead at 3,250,000. According to Gregory Frumkin this presumably referred to aggregate German forces including those conscripted outside the 1937 German borders.

In 1951, Gregory Frumkin, who was throughout its existence the editor of the Statistical Year Book of the League of Nations, provided an assessment of German military losses based on a demographic analysis of the European population from 1939 to 1947. Frumkin put total German military dead and missing at 3,975,000: Germany (1937 borders) 3,500,000; Austria 230,000; 200,000 Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia; 40,000 from France, 3,700 from the Netherlands; 700 from Norway and 398 from Denmark.

The West German government in November 1949, based on an analysis of the population balance for Germany within its 1937 borders, put German military losses at 3,250,000: 1,650,000 killed and 1,600,000 missing. Figures exclude Austria and conscripted ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe

A demographic analysis of the population balance by the West German government in 1960 put the total military losses of the Wehrmacht at 4,440,000; 3,760,000 for Germany (1937 borders); 430,000 conscripted ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe and 250,000 from Austria.

Air raid deaths

Official statistics published by the West German government 1956 put the death toll due to air raids at 635,000. However, estimates from other sources tend to be lower, ranging from 305,000 to 500,000 persons killed by Allied bombing of German cities.

1956 West German government report

The schedule below details the statistics published by the West German government 1956. They estimated 635,000 total deaths, 500,000 due to the strategic bombing of Germany and an additional 135,000 killed in air raids during the 1945 flight and evacuations on the eastern front. The civilian deaths in the air raids on eastern Front after 1/31/1945 are also included with the figures of the losses during the Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50)

  • Civilian bombing deaths (not including refugees) of 436,000 include 350,000 dead, 54,000 died of wounds and 32,000 missing and presumed dead.
  • Of the 350,000 civilians listed as dead (not including refugees), 126,000 of the deaths occurred after January 31, 1945.
  • Included in the total of 635,000 air raid dead were losses for Germany in 1937 borders which totaled 593,000. 465,000 not including refugees (410,000 civilians, 32,000 foreigners and POW and 23,000 military and Police); and losses of 128,000 refugees on eastern front (127,000 civilians and 1,000 military and Police)
  • The Austrian government puts their losses in the air war at 24,000. This figure is included in the schedule above.

    • Sources for figures in schedule:

    (1) Hans Sperling, Die Luftkriegsverluste während des zweiten Weltkriegs in Deutschland, Wirtschaft und Statistik October 1956, journal published by Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland. (German government Statistical Office)

    (2) Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1960, Page 78.

    (3) Erich Hampe "Der Zivile Luftschutz im Zweiten Weltkrieg" pp.138-142

    The United States Strategic Bombing Survey

    The United States Strategic Bombing Survey gave three different figures for German air raid deaths

    1-The summary report of September 30, 1945 put total casualties for the entire period of the war at 305,000 killed and 780,000 wounded.

    2- The section Effects of Strategic Bombing on the German War Economy of October 31, 1945 put the losses at 375,000 killed and 625,000 wounded

    3-The section The Effect of Bombing on Health and Medical Care in Germany of January 1947 made a preliminary calculated estimate of air raid dead at 422,000 According to the report "no complete and accurate figures on German civilian air raid casualties, covering the entire period of the war, are available". The authors maintain that the German figures for 1940 through 1943 of 111,000 killed was generally correct and that their estimate of 311,000 dead for the years 1944 and 1945 was based on the tons of bombs dropped and the population size of the cities bombed. Regarding overall losses they concluded that "It was further estimated that an additional number, approximately 25% of known deaths in 1944 and 1945, were still unrecovered and unrecorded. With an addition of this estimate of 1944 and 1945 unrecorded deaths, the final estimation gave in round numbers a half a million German civilians killed by Allied aerial attacks"

    Analysis by Richard Overy

    Historian Richard Overy in 2014 published a study of the air war The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945 in which he disputed the official German figures of air war dead. He estimated total air raid deaths at 353,000. The main points of Overy's analysis are as follows.

  • Overy maintains that the German estimates are based on incorrect speculations for losses during the final months of the war when there was a gap in the record keeping system. He points out that the figures for air raid dead in the last three months of the war were estimated in the West German figures at 300,000, which includes the deaths of 135,000 eastern refugees fleeing westward, Overy believes that this is not plausible. The official German figures for the final months of the war include the inflated total of 60,000 deaths from the Bombing of Dresden – Overy notes that the latest research puts the Dresden death toll at approximately 25,000, less than half the West German estimate
  • Overy based his analysis on data in German archival sources for the years 1940-1942 and the Civilian Defense Division report of United States Strategic Bombing Survey for the period January 1943 to January 1945. These archival sources indicated a total of 271,188 air raid deaths from the beginning of the war until the end of January 1945. Overy noted that "No doubt this does not include all those who were killed or died of wounds, but it does include uniformed personnel, POWs, and foreign workers, and it applies to the Greater German area". Using the United States Strategic Bombing Survey data Overy calculated an average monthly death toll of 18,777 from September 1944 to January 1945, taking this monthly average he estimated losses of 57,000 from February to April 1945 to which he adds an additional 25,000 killed in Dresden for total deaths of 82,000 from February to April 1945. The figures up until the end of January 1945 of 271,000 and the 82,000 from February to April 1945 give an overall figure of 353,000 air war deaths. Overy summarizes: "Detailed reconstruction of deaths caused by the Royal Air Force bombing from February to May 1945, though incomplete, suggests a total of at least 57,000. If casualties inflicted by the American air forces are assumed to be lower, since their bombing was less clearly aimed at cities, an overall death toll of 82,000 is again statistically realistic. In the absence of unambiguous statistical evidence, the figure of 353,000 gives an approximate scale consistent with the evidence".

    • Other Estimates of air raid deaths

  • A 2005 report by the German Red Cross put the death toll due to strategic bombing at 500,000.
  • A 1990 study by the East German historian de:Olaf Groehler estimated 360,000–370,000 civilians were killed by Allied strategic bombing within the 1937 German boundaries, for the German Reich including Austria, forced laborers, POW and military the total is estimated at 406,000. In 2005 Groehler's figures were published in the authoritative series The German Reich and the Second World War
  • The estimate by West German government in November 1949 for Germany in 1937 borders was 450,000 killed in bombing and 50,000 in ground fighting. Figures do not include Austria.
  • The British PM Mr. Attlee in a statement to Parliament on 22 October 1945 put the German death toll in the bombing campaign at 350,000

    • Civilians killed in 1945 military campaign

    The West German government in made a rough estimate in 1956 of 20,000 civilians killed during the 1945 military campaign in current post war German borders, not including the former German territories in Poland. However, there is a more recent estimate of 22,000 civilians killed during the fighting in Berlin only. Not included in these figures are civilians who died in the fighting and atrocities in East-Prussia (Konigsberg, Pillau), Pommerania (Danzig, Kolberg) and Silesia (Breslau). The losses of civilians from East-Central Europe in the 1945 are included with the expulsion dead, the German Archives report of 1974 estimated 150,000 violent deaths of civilians in East-Central Europe during the 1945 military campaign.

    Deaths due to Nazi political, racial and religious persecution

    The West German government put the number of Germans killed by the Nazi political, racial and religious persecution at 300,000 (including 160,000 German Jews)

    A 2003 report by the German Federal Archive put the total murdered during the Action T4 Euthanasia program at over 200,000 persons.

    NKVD special camps in East Germany 1945-1950

    The Soviets set up NKVD special camps in the Soviet-occupied parts of Germany and areas east of the Oder-Neisse line to intern Germans accused of alleged ties to the Nazis, or because they were hindering the establishment of Stalinism in East Germany. Between 122,000 and 150,000 were detained and at least 43,000 did not survive.

    Expulsion of Germans after World War II and the Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union

    See Also: Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50) and Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union

    Civilian deaths, due to the flight and expulsion of Germans and the forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union, are sometimes included with World War II casualties. During the Cold War, the West German government estimated the death toll at 2.225 million in the wartime evacuations, forced labor in the Soviet Union as well as the post war expulsions. This figure was to remain unchallenged until the 1990s when some German historians put the actual death toll in the expulsions at 500,000 confirmed deaths listed in a 1965 German Red Cross study. The German Historical Museum puts the figure at 600,000 dead; they maintain the figure of 2 million expulsion deaths cannot be supported. However, the position of the German government, the German Federal Agency for Civic Education and the German Red Cross is that the death toll in the expulsions is between 2.0 and 2.5 million civilians. The German historian Rüdiger Overmans maintains that there are more arguments for a lower figure of 500,000 rather than the higher figures of over 2.0 million. He believes that the previous studies by the German government should be subject to critical revision and new research is needed to establish the actual number of expulsion deaths.

    The following studies were published by the West German government estimating expulsion deaths.

  • In 1950 the West German government made a preliminary estimate of 3,000,000 German civilians missing in Eastern Europe (1.5 million from pre war Germany and 1.5 million ethnic Germans from East Europe) whose fate needed to be clarified. This estimate was later superseded by the 1958 German Government demographic study.
  • The Schieder commission from 1953 to 1961 estimated 2.3 million civilian deaths in the expulsions- Germany in 1937 borders the Oder-Neisse region 2,167,000 (figure includes 500,000 military and 50,000 air raid dead); Poland (1939 borders) 217,000, Free City of Danzig 100,000; Czechoslovakia 225,600; Yugoslavia 69,000; Rumania 10,000; Hungary 6,000 The statistical information in the Schieder Report was later superseded by the 1958 German Government demographic study.
  • The West German government statistical office issued a report in 1958 that put the number of civilians dead or missing in the expulsions and forced labor in the USSR at 2,225,000( including 1,339,000 for Germany in 1937 borders; Poland 185,000, Danzig 83,200; Czechoslovakia 272,900; Yugoslavia 135,800; Rumania 101,000; Hungary 57,000; Baltic States 51,400. The figures include those killed in the 1945 military campaign and the forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union. The figures from this report are often cited by historians writing in the English language. Rüdiger Overmans pointed out that these figures represent persons whose fate had not been clarified, not necessarily dead as a result of the expulsions.
  • The West German government set up a unified body the Suchdienst (search service) of the German churches working in conjunction with the German Red Cross to trace the individual fates of those who were dead or missing as result of the expulsions and deportations. In 1965 the final report was issued by the search service which was able to confirm 473,013 civilian deaths in Eastern Europe; and an additional 1,905,991 cases whose fate could not be determined. This report remained confidential until 1987. Rüdiger Overmans presented a summary of this data at a 1994 historical symposium in Poland.
  • In 1974, the West German Federal Archive (Bundesarchiv) issued a report to "compile and evaluate information available in the Federal Archives and elsewhere regarding crimes and brutalities committed against Germans in the course of the expulsion". The report estimated 600,000 civilian deaths (150,000 violent Deaths during war in 1945; 200,000 in Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union and 250,000 in post war internment Camps and forced labor in Eastern Europe) In particular, the report identified deaths due to crimes against international law: the 1958 report of the Federal Office for Statistics listed as "post-war losses" two million people whose fate remained unaccounted for in the population balance, but who according to the 1974 report were "not exclusively victims of crimes against international law" such as post war deaths due to malnutrition and disease.

    • Recent research on German expulsion losses:

  • The Deutsches Historisches Museum puts the number of dead at 600,000, they maintain the official figure of 2 million cannot be supported.
  • In his 2000 study of German military casualties Rüdiger Overmans found 344,000 additional military deaths of Germans from the Former eastern territories of Germany and conscripted ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. Overmans believes this will reduce the number of civilians previously listed as missing in the expulsions. Overmans did not investigate civilian expulsion losses, only military casualties, he merely noted that other studies estimated of expulsion losses from about 500,000 to 2,000,000. Overmans maintains that there are more arguments for a lower figure of 500,000 rather than the higher figures of over 2.0 million. He believes new research on the number of expulsion deaths is needed since only 500,000 of the reported 2,000,00 deaths have been confirmed.
  • The German historian Ingo Haar maintains that civilian losses in the expulsions have been overstated for decades by the German government for political reasons. Haar argues that during the Cold War the West German government put political pressure on the Statistisches Bundesamt to push the figures upward to agree to the Search Service combined total of 2.3 million dead and missing. Haar maintains that the Search Service figure of 1.9 million missing persons is based on unreliable information and that the actual death toll in the expulsions is between 500-600,000 which is based on confirmed deaths.
  • The German historians Hans Henning Hahn and Eva Hahn have published a detailed study of the flight and expulsions that is sharply critical of official German accounts of the cold war era. The Hahn's believe that the official German figure of 2 million deaths is a historical myth that lacks foundation. The Hahn's point out that the figure of 473,013 confirmed deaths includes 80,522 in the post war period; they maintain that most of the deaths occurred during the Nazi organized flight and evacuation during the war, and the Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union. They place the ultimate blame for the mass flight and expulsion on the wartime policy of the Nazis in Eastern Europe.
  • In 2006 the German government reaffirmed its belief that 2.0 to 2.5 million civilians perished in the flight and expulsion from Eastern Europe. They maintain that the figure is correct because it includes additional deaths from malnutrition and disease of those civilians subject to the expulsions. State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Christoph Bergner, outlined the stance of the respective governmental institutions in Deutschlandfunk saying that the numbers presented by the German government and others are not contradictory to the numbers cited by Haar, and that the below 600,000 estimate comprises the deaths directly caused by atrocities during the expulsion measures and thus only includes people who on the spot were raped, beaten, or else brought to death, while the above two millions estimate also includes people who on their way to post-war Germany have died of epidemics, hunger, cold, air raids and the like.

    • Total Population Losses 1939–1946

    Estimated total German population losses (in 1937 German borders) directly related to the war range between 5.5 to 6.9 million persons. These figures do not include ethnic Germans from other nations in the German military and ethnic German civilians who were killed in expulsions. In 1956 the West German government figures in the table below list an estimated about 5.5 million deaths (military and civilian) directly caused by the war within the borders of 1937. A study by the German demographer Peter Marschalck put the total deaths directly related to the war both military and civilians at 5.2 million, plus an estimated decline in births of 1.7 million, bringing total population losses related to the war at 6.9 million persons within the borders of 1937. There were additional deaths of the ethnic Germans outside of Germany in Eastern Europe, men conscripted during the war and ethnic German civilian deaths during post war expulsions

    German government figures (2005)

    In 2005 the German government Suchdienste (Search Service) put the total combined German military and civilian war dead at 7,375,800, including ethnic Germans outside of Germany and Austrians. This figure includes 4.3 million military dead and missing, 500,000 killed by strategic bombing, 300,000 victims of Nazi political, racial and religious persecution, 2,251,500 civilian dead in expulsions and 24,300 Austrian civilians.

    Population Balance for Germany in 1937 borders (not including Austria or the ethnic Germans of East Europe): May 1939 to October 1946

    According to West German Government 1956

    Sources for figures: Wirtschaft und Statistik October 1956, Journal published by Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland. (German government Statistical Office)

    Notes:

    1. -Population May 1939 Census- These figures are for Germany in 1937 borders, they do not include Austria or the ethnic Germans of East Europe.
    2. -Live Births- are those actually recorded from May 1939 until June 1944 and from January to October 1946. The gap in vital statistics between the middle of 1944 and the end of 1945 was estimated.
    3. -Net Immigration-German Refugees were ethnic Germans of Eastern Europe who lived outside Germany in 1937 borders before the war.
    4. -Civilian Deaths- These are deaths due to natural causes not directly related to the war. Figure includes deaths actually recorded from May 1939 until June 1944 and from January to October 1946. The gap in vital statistics between the middle of 1944 and the end of 1945 was estimated. The German government Statistical Office figures in the above table put the deaths due to natural causes at 7,130,000. A study by the German demographer Peter Marschalck estimated the expected deaths from natural causes based on the peacetime death rate would have been 5,900,000. The German economist de:Bruno Gleitze from the German Institute for Economic Research estimated that included in the total of 7.1 million deaths by natural causes that there were 1,2 million excess deaths caused by an increase in mortality due to the harsh conditions in Germany during and after the war In Allied occupied Germany the shortage of food was an acute problem in 1946–47 the average kilocalorie intake per day was only 1,600 to 1,800, an amount insufficient for long-term health.,
    5. -Killed in Air war - Figure for civilians only, does not include 23,000 police and military and 32,000 POW and foreign workers.
    6. -Killed in 1945 Land Battles- This is a rough estimate made in 1956 for Germany in current post war borders, not including the former German territories in post war Poland. However, there is a more recent estimate of 22,000 civilians killed during the fighting in Berlin only.
    7. -Military Dead - Includes Wehrmacht as well as SS/police and paramilitary forces. The Statistisches Bundesamt put the total at 3,760,000. The Overmans study of German military casualties put the total at about 4.4 million.
    8. -POW still held by Allies- 1,750,000 POW from Germany within in the 1937 borders were still held by the allies in October 1946. Total German POW held at that time were about 2.5 million, including 300,000 men from other nations conscripted by Nazi Germany not included in the 1939 population and 384,000 POW held in Germany who are included in the 1946 census figures. By 1950 almost all POW had been released except for 29,000 men held in forced labor in the USSR or convicted as war criminals.
    9. -Germans remaining in Poland in October 1946 were 1,750,000, but by 1950 the number had been reduced to 1,100,000 because of expulsions after October 1946. Those remaining in 1950 became Polish citizens but were German nationals in 1939.
    10. -Germans Remaining Abroad-Includes expelled Germans who had emigrated to other countries or were in Denmark.
    11. -Expulsion and Deportation Dead - This estimate is only for the Oder-Neisse region of Germany in the 1937 borders, not including the ethnic Germans of other Eastern European nations. Figure includes civilian deaths in the 1945 military campaign, the forced labor in the USSR as well as excess deaths due to post war famine and disease. The German Church Service put the total of confirmed expulsion dead at about 300,000 for Germany in the 1937 borders, the balance of 960,000 were reported as missing and whose fate had not been clarified.
    12. -Emigrated & Murdered Jews- The Statistisches Bundesamt (German government Statistical Office) gave a total of 200,000 Jews who had emigrated or were murdered, they did not estimate those actually who were murdered. Most sources outside of Germany put the Holocaust death toll in Germany at about 150,000 Jews.
    13. -Net Emigration of Foreign Population - The Statistisches Bundesamt pointed out that this was a rough estimate.
    14. -Other, Misc. - The Statistisches Bundesamt defined the others as "emigrated Germans, POW remaining abroad voluntarily, and German concentration camp deaths" (deutsche KZ-Opfer).
    15. -Population October 1946 Census- Figure of 65,310,000 does not include 693,000 displaced persons (DPs) living in Germany. Figure includes 853,000 in the Saarland.

    Population Balance for Austria

    The Austrian government provides the following information on human losses during the rule of the Nazis. For Austria the consequences of the Nazi regime and the Second World War were disastrous: During this period 2,700 Austrians had been executed and more than 16,000 citizens murdered in the concentration camps. Some 16,000 Austrians were killed in prison, while over 67,000 Austrian Jews were deported to death camps, only 2,000 of them lived to see the end of the war. In addition, 247,000 Austrians lost their lives serving in the army of the Third Reich or were reported missing, and 24,000 civilians were killed during bombing raids.

    Population Balance for the ethnic Germans of eastern Europe

    In 1958 the West German government statistical office put the losses of the ethnic Germans at 1,318,000 (886,000 civilians in the expulsions and 411,000 in the German military and 22,000 in the Hungarian and Romanian military) The research of Rüdiger Overmans puts military losses of ethnic Germans at 534,000Ingo Haar points out that of the 886,000 estimated civilian dead from east Europe only about 170,000 deaths have been confirmed; the balance are considered unsolved cases.

    Controversies over German Losses

    In post-war Germany the fate of civilians and prisoners of war has been a contentious topic. The current view of the German government is that these losses were due to an aggressive war started by the German nation. However, there are fringe groups who attempt to trivialize the crimes of the Hitler period by comparing German losses to the Holocaust.

    The ultra-right in Germany has coined the phrases "Bombing Holocaust" and "Expulsion Holocaust". The bombing of Dresden and the bombing campaign in general has been a topic of ultra-right propaganda in post-war Germany. Amongst others, the German historian Wolfgang Benz believes that the use of the term "Bombing Holocaust" runs contrary to historical fact. Civilian losses in the expulsions from Eastern Europe are viewed as an enormous human tragedy in Germany. The German government currently places the ultimate blame for the mass flight and expulsion on the wartime policy of the Nazis in Eastern Europe. There are those like Heinz Nawratil who try to equate the expulsions from Eastern Europe with the Holocaust. The German historian Martin Broszat (former head of Institute of Contemporary History in Munich) described Nawratil's writings as "polemics with a nationalist-rightist point of view", and that Nawratil "exaggerates in an absurd manner the scale of 'expulsion crimes'". The Federation of Expellees has represented the interests of Germans from Eastern Europe. Erika Steinbach, the current President of the Federation, provoked outrage when she supported the statements of other members of the expellee organization claiming that Hitler's attack on Poland was a response to Poland's policy. The Federation of Expellees initiated the formation of the Center Against Expulsions. The current President of Germany Joachim Gauck and the German chancellor Angela Merkel have voiced support for the Center Against Expulsions. However, in Poland it is viewed by some as an attempt to reopen the wounds of the war and to revert to pre-war borders.

    The fate of over one million missing German soldiers in the USSR was an issue in post-war West Germany, with some claiming that they were held in secret labor camps by the Soviets. It is now known that they did not survive the war, Rüdiger Overmans believes that more than likely they died in Soviet custody.

    The Canadian author James Bacque (a novelist with no previous historical research experience) has written a book Other Losses in which he claims that the United States are responsible for the deaths of 800,000 to 1,000,000 German POW. Based on his own research Bacque claims that documents from the US Archives show that there were 800,000 German POW who did not survive US captivity. Bacque alleges that General Eisenhower and the US military deliberately withheld support for the German POW, causing their deaths. Bacque presents his arguments with a description of the horrific conditions at the Rheinwiesenlager POW camps and eyewitness accounts of retired US military officers. Bacque maintains that there has been a conspiracy by the United States to cover up these losses. Bacque’s book received wide attention when it was first published in 1989, since then his claims have been challenged by historians who have found his thesis to be unsubstantiated. The US military historian Stephen Ambrose was co-editor of the book Eisenhower and the German POWs in which he refutes Bacque’s claims. Ambrose maintains that the figure of 800,000 POW missing from the US records was a bookkeeping error, that many POW were released and no records were maintained. Ambrose points out that the US and the UK had to cope with a major logistical problem in order to maintain the huge number of surrendered German personnel and finds the claim that Eisenhower and the US military deliberately withheld support for the German POW to be without merit. Rüdiger Overmans believes that "on the basis of factual individual data, shown before, the thesis of the Canadian James Bacque cannot be supported".

    References

    German casualties in World War II Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA