Western Front (World War II)

The Western Front of World War II was a theatre in which Germany invaded most of Western Europe in 1940, and where the western allies liberated most of Western Europe between 1944 and 1945. (The Italian Front is a separate but related front).

Western Front
Part of the European theatre of World War II
Clockwise from top left: Rotterdam after the Blitz, German Heinkel He 111 planes during the Battle of Britain, Allied paratroopers during Operation Market Garden, American troops running through Wernberg, Germany, Siege of Bastogne, American troops landing at Omaha Beach during Operation Overlord
Date 3 September 1939 – 8 May 1945 (1939-09-03 – 1945-05-08)[nb 1] (5 years, 8 months and 5 days) Location Northern and Western Europe Result 1939–1940: Axis victory Occupation of most of Western and Northern Europe by Axis troops End of the French Third Republic and creation of the Vichy regime Strategic stalemate following the Battle of Britain Continuation with the Defense of the Reich and the Battle of the Atlantic Beginning of the North Africa and East Africa campaigns 1944–1945: Allied victory Fall of Nazi Germany (concurrently with the Eastern Front) Fall of the Vichy Regime Liberation of occupied countries in Western and Northern Europe Beginning of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War Territorial changes Partition of Germany (1945)
Belligerents
Allies 1939-1940  France  United Kingdom  Poland  Netherlands  Belgium  Luxembourg  Norway  Denmark (9 April 1940)  Canada Czechoslovakia	Axis 1939-1940  Germany  Italy
1944-1945  United States  United Kingdom  •  Newfoundland[1][2][3]  France  Canada  Poland  Belgium  Luxembourg  Netherlands  Norway Czechoslovakia  Italy	1944-1945  Germany  Italian Social Republic
Commanders and leaders
1939–1940 Maurice Gamelin  Maxime Weygand  John Vereker, Lord Gort William Boyle, Lord Cork Władysław Sikorski Henri Winkelman  Leopold III  Émile Speller  Otto Ruge  William Prior  1944–1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt # Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower Winston Churchill Bernard Montgomery Arthur Tedder Omar Bradley Jacob L. Devers George S. Patton Courtney Hodges William Simpson Alexander Patch Miles Dempsey Trafford Leigh-Mallory † Bertram Ramsay † Charles de Gaulle Jean de Tassigny Kenneth Stuart Harry Crerar Kazimierz Sosnkowski Stanisław Maczek	1939–1940 Walter von Brauchitsch Gerd von Rundstedt Erich von Manstein Heinz Guderian Fedor von Bock Wilhelm von Leeb Erich Raeder Nikolaus von Falkenhorst Prince Umberto 1944–1945 Adolf Hitler † Heinrich Himmler † Hermann Göring † Gerd von Rundstedt Karl Dönitz Günther von Kluge † Walter Model † Albert Kesselring Erwin Rommel † Johannes Blaskowitz † Hermann Balck Paul Hausser Benito Mussolini  Rodolfo Graziani
Strength
1939–1940 7,650,000 troops (total)[4] 1944–1945 ~5,412,219 troops (total that served) 4,500,000 troops (total as of Victory in Europe Day)[5]	1939–1940 5,400,000 troops (total)[4] 1944–1945 ~8,000,000 troops (total that served)[6] ~1,900,000 troops (peak)[7]
Casualties and losses
1940 2,121,560[nb 2]–2,260,000[nb 3] casualties, including 73,000 killed and 15,000 missing 1944–1945 164,590–195,576 killed/missing 537,590 wounded 78,680 captured[10][nb 4] (~70% of Allied troops and casualties were Americans)[10] 10,561 tanks destroyed[13][14][15] 909 tank destroyers destroyed[16][14] Total: ~3,000,000 casualties	1940 160,780[nb 5]–163,650 casualties,[nb 6] including 49,000 killed or missing 1944–1945 263,000–655,000 killed[nb 7][nb 8] 400,000+ wounded[21] 4,209,840 captured[nb 9] Total: 5,000,000–5,400,000+ casualties
Civilian casualties: 1,650,000 dead[nb 10]

1940

On 10 May 1940, Germany invaded France and its northern neighbours. France and Britain had militarised the border between France and Germany in case of invasion. Allied forces were trapped at Dunkirk, but most of them would be evacuated back to Britain. Meanwhile, Italy joined the war and invaded the French Alps. German forces took Paris and France fell.

1944 - 1945

On 6 June 1944, allied forces landed at Normandy. They advanced even more in August. On 15 august, allied forces landed in southern France. On 25 August, Paris was liberated. The allies moved into Belgium and the Netherlands In December, Germany decided to do an offensive in Belgium, trapping some Americans, but it failed. In March 1945, the allies crossed the Rhine River and invaded Germany. In April 1945, the western allies linked up with the Soviets and the eastern front, On 8 May, Germany surrendered, ending the war in Europe.

Notes and References

1. Interlude with only minimal activity, excluding the Battle of Britain and The Blitz, between 25 June 1940 to 6 June 1944
2. Ellis provides no figure for Danish casualties, he places Norwegian losses at 2,000 killed or missing with no information provided on those wounded or captured. Dutch casualties are placed at 2,890 killed or missing, 6,900 wounded, with no information provided on those captured. Belgian casualties are placed at 7,500 killed or missing, 15,850 wounded, and 200,000 captured. French casualties amounted to 120,000 killed or missing, 250,000 wounded, and 1,450,000 taken prisoner. British losses totalled to 11,010 killed or missing, 14,070 wounded (only those who were evacuated have been counted), and 41,340 taken prisoner.^[8] Losses in 1940, according to Ellis's information, thus amount to 2,121,560.
3. 360,000 dead or wounded, and 1,900,000 captured^[9]
4. Ellis's numbers: American: 109,820 killed or missing, 356,660 wounded, and 56,630 captured; British: 30,280 killed or missing, 96,670 wounded, 14,700 captured; Canadian: 10,740 killed or missing, 30,910 wounded, 2,250 captured; French: 12,590 killed or missing, 49,510 wounded, 4,730 captured; Poles: 1,160 killed or missing, 3,840 wounded, 370 captured.^[11]
   Thus according to Ellis' information, the Western Allies incurred 783,860 casualties.
   US Army/Air Forces breakdown: According to a post-war US Army study using war records, the army and army air forces of the United States suffered 586,628 casualties in western Europe, including 116,991 killed in action and 381,350 wounded, of whom 16,264 later died of their wounds.^[12] Total US casualties come to 133,255 killed, 365,086 wounded, 73,759 captured, and 14,528 missing, two thousand of whom were later declared dead.
5. 43,110 Germans killed or missing, 111,640 wounded, no information is provided on any who were captured. Italian losses amounted to 1,250 killed or missing, 4,780 wounded, and no information is provided on any who were captured.^[8]
6. Germany: 157,621 casualties (27,074 dead (The final count of the German dead is possibly as high as 49,000 men when including the losses suffered by the Kriegsmarine, because of additional non-combat causes, the wounded who died of their injuries, and the missing who were confirmed as dead.^[17] However this higher figure has not been used in the overall casualty figure), 111,034 wounded, 18,384 missing,^[17][18][19] as well as 1,129 aircrew killed.^[20] Italy: 6,029 casualties (1,247 dead or missing, 2,631 wounded, and 2,151 hospitalised due to frostbite^[source?]; Italian forces were involved in fighting in the French Alps, where severe sub-zero temperatures is common even during the summer.)
7. George C Marshall, Biennial reports of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army to the Secretary of War : 1 July 1939–30 June 1945. Washington, DC : Center of Military History, 1996. Page 202 Archived 1 May 2017 at the Wayback Machine. US Army historian Charles B. MacDonald (The European Theater of Operations: The Last Offensive, Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington D.C., 1993, page 478) holds that "exclusive of prisoners of war, all German casualties in the west from D-day to V–E Day probably equaled or slightly exceeded Allied losses". In the related footnote he writes the following: "The only specific figures available are from OB WEST for the period 2 June 1941 – 10 April 1945 as follows: Dead, 80,819; wounded, 265,526; missing, 490,624; total, 836,969. (Of the total, 4,548 casualties were incurred prior to D-day.) See Rpts, Der Heeresarzt im Oberkommando des Heeres Gen St d H/Gen Qu, Az.: 1335 c/d (IIb) Nr.: H.A./263/45 g. Kdos. of 14 Apr 45 and 1335 c/d (Ilb) (no date, but before 1945). The former is in OCMH X 313, a photostat of a document contained in German armament folder H 17/207; the latter in folder 0KW/1561 (OKW Wehrmacht Verluste). These figures are for the field army only, and do not include the Luftwaffe and Waffen-SS. Since the Germans seldom remained in control of the battlefield in a position to verify the status of those missing, a considerable percentage of the missing probably were killed. Time lag in reporting probably precludes these figures' reflecting the heavy losses during the Allied drive to the Rhine in March, and the cut-off date precludes inclusion of the losses in the Ruhr Pocket and in other stages of the fight in central Germany."
8. Rüdiger Overmans, Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Oldenbourg 2000. pp. 265, 266, 275 and 279. Based on extrapolations from a statistical sample (see German casualties in World War II), Overmans claims that losses on the Western Front amounted to 244,891 deaths (fallen, deaths from other causes or missing) in 1944 (Table 53, p. 266). As for 1945, Overmans claims that the German armed forces suffered 1,230,045 deaths in the "Final Battles" on the Eastern and Western Fronts from January to May 1945. This figure is broken down as follows (p. 272): 401,660 fallen, 131,066 dead from other causes, 697,319 missing. The number of missing obviously includes soldiers who fell into captivity and died there, possibly months or years later. (The number of deaths in captivity calculated by Overmans is about 459,000, thereof 363,000 in Soviet captivity (p. 286). Overmans' figure of deaths in Soviet captivity is about 700,000 lower than the number (ca. 1,094,000) established between 1962 and 1974 by a German government commission, the Maschke Commission. Overmans (p. 288f.) considers it "plausible, though not provable" that these additional 700,000 perished in Soviet captivity.) Nevertheless, Overmans claims (pp. 275, 279) that all 1,230,045 deaths occurred during the period from January to May 1945. He states that about 2/3 of these deaths occurred on the Eastern Front, without explaining how he arrived at this proportion (according to Table 59 on p. 277, there were 883,130 deaths on the Eastern Front between June and December 1944, and according to Table 53 on p. 266 there were 244,891 deaths on the Western Front in the whole of 1944; the relation between these two figures is 78.29% in the East vs. 21.71% in the West). This would leave 410,000 deaths attributable to the Western Allied invasion of Germany between January and May 1945. Overall Overmans estimates deaths on the Eastern Fronts (by all causes, including POW deaths) as 4 million, and deaths on all other fronts (including POW deaths and deaths attributable to bombing) as 1.3 million (p. 265). He believes the men reported as missing on the Eastern Front died either from combat or in captivity. On page 286, he estimates ~80,000 German troops died in Allied POW camps after the war: 34,000 in French camps, 22,000 in American camps, 21,000 in UK camps, and several thousand more in Belgian and Dutch camps.
9. Total German casualties between September 1939 to 31 December 1944, on the Western Front for both the army, Waffen SS, and foreign volunteers amounts to 128,030 killed, 399,860 wounded. 7,614,790 were held in POW camps by early June of 1945 (including 3,404,950 who were disarmed following the surrender of Germany)^[11] See also: Disarmed Enemy Forces
10. All totals listed only include direct deaths due to military activity and crimes against humanity, including the Holocaust.^[22]
    Germany: 910,000. 410,000 in Allied strategic bombing, 300,000 in the Holocaust not including Austrian civilian deaths or deaths from the Nazi T4 program.^[23] Counting the Aktion T4 program adds 200,000+ deaths to the total.^[24]
    France: 390,000. Includes 77,000 French Jews in the Holocaust.^[25]
    Netherlands: 187,300. Includes 100,000 Dutch Jews in the Holocaust.^[26]
    Belgium: 76,000. Includes 27,000 Belgian Jews in the Holocaust.^[27]
    United Kingdom: 67,200. Mostly died in German bombing.^[28]
    Norway: 8,200.^[29] Includes 800 Norwegian Jews in the Holocaust.
    Denmark: 6,000.^[30]
    Luxembourg: 5,000. Includes 2,000 Luxembourgish Jews.^[31]

1. "Royal Artillery". www.heritage.nf.ca.
2. Nicholson, G.W.L. (1969). More Fighting Newfoundlanders: A History of Newfoundland's Fighting Forces in the Second World War. St. John's: Government of Newfoundland.
3. "Newsletter Volume 3 Issue 1" (PDF). rnfldrmuseum.ca. 2019.
4. Frieser, Karl-Heinz (2013)The Blitzkrieg Legend. Naval Institute Press
5. MacDonald, C (2005), The Last Offensive: The European Theater of Operations. University Press of the Pacific, p.478
6. The World War II Databook, by John Ellis, 1993 p. 256. Total German soldiers who surrendered in the West, including 3,404,950 who surrendered after the end of the war, is given as 7,614,790. To this must be added the 263,000–655,000 who died, giving a rough total of 8 million German soldiers having served on the Western Front in 1944–1945.
7. Horst Boog; Gerhard Krebs; Detlef Vogel (2006). Germany and the Second World War: Volume VII: The Strategic Air War in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia, 1943-1944/5. Clarendon Press. p. 522. ISBN 978-0-19-822889-9. Quoting Alfred Jodl's "Strategic situation in spring 1944" presentation. The total given for German forces in the west in May 1944, prior to a slight upgrade of forces in the west in preparation for Operation Overlord, was 1,873,000 personnel.
8. Ellis 1993, p. 255 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFEllis1993 (help)
9. Hooton 2007, p. 90 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHooton2007 (help)
10. MacDonald, C (2005), The Last Offensive: The European Theater of Operations. Page 478. "Allied casualties from D-day to V–E totaled 766,294. American losses were 586,628, including 135,576 dead. The British, Canadians, French, and other allies in the west lost slightly over 60,000 dead".
11. Ellis 1993, p. 256 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFEllis1993 (help)
12. US Army Battle Casualties and Non-battle Deaths in World War 2: Final Report. Combined Arms Research Library, Department of the Army. 25 June 1953.
13. Zaloga 2015, p. 239, 6,084 U.S. Army tanks destroyed, including 4,399 M4 Sherman tanks, 178 M4 (105) and 1,507 M5A1 Stuart tanks.. sfn error: no target: CITEREFZaloga2015 (help)
14. Zaloga 2015, p. 276. sfn error: no target: CITEREFZaloga2015 (help)
15. Zaloga 2015, p. 277, 4,477 British Commonwealth tanks destroyed, including 2,712 M4 Sherman tanks, 656 Churchill tanks, 609 Cromwell tanks, 433 M3 Stuart tanks, 39 Cruiser Mk VIII Challenger tanks, 26 Comet tanks, 2 M24 Chaffee tanks.. sfn error: no target: CITEREFZaloga2015 (help)
16. Zaloga 2015, p. 239, 909 U.S. Army tank destroyers destroyed, including 540 M10 tank destroyers, 217 M18 Hellcat tank destroyers and 152 M36 tank destroyers.. sfn error: no target: CITEREFZaloga2015 (help)
17. Frieser 1995, p. 400 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFFrieser1995 (help)
18. L'Histoire, No. 352, April 2010 France 1940: Autopsie d'une défaite, p. 59.
19. Shepperd 1990, p. 88 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFShepperd1990 (help)
20. Hooton 2010, p. 73 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHooton2010 (help)
21. Percy Schramm Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht: 1940 – 1945: 8 Bde. 1961 (ISBN 9783881990738) Pages 1508–1511. Only includes those wounded who were not captured after, and only records wounded up to 31 January 1945. Likely to be drastically underestimated considering the corresponding figures for the Eastern Front on the same document.
22. Niewyk, Donald L. The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, Columbia University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-231-11200-9, p. 421.
23. Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1960 Bonn 1961 p. 78
24. Bundesarchiv Euthanasie" im Nationalsozialismus, bundesarchiv.de; accessed 5 March 2016.(German)
25. Frumkin, Gregory (1951). Population Changes in Europe Since 1939. London: Allen & Unwin. pp. 58–59. OCLC 924672733.
26. "Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Netherlands" (PDF). Retrieved 4 March 2016.
27. Frumkin 1951, pp. 44–45
28. Commonwealth War Graves Commission Annual Report 2013–2014, page 44.
29. Frumkin 1951, p. 144
30. "Hvor mange dræbte danskere?". Danish Ministry of Education. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
31. Frumkin 1951, p. 59