West German military historian Burkhart Müller-Hillebrand (Das Heer 1933–1945 Vol 3. Page 262) estimated 265,000 dead from all causes and 1,012,000 missing and prisoners of war on all German battlefronts from 1 Jan 1945 – 30 April 1945. No breakdown of these figures between the various battlefronts was provided.
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."
German military historian Rüdiger Overmans (Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Oldenbourg 2000, pp.265–272) maintains, based on extrapolations from a statistical sample of the German military personnel records.(see German casualties in World War II), 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 killed, 131,066 dead from other causes, 697,319 missing and presumed dead. According to Overmans the figures are calculated at "todeszeitpunkt" the point of death, which means the losses occurred between January to May 1945. The number of POW deaths in Western captivity calculated by Overmans, based on the actual reported cases is 76,000 (p. 286). Between 1962 and 1974 by a German government commission, the Maschke Commission put the figure at 31,300 in western captivity.(p. 286) Overmans maintains (pp. 275, 279) that all 1,230,045 deaths occurred during the period from January to May 1945. He states that there is not sufficient data to give an exact breakout of the 1.2 million dead in the final battles (p.174). He did however make a rough estimate of the allocation for total war losses of 5.3 million; 4 million (75%) on the Eastern front, 1 million (20%) in the West and 500,000 (10%) in other theaters. Up until Dec. 1944 losses in the West were 340,000, this indicates losses could be 400,000 to 600,000 deaths in the Western theater from January to May 1945 (p.265). Overmans does not consider the high losses in early 1945 surprising in view of the bitter fighting, he notes that there were many deaths in the Ruhr pocket (p.240) According to Overmans the total dead including POW deaths, in all theaters from Jan–May 1945 was 1,407,000 (January-452,000; February-295,000; March-284,000; April-282,000; May-94,000) No breakout by theater for these losses is provided.(p.239)
Rüdiger Overmans, Soldaten hinter Stacheldraht. Deutsche Kriegs-gefangene des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Ullstein Taschenbuchvlg., 2002. p.273 During the period January to March 1945 the POW's held Western Allies increased by 200,000; During the period April to June 1945 the number increased to 5,440,000. These figures do not include POWs that died or were released during this period. (see Disarmed Enemy Forces).
Anderson, Duncan. the fall of the Reich [第三帝國的滅亡]. Argun. 2007: p.239. ISBN 9578320795. 引文格式1維護:冗餘文本 (link)
外部連結
Bedessem, Edward M. Central Europe, 22 March - 11 May 1945. CMH Online bookshelves: The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II. Washington: US Army Center of Military History. 1990? [2008-01-26]. CMH Pub 72-36. (原始內容存檔於2015-05-22). 請檢查|date=中的日期值 (幫助)
Keegan (editor), John. The Times Atlas of the Second World War. London: Times Books. 1989. ISBN 0-7230-0317-3.
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