Talk:Battle of Berlin

German numbers

From my talk page with my replies on Shipslong45 talk page. --Philip Baird Shearer 17:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello

What are you doing in the battle of Berlin article

From your edits it looks like that 45,000 soldiers and 40,000 were ALONE fighting 2,5 million Soldiers and these 85,000 men were able to inflict some 280,000 casualties

If you look at all other languages they all say that the Axis had 1,000,000 men

So why do you say that the Axis only had 85,000? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Shipslong45 (talk • contribs) 10:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If the number of Germans is known and sourced then please add a citation to a Verifiable, Reliable Source, that states how many Germans were involved.

The sentence I restored says: "In Berlin about 45,000 soldiers, supplemented by the ..." (my emphasis), also please read the footnote to the sentence that explains that "A large number of the 45,000 were troops of the LVI Panzer Corps that were at the start of the battle part of the German IX Army on the Seelow Heights". --Philip Baird Shearer 10:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This internet LEARNING home page also says 1 million

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battle_for_berlin.htm

So I will add the 1 million again ok? Shipslong45 10:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

HUH?

Just go here and look

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battle_for_berlin.htm

The source provided is not good enough because there is no information about how the figures are arrived at and it does not cite its sources, and it is not published in a peer review journal or by a person who is an acknowledged expert historian of this period. For example do the figures include the German Twelfth and Twenty-First Armies which were initially facing the Western Allies, or is it only counting the figures for the formations on the Oder-Neisse front, Does it include all of the German Army Group Centre even those that did not take part in the Battle? --Philip Baird Shearer 11:04, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This is very Verifiable and Reliable since it is an official site sanctioned by the United Kingdom to educate its citizens, it does not get more reliable then that Shipslong45 10:51, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

As to your last edit you still have not cited your source. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The 1 million was the figure initially given in Soviet estimates. In other words, 1 million defenders is what the USSR prepared for in their plans. However, due to the depleted nature of the divisions facing them, the actual strength was probably somewhat less. My gut feeling says ~700,000, which would account for the difficulties encountered in the campaign, as well as the high body count and the numbers of prisoners taken. The German strength total couldn't have been much less than 600,000, in my estimation. Combining the five field armies, plus Op Group Steiner, plus Volkssturm, plus police units you have something at least on the order of 50-60 divisions. Given that German divisions tended to be on the large side, if you treated those 50-60 divisions as full strength you would very well end up with a figure close to 1 million. Allowing for some depletion but retaining combat effectiveness, a more realistic total would be somewhat less, but not significantly less. There's no way to go here except by estimating, since Germany didn't have an accounting system in 1945, and what they did have was already breaking down in 44.

Unfortunately, the only figures that hint at an accurate total either this immediate postwar Soviet estimate of casualties I found (~937,000 killed/captured out of the expected 1,000,000), which is more of historigraphic rather than historical interest, or slanted pro-German accounts that seek to minimize any and all German engagement in this campaign out of some perverse sense of national honor (and I'm not bashing Ziemke, just idiots like Albert Seaton). It's true that the total Berlin garrison numbered 80,000-100,000, but if one wants to confine the operational area to the city itself, Soviet troop strengths would have to be revised to 350,000 for the seven armies that participated in the assault itself.

That said, there has to be some way of putting up reasonable estimates, but all the sources I have read either use the 1,000,000 figure (probably more accurate but not good enough for reasons stated above) or play the transparently disingenuous lowballing game that assumes the reader has no grasp of basic arithmetic. When/IF I find a sourced statistic that seems reasonable, I'll try to put it up. Until then, would it be all right to qualify the 1,000,000 figure as an initial estimate? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.160.55.123 (talk) 15:07:42, August 19, 2007 (UTC)

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I sent an email to History Learning Site > World War Two > The Battle for Berlin (the source used by Shipslong45) and the author was kind enough to send back a reply that said his sources were "History of World War Two" magazines published by Purnell

It seems to me that the problem with German figures is that in the last few weeks of the war there was a big difference between the Order of Battle and the number of men actually available. A further problem is that as Beevor (p.287) points out when the battle was over the Soviets took into captivity as POWs any man in a uniform including many none combatants such as firemen and railwaymen. So it is probably impossible to know. However if the Soviets estimates were 1 million Germans and it is noted in a footnote with a source, I think we should included it. If for no other reason than it will stop it being put into the article every so often without an adequate source or footnoted comment that the primary source is a Soviet planning estimate. --Philip Baird Shearer 18:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

All right, I think I have found a solution to this conundrum. I just spent some time footnote digging in my books, and I think David Glantz has a definitive answer to this. He talks about the 1 million figure that is commonly repeated in Soviet sources, and he indicates that it includes all of Army Group Vistula, XII Army, and probably more of AG Center than engaged in the operation. In a classified postwar study titled Berlinskaya operatsiia 1945 goda prepared by the Soviet Army General Staff, German strength in and forward of Berlin was determined to be 766,750 men, 1,519 AFVs, and 9,303 guns. Considering that this document was kept classified while the more propagandistic figure of 1 million was allowed to float around and, well, propagate, I would suppose that this figure is likely to be realistic and definitive. The question is whether we should delete the unit list that is currently in the battlebox and replace it with a straight number or simply append this information to it. 68.160.55.123 18:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)