Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

Non-naval discussions about the Second World War. Military leaders, campaigns, weapons, etc.
mkenny
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

Post by mkenny »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:
No one is claiming they are fake. They could have been politically manipulated but not fake. My point is that more recent studies, with more material and calm study, shows different results.
Absurd. These counts were not done for any propaganda purpose. They were just count totals.
Why would the SHAEF Intelligence section lie about the number of POW's? What would they gain?
Perhaps they were stealing the rations issued for the phantom (you claim) prisoners!
Karl Heidenreich wrote: It´s obvious that those that made these studies have gone through the primary information, which is why people as Glantz, House, Beevor, Keegan, Mosier, Krivoshiev have been allowed to publish their results in prestigious universty editors.
Obvious to you because you simply can not accept the reality of mass surrender of German troops. I note the complete lack of anything resembling a checkable fact.

Using the data supplied in a post above:

There were 9,580,000+ men in Wehrmacht Service in 1942.
There were 9,701,000+ men in Wehrmacht service in 1945.


You would be claiming no German POW's taken between 1942-45, no dead and no wounded.
That is how flawed your argument is.
Several people have tried to point this out to you but you plough on with your obstinate refusal to face facts.
Let me remind you of the German POW totals by the nation holding them:

France 940,000
Great Britain 3,640,000
USA 3,100,000
USSR 3,060,000

Total 11,740,000
mkenny
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

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Karl Heidenreich wrote:
Using the same numbers from mkenny show us that, in the western side of the European Theatre the allies had 1,8 million soldiers. Of those some 400 K died, aprox. So we can assume to have 1,4 million that could have been wounded. If, in an ideal case, 100% of them were wounded but returned to service in time to fight again. Ok. Let´s grant this. So we have 2,8 million casualties listed as wounded but we still have only 1,4 million guys to surrender. Let´s add those in Norway and Italy: about 3,07 million overall. And let´s asumme that at least 1 million Germans did their way from the East to the West and surrender to Ike and Patton: 4,07 million. And in this we are assuming that all wounded surrendered to the allies. Let`s go wild and assume that the Germans replace 100% their 400K dead. We are in 4,47 million. No, let´s assume they were able to field 200% of those that died: 4,87 million. Round up in 5 million in such pristine conditions.

In this best case scenario, with a 100% wounded casualties returning to fight, with 200% replacements for those that died, plus those forces in Norway and Italy plus 1 million guys surrendering we are still 1 million short. 2 million if we substract the 200% replacements.
????????????????
5 assumption, one an admitted 'wild assumption to boot!

If anyone is able to make sense of it?
If so could they supply a translation for the rest of us?
Last edited by mkenny on Thu Feb 18, 2010 12:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

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mkenny:
Absurd.
If it is, please prove it.
Obvious to you because you simply can not accept the reality of mass surrender of German troops. I note the complete lack of anything resembling a checkable fact.
Wrong, I have done that and you are ignoring it. I gave precise figures. You have done nothing to contest them. At least David Glantz is a Ret. Army officer which can be regarded as an expert. I don´t claim to be one, mainly because I`m not one. But Mr. Glantz leaves you way behind. You are ignoring what has been posted. That`s all.
You would be claiming no German POW's taken between 1942-45, no dead and no wounded.
That is how flawed your argument is.
Several people have tried to point this out to you but you plough on with your obstinate refusal to face facts.
So, what? Those do not surrendered to the western forces in May 1945 on the spot as you claim, some of they surrendered previously on other campagins, which you are ignoring. Please see the previous post in which I refered to that.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

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mkenny:

If anyone is able to make sense of it?
It´s mathematics. Pretty simple. In order of the peace of the forum I withdraw from trying to fall in an insulting discussion.
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mkenny
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

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Karl Heidenreich wrote:
Wrong, I have done that and you are ignoring it. I gave precise figures. You have done nothing to contest them. At least David Glantz is a Ret. Army officer which can be regarded as an expert. I don´t claim to be one, mainly because I`m not one. But Mr. Glantz leaves you way behind. You are ignoring what has been posted. That`s all.
The usual way these things are done is you find the Glantz data and post it.
You do not run around like a headless chicken shouting the name 'Glantz' at the top of your voice in the belief this will silence all the criticism.


Karl Heidenreich wrote:So, what? Those do not surrendered to the western forces in May 1945 on the spot as you claim, some of they surrendered previously on other campagins, which you are ignoring. Please see the previous post in which I refered to that.
I am ignoring?
Did you not see this warning I gave earlier?

It should be noted I am just going by the numbers actualy in captivity. How they got there and where they came from is for others to fight over

Just in case it was missed I repeated it in another post.

I also urge the nitpickers to consider carefully my earlier statement:
It should be noted I am just going by the numbers actualy in captivity. How they got there and where they came from is for others to fight over.
The total of POW's is the key for me and that seems to have escaped many


One other member picked it up and laid it out in much simpler terms but obviously not simple enough.


You must have missed it in In your desperate attempts to deny the scale of the surrenders.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

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By the way:
Colonel (Ret) David Glantz
Expert on the Russo-German War
A Leading world expert on the Russo-German War. Colonel Glantz discusses the many
aspects of the war that have been neglected.
* The current state of historiography and archival access,
* a brief sketch of the 40 percent of the war that has gone unreported,
* some of the ongoing controversies associated with the war,
* the legacies of the war on the current Russian psyche, and
* the need for more historians willing and able to work in the field.
Colonel Glantz earned degrees in modern European history from the Virginia Military Institute
and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a graduate of the Defense
Language Institute, the US Army Institute for Advanced Russian and Eastern European
Studies, the US Army Command and General Staff College and the US Army War College.
His over 30 years of service included field artillery assignments with the 24th Infantry
Division (Mechanized) in Europe and II Field Force artillery in Vietnam and intelligence
assignments with the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence in US Army Europe.
He also served on the faculty of the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY;
the Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; and the US Army War College,
Carlisle, PA During his last eight years of service, he founded and directed the US Army's
Foreign Military Studies Office, Combined Arms Command, Fort Leavenworth, KS. He has
authored many articles and books and is now the editor of The Journal of Slavic Military
Studies.
From the essay:

The Soviet-German War
1941-1945:
Myths and Realities:
A Survey Essay


Is there someone with those credentials around here to contest him?
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Sir Winston Churchill
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

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mkenny:
Did you not see this warning I gave earlier?
You warned? Who you think you are? Again: I must restrain myself not to answer in the appropiate terms.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Sir Winston Churchill
mkenny
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

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Karl Heidenreich wrote: Is there someone with those credentials around here to contest him?
Contest what?
Where are Glantz's figures for POW's taken in the west?
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

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From the Glantz essay, which I´m checking again, we can edit, for the time being, this information (in clear contrast of that we have been denied from their contestants):
THE WINTER CAMPAIGN,
JANUARY-MARCH 1945

Context:

A COMPARATIVE CHRONOLOGY OF OPERATIONS
ON THE EASTERN AND WESTERN FRONTS
DURING THE WINTER CAMPAIGN OF 1945


Ø In January 1945 Allied forces recaptured the Bulge and prepared to
penetrate Germany’s Western Wall.

Ø In January 1945, 5 Red Army fronts with 35 armies, 250 divisions, and
almost 4 million men smashed 2 German army groups defending East
Prussia and Poland and advanced to Konigsberg and the Oder River,
inflicting 500,000 losses on German forces.

*****
Ø On 1 February 1945 Allied forces reached the German West Wall and, in
the south, the Rhine River, inflicting 250,000 losses on German forces, and
were 320 miles from Berlin.

Ø On 1 February 1945, Red Army troops occupied bridgeheads across the
Oder, 36 miles from Berlin.

*****
Ø From 1 February through 4 April 1945, Allied troops occupied the
Rhineland, killing, capturing, or wounding 325,000 Germans, crossed the
Rhine and reached the Weser River, 170 miles from Berlin. Allied strength
reached about 4 million men, including 3 million U.S.[/b]

Ø From 1 February through 4 April 1945, the Red Army conquered
Konigsberg, Pomerania, and Silesia, repelled the last Wehrmacht offensive
of the war at Lake Balaton in Hungary, and advanced to Vienna.


And, then:

A COMPARATIVE CHRONOLOGY OF OPERATIONS
ON THE EASTERN AND WESTERN FRONTS
DURING THE SPRING CAMPAIGN OF 1945


Ø On 18 April 1945, Allied forces reached the Elbe River, 60 miles from
Berlin but halted in accordance with Allied agreements. Allied strength in
the West totaled 4 million men and 85 divisions.


Ø From 16 April-7 May 1945, over 2 million Red Army troops conducted the
Berlin and Prague offensives at a cost of 413,865 casualties, including
93,113 dead or missing, which equaled 25 % of the United States military’s
entire wartime death toll.

*****

Ø By war’s end, out of the 13.5 million men Hitler’s Wehrmacht fielded in the
war, 10.8 million had perished or fallen captive in the East.
In April 1945, it
was no mere coincidence that the Allies let the Russians take Berlin. The
Russians paid for the right to do so by their blood.

*****
Ø At war’s end, U.S. Army strength reached 8.3 million men and 89 divisions,
including 16 armored and 5 airborne. U.S. strength in Europe reached 3
million men.

Ø At war’s end, Red Army strength in Europe totaled roughly 6.4 million
soldiers and 500 divisions.


If, by the end of the war the soviets killed and/or captured 10,8 million then there were only 2,7 million left for Germany to lose in deaths, MIA and captured from 1939-1945. No 6 million. Nope.

And more important:

4 million + allied in the western front against numerical inferior Germans. The bulk of the German Army were on the East, fighting the main enemy: the soviets.

Warmest regards,
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Sir Winston Churchill
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

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mkenny:
You keep saying the Germans 'fought to the death'
Your turn to answer.
Please provide us with your assesment of:

1. Allied and Axis Forces from June 1944 to May 1945

2. Allied and Axis casualties to that same period.

That´s all. All you have done is play with numbers here and there and not a single certain figure has came from you.
Your turn.

Again, your answer to this:
The Eastern % is 50% not 60%


Operations done in millions of men:

1,8 + 3,78 = 5,58

1,8/5,58 = 32,2%

3,78/5,58 = 67,8%

Now, if the idea is to add those at Norway or at Italy, then it does not make any sense for you, but "I imagine" you figure that out by now. In that case we will have to add those in the Balcans to the East, too.

West including Norway and Italy: 3,145,000

East including Balcans: 4,704,000

Total: 7,849,000

Proportion:

East: 59,93%

West: 40,07%
Please?
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

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mkenny:

Before you answer the questions that repeately I posted, once and again, please read this, from Glantz alone:
During the war’s final campaign, the Red Army faced the equally determined and
desperate remnants of the once proud but now decimated Wehrmacht, a force of about 1.6
million men under Army Groups Vistula and Center, which manned deeper than usual
defenses along the Oder and Neisse Rivers and the Czech border. Leaving only limited
forces to face the British, Americans, Canadians, and French in the West, Hitler’s High
Command assembled roughly 85 divisions and numerous smaller, separate units totaling
as many as 1 million men and boys and 850 tanks to wage the final struggle along the Oder River.

An even greater challenge to the Red Army during the spring campaign was
the fact that, for the first time in the war, it had only limited room to maneuver. With the
large city of Berlin only 36 miles to their front and with the forward lines of their Allies
only 62 miles beyond, the Soviets faced the unwelcome prospect of having to conduct
repeated penetration attacks against successive, fully-manned, defensive lines anchored on
increasingly urbanized terrain.
Again: "limited forces to face the British, Americans, Canadians, and French in the West..."
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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mkenny
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

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Karl Heidenreich wrote:From the Glantz essay, Context:


By war’s end, out of the 13.5 million men Hitler’s Wehrmacht fielded in the
war, 10.8 million had perished or fallen captive in the East.
In April 1945, it
was no mere coincidence that the Allies let the Russians take Berlin. The
Russians paid for the right to do so by their blood.
There is your problem.
Glantz has got the numbers completely wrong.

Here are the numbers they compiled themselves:


Heer Casualties 9 Sep 39 – 31 Jan 1945 (KTB d. OKW, Band IV, 1509-1511)
Losses in the Heer and Waffen SS
................................................KIA ..........................WIA....................... MIA................... Total
Ostheer............................... 1,105,987................3,498,059 ................1,018,365 ............5,622,411
Geb.AOK.2...........................16,639 .......................60,451....................... 5,157 .................82,247
OB Süd-West .......................50,481...................... 163,602................... 194,250...............408,333
OB Süd-Ost .........................19,235........................ 55,069 .....................14,805.................89,109
OB West............................. 107,042..................... 399,856.................... 409,715 .............916,613
Ersatzheer .............................10,467 .......................42,174 ........................1,337 ................53,978
DOW ..................................295,569.................................................................................. 295,569
Heer Total ........................1,605,510................. 4,219,211 ..................1,643,629 ...........7,468,350
Other Total ............................17,051 .........................2,687 ..................................................19,738
Total .................................1,622,561 ..................4,188,037 .................1,646,316 ..........7,546,914



Notice the German losses in the East are 5,622,411 up to January 1944.
As Glantz claims the total was 10.8 million are you seriously saying 5,200,000 Germans were lost in the East Feb-May 1945?
The claim is doubly bogus because it counts at least 3.5 million wounded as deaths when they plainly were no such thing.
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

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From Glantz, too:
As more than one German veteran observed,
war in the West was proper sport, while war in the East was unmitigated horror
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

mkenny:
Glantz has got the numbers completely wrong.
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D


You arrogant man...
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

mkenny:
As Glantz claims the total was 10.8 million are you seriously saying 5,200,000 Germans were lost in the East Feb-May 1945?
Feb-May 1945? No, he is saying 1939 - 1945. Please read or you are in a nervous breakdown mode already?

My answers?
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