minoru genda wrote:
The total Wehmacht KIA 1939-1945: 2,230,324
The total Wehmacht MIA 1939-1945: 2,870,404
The bulk of the MIA must be presumed to be dead.
From '
Quiet Flows The Rhine' by French L Maclean
DEATHS AND SERIOUS WOUNDS
During Worid War Two, the German Central Archives for Military Medicine analyzed some 3,015,589 wounded soldiers with extremely detailed results. Overall, they found that of every 100 casualties, 24% were killed in action, 30% were seriously wounded and 46% were classified äs lightly wounded. This compared to a casualty rate of 13.8% killed and 86.2% wounded in Worid War I. The archivists believed the increased death rate was due, in pari, to an increase in weapons' lethality; additionally, the greater fluidity of the Worid War II battlefields made casualty evacuation more difficult than in the more statte Worid War I battlefields.
In 1942 the Archives did a study äs to the location of war wounds on the human body. They found that of all wounds inflicted on German soldiers 5% were skull wounds, 8% facial wounds, 1.3% throat wounds, 6.3% shoulderwounds, 7.3% ehest wounds, 6.3% upper arm wounds, 16.5% lower arm wounds, 3.5% stomach wounds, 10.1% upper leg wounds, 28.3% lower leg wounds and 3.4% back wounds.2 By 1944 wounds were further categorized (shown below) äs to location on the body (such äs direct hit (massive simultaneous multiple wounds), head, ehest, stomach, back, throat, legs and arms)with respect to casualties who were fatally wounded, seriously wounded (but survived) and lightly wounded.
Wound Location (by percentage)
site of wound..................................fatal ............................Serious ..........................Light
Direct Hit .....................................15.23..............................0.45..............................0.17
Head...........................................42.61.............................16.66.............................16.49
Chest..........................................22.11.............................11.28...............................3.00
Stomach........................................7.95..............................7.69................................0.79
Back.............................................4.11.............................10.45...............................9.06
Throat..........................................3.36...............................2.92...............................2.82
Legs............................................3.04..............................28.02 .............................29.90
Arms............................................0.64..............................22.53.............................37.77
Thus it was shown that of those patients who were fatally wounded, 42.61 had received head wounds while only 3.04 had been wounded in the legs. Leg wounds (28.02), on the other hand, were the most frequent injury for seriously wounded patients, while arm injuries (37.77) were the most frequent type of injury to those patients who were classified äs lightly wounded. Casualties who had serious wounds in their arms or legs had their damaged limbs amputated more frequently than in Western Allied armies.
Amputations reduced the possibility of infections and actually allowed the soldier to sometimes return to limited duty.