530,000 German casualties in Normandy?

[Stoat Coat]

530,000 German casualties in Normandy alone seems awfully high. That’s the figure given on Wikipedia at least. Is there any truth to that?

[2KILFA]

530,000 German casualties in Normandy alone seems awfully high. That’s the figure given on Wikipedia at least. Is there any truth to that?

Of course those numbers are pure nonsense. When reading article on Wikipedia you should always check the source used for that particular number, statement etc.

As Niklas Zetterling has shown in his monumental book Normandy 1944: German Military Organization, Combat Power and Organizational Effectiveness, which is the foremost study of German forces in Normandy, numerous British-American writers on the Normandy campaign had made grossly exaggerated or outright wrong claims about the German side, the reason being that many authors never visited and consulted German primary sources. That includes German losses in Normandy. So the numbers used in Wikipedia is from one of them.

Thus, Zetterling established that German losses in the Normandy campaign (6 June-22 August) amounted to 210,000 KIA, WIA, MIA.

The 530,000 German losses in Normandy belong in the realm of fantasy. Also, it seems that it includes assumed losses during Operation Dragoon, since popular histories often write that German losses in the Battle of Normandy amounted to 450,000 casualties, of which 210,000 were POW's, while 240,000 were KIA and WIA. These numbers originate from Montgomery's Normandy to the Baltic book.

To add further, the actual reported losses of the OB West for the summer of 1944 were the following:
- 23,019 KIA;
- 67,060 WIA;
- 198,616 MIA;

So all in all, 288,000 casualties were sustained. This also includes German retreat from northern France (23-31 August) and retreat from southern France (15-31 August).

[Hans1906]

Between August 7 and 21, the German Wehrmacht lost 50,000 soldiers in the west and another 200,000 were taken prisoner of war. Up to this point German losses in Normandy amounted to more than 240,000 killed or wounded and another 250,000 captured.

Source: "Deutsche Verluste in der Normandie": https://www.google.com/search?client=op ... 8&oe=UTF-8

If you now add 1 and 1 together, you come up with a number of almost 500.000 soldiers, fallen, and in captivity...


Hans

[Jan-Hendrik]

Das Buch ist gedruckter Mist!!

Jan-Hendrik

[Hans1906]

Das Buch ist gedruckter Mist!! / The book is crap!

Hi, Jan-Hendrik,

which book are we talking about, the book above mentioned..?

Despite all these staggering numbers, one should never forget, that German soldiers weren't just numbers, they were people, no matter what those men were defending, our fathers, and grandfathers, never just numbers.


Hans

[Richard Anderson]

530,000 German casualties in Normandy alone seems awfully high. That’s the figure given on Wikipedia at least. Is there any truth to that?

Of course those numbers are pure nonsense.

Actually it is pretty easy to demonstrate that those numbers are not "pure nonsense" but that they are badly misunderstood.

Most German reporting was incomplete from the beginning in that it was only for losses to "Heer, Waffen-SS,und die von in Erdkampf Teilen der Luftwaffe". It routinely excluded:

Luftwaffe ground and air crews lost in air combat or captured in the Rückmarsch
HiWi ditto
Freiwilligen ditto
Organization Todt ditto
Reichs Arbeits Dienst ditto
Nationalsozialistiches Kraftfahrkorps ditto
Reichsdeutsche Wehrmachte Gefolge ditto
Nichtsreichsdeutsche Wehrmachte Gefolge ditto

It is also unclear how many losses to the security and support forces of the various Militärbefehlshaber were counted.

While not always strictly "military" or even "German", most were still either combat, combat support, combat service support, or service support troops for the Westheer.

For example, the highest missing in action count given by German sources was 198,616 given by Heeresartz i. OKH, Gen.Stb. d. Heer/Gen.Qu., NARA T78, R414, F3228-3229, as of 10 January 1945 for losses in the West from 6 June 1944 through 31 August 1944, with another 119,690 recorded through 31 October. However, Allied accounting of German prisoners of war through 31 August 1944 alone was 231,253, thus a discrepancy of 32,637.

[Stoat Coat]

530,000 German casualties in Normandy alone seems awfully high. That’s the figure given on Wikipedia at least. Is there any truth to that?

Of course those numbers are pure nonsense.

Actually it is pretty easy to demonstrate that those numbers are not "pure nonsense" but that they are badly misunderstood.

Most German reporting was incomplete from the beginning in that it was only for losses to "Heer, Waffen-SS,und die von in Erdkampf Teilen der Luftwaffe". It routinely excluded:

Luftwaffe ground and air crews lost in air combat or captured in the Rückmarsch
HiWi ditto
Freiwilligen ditto
Organization Todt ditto
Reichs Arbeits Dienst ditto
Nationalsozialistiches Kraftfahrkorps ditto
Reichsdeutsche Wehrmachte Gefolge ditto
Nichtsreichsdeutsche Wehrmachte Gefolge ditto

It is also unclear how many losses to the security and support forces of the various Militärbefehlshaber were counted.

While not always strictly "military" or even "German", most were still either combat, combat support, combat service support, or service support troops for the Westheer.

For example, the highest missing in action count given by German sources was 198,616 given by Heeresartz i. OKH, Gen.Stb. d. Heer/Gen.Qu., NARA T78, R414, F3228-3229, as of 10 January 1945 for losses in the West from 6 June 1944 through 31 August 1944, with another 119,690 recorded through 31 October. However, Allied accounting of German prisoners of war through 31 August 1944 alone was 231,253, thus a discrepancy of 32,637.

But those losses are in a much bigger area than Normandy right? So why does Wikipedia use it for Operation Overlord? Very strange, even Zetterling is including losses from Non-Normandy areas like the Riviera.

[Richard Anderson]

But those losses are in a much bigger area than Normandy right? So why does Wikipedia use it for Operation Overlord? Very strange, even Zetterling is including losses from Non-Normandy areas like the Riviera.

Because it is impossible to partition the losses between the two? Also, the losses in Southern France, while severe, were a fraction of those in Normandy...17 days of combat by at most ten divisions versus 86 days of combat by about 37 divisions. I would be surprised if they were as much as 10% of the total and 5% may be closer.

[Stoat Coat]

Well I guess Wikipedia botches the Southern France number then, it’s article says 140,000 German casualties during Dragoon

[Richard Anderson]

Well I guess Wikipedia botches the Southern France number then, it’s article says 140,000 German casualties during Dragoon

From where? By mid-August 1 and 19. Armee had perhaps ten weak divisions between them and probably numbered no more than 140,000. There losses 14-31 August at Marseille, Toulon, and Montelimar were probably about 47,000-50,000.

[Stoat Coat]

Well I guess Wikipedia botches the Southern France number then, it’s article says 140,000 German casualties during Dragoon

From where? By mid-August 1 and 19. Armee had perhaps ten weak divisions between them and probably numbered no more than 140,000. There losses 14-31 August at Marseille, Toulon, and Montelimar were probably about 47,000-50,000.

Yeah that’s what I mean. Wikipedia gives really high numbers for Dragoon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dragoon

Even higher than i remember.

[Michael Kenny]

Well I guess Wikipedia botches....

...nearly everything.

Using original source documents is not permitted on Wiki and thus charlatans like Franz Kurowski have free rein to set the Overton Window.