Talk:Western Allied invasion of Germany/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Pondering

After much pondering, I decided to go ahead and add this relatively unchanged from the original source. My reasons are 1) It is too important a topic to not have had an article for this long 2) the original is an excellent source 3) the military history project members I feel will do a much better job together dissecting this and getting it up to standard than I can do myself. While fairly complete, it does need work, in my opinion, in the following areas:

• POV - very America-centric (as it is from a US military source)
• reduction in size - perhaps too detailed

--Nobunaga24 04:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Name

Hello. The problem is name "Central Europe Campaign" that this is the name of the U.S. campaign, not the Allied one on the whole. In regards to Western Europe, we've decided to break it down by different standards then the U.S.:

• Normandy (D-Day to the Liberation of Paris)
• Battle of the Siegfried Line (Liberation of Paris to the start of the Battle of the Bulge)
• Battle of the Bulge
• Central Europe (End of the Battle of the Bulge to the German surrender)

Oberiko 11:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I have changed the name of the article to "Western Allied invasion of Germany" because the Eastern Allies also campaigned in Central Europe and Hamburg is not usually described as Central Europe also we already have an article Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine --PBS (talk) 18:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Philip. It seems to me that calling the campaign an 'invasion' is not correct since it was not an invasion in the same way Poland and France were invaded at the start of the war. This is also an issue in the Second World War section heading where Soviet Union 'invades' Germany in 1945. In both cases these were continued offensives into Germany.

In what way was it not an invasion? If France and the low countries were liberated then Germany was invaded and it ended with the Debellation of the Third Reich. --PBS (talk) 00:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Then there is the existing Western European Campaign (1944-1945) category that includes a sub-category of Category:Battle of Central Europe and another article called Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine and North West Europe Campaign and the Category:Drive to the Siegfried Line as well as European Theater of Operations. It seems a bit overly productive and duplicating, not to mention messily confusing.

Can there not be just the Category:World War II Western European Theatre with

• Italian Campaign
  • subset operations
• Allied Northern France Campaign
  • subset operations
• Southern France Campaign
  • subset operations
• Allied Low Countries Campaign
  • subset operations
• Allied Campaign in Germany
  • subset operations

Cheers--mrg3105mrg3105 22:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Have you read the Western European Campaign (1944-1945) it is a redirect. The North West Europe Campaign the name given to the Commonwealth campaigns they did not divide up the campaigns like you suggest. The European Theater of Operations is an American specific administration article (I should know I wrote most of it). There are five major articles covering Western Europe 44-45 European Theatre of World War II->Western Front (World War II), and three campaign articles: Normandy Campaign, Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine and this article Western Allied invasion of Germany It does not seem confusing to me and as the US and Commonwealth forces use different campaign designations it is better to give the articles descriptive names. --PBS (talk) 00:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm only just coming to grips with Northwest Europe so I'm feeling my way a bit. PBS above points out that there are three main campaign articles covering the period from D-Day to Germany's surrender. However, at present the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine article states that it goes up to the start of the Battle of the Bulge while this present article starts with the main Rhine crossings in February 45. So there is a gap in the "umbrella" articles. This is reflected to some extent in the confusion and overlap of the campaign boxes associated with the period. Whilst there is always overlap as each article scene sets the background and covers the Aftermath, I think that the core of each of these articles should be contiguous and subsidiary articles be allocated to be part of only one of them. I'm reluctant however to re-jig the articles to reflect this because of my lack of knowledge of the period and will stick for the present to copyedit and researching and writing narrative. Any thoughts how this might be neatly tidied and consolidated? Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 00:43, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Philip. I appreciate the points you make, but the Theatre was an Allied undertaking and not American or Commonwealth, to say nothing of the French, or even the Poles who were neither. It seems to me that the "Western Front" wa only used by Wehrmacht, and not by the Allied forces during the Second World War. The inconsistency comes from the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine and Western Allied invasion of Germany which are actually somewhat like Strategic Directions rather then named campaigns like the Normandy Campaign, Lorraine Campaign, etc. The European Theatre of Operations was an administrative and not a combat part of the Allied Command structure or course. I'm just suggesting that the articles need to be consistently titles, using either the named campaign titles, or the strategic regional Areas of Operations, or directions of strategic offensives, but not all three intermixed. If intermixed, invariably there will be either discontinuities or overlaps in the content of the articles. I always find it useful to take a map and draw operational boundaries between formations (or units) to get an idea of who was doing what where. BTW, the content is very good--mrg3105mrg3105 01:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken, we have the same basic structure as the top post in this section:

• Overlord
• Paris to Rhine (all actions between Overlord & Bulge)
• Bulge
• Invasion of Germany (all actions following the Bulge)

I'm not keen on the name though, as there were Allied actions during this time outside of Germany. Could I suggest Western Allied invasion of Central Europe instead? Oberiko (talk) 01:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Kirrages the term Western Front was used at the time.[1] and it is still in use.[2] mrg3105 I think there is no reason why we should not have articles like Lorraine Campaign and the North West European Campaign, but they should roughly be in the format they are in probably with "main articles" to what you describe as "Strategic Directions" for the name of articles. After all they are important if nothing else as a place to discuss Battle honours/Campaign honors and as pointers to articles describing the fighting.

The British and Canadians were not fighting in what is usually called "Central Europe" they were fighting in North West Europe. We have had this conversation several times and the major problem is that different military histories use different terms because they tend to follow national naming conventions. I think calling this the Central Europe Campaign is American centric. Germany was invaded, Holland was liberated. For me the Rhine seems like the obvious place to draw a line between articles and like from Paris to the Rhine it should be descriptive. Also to describe an attack over 3 Army groups that largely operated independently of each other a campaign seems to me to be pushing the envelope (Monty's behaviour during his campaign reminds me of when a new Labour MP arrived in the House of Commons back in the 80s who said "It is good to be face to face with the enemy at last" to which an experienced MP and his mentor said "my friend, they are the opposition, the enemy is all around you"). --PBS (talk) 12:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

As an aside As we have a group of editors discussing names and article layout something needs to be done about Battle of Normandy and Normandy Campaign see Talk:Normandy Campaign#Article overlap --PBS (talk) 13:05, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Order of Battle?

May I suggest that the first section is retitled "Disposition of forces", and the "Order of Battle" becomes a redirect to a separate article in the appropriate category.--mrg3105mrg3105 01:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

"Command structures" is used in several other articles. We can then have Allied and German as subsections. --PBS (talk) 14:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure. I was just reflecting on the content which seems to be more descriptive of the disposition of the forces.--mrg3105mrg3105 23:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Citation

This article incorporates text from http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/brochures/centeur/centeur.htm Who would like to take on the task of incorporating citations for each paragraph in this article as has been done for XX Bomber Command and First English Civil War? --PBS (talk) 13:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that Kirrages --PBS (talk) 09:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Misleading title

The title Western Allied invasion of Germany is not supported by the actual content of this article. The word "invasion" is not used in the main copy except for a couple of ambivalent cases including the Normandy landings known as the Invasion of Normandy, etc. WP:TITLE policy/guideline usually puts the interests of general audience before those of editors with a possible bias. Poeticbent talk 23:13, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

British 21st Army Group plans Operation Plunder --- Neowied or Neuwied?

In the chapter: British 21st Army Group plans Operation Plunder, the town of Neowied is mentioned. Should this not be `Neuwied' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuwied), which is a small town between Bonn and Koblenz near the rhine. I`m no historian, so someone knowledgable should look into this. Cheers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.12.51.109 (talk) 08:02, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Broken citations

The following need fixing:

• this edit (18:34, 2 March 2015) by user:CJK only supplied a short citation there is no corresponding long citation in the References section.
• this edit (07:52, 20 March 2014) by user:W. B. Wilson. I would have fixed this myself (as I have the Glantz addition -- which like the other was missing the ref=harv parameter), but there are two other problems. One is minor: in the short citation his name has an "n" missing from the end of the surname (or is it that the long citation has an additional "n"?). I went to look at the ISBN link to check but it seems to be an ISBN to a different book.

-- PBS (talk) 13:58, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

German casualties

I've reverted the replacement of the German casualties in the infobox with "unknown". As there appear to be at least two estimates of the casualties in reliable sources provided in recent edits (the figures sourced to Rüdiger Overmans, and the figures sourced to a report issued in the name of US General George Marshall), this seems unsustainable as the issue appears to be that estimates vary. This isn't surprising in the context, given that the campaign involved the complete collapse of the German military and German state, meaning that casualty records would not have been compiled at the time, with many soldiers simply disappearing from the military due to desertion, being killed or wounded in combat or many other situations. @Woogie10w: are you aware of good sources on this topic? Nick-D (talk) 10:19, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Nick the two estimates contradict each other. It's best to leave it out of the article for now.Caden ^cool 11:37, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi everybody,

Two discussions about this issue have taken place on the editor talk pages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nihlus1#German_casualties_on_the_Western_Front and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nick-D#German_casualties_on_the_Western_Front_in_1945.

These discussions are reproduced below for the convenience of this talk page's readers.

The period "22 March to 9 May 1945" in the discussion reproduced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nick-D#German_casualties_on_the_Western_Front_in_1945

should be "22 March to 8 May 1945".

Regards,--Cortagravatas (talk) 17:53, 7 January 2017 (UTC). Edit --Cortagravatas (talk) 17:58, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

PS: One peer critical of Overmans' work (though he doesn't specifically address the 410,000 figure for the Western Front in 1945) is Niklas Zetterling, whose appraisal of Overmans' methodology and results can be read under https://web.archive.org/web/20060219111518/http://web.telia.com/~u18313395/overmans.pdf. I already mentioned this appraisal in the discussion under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nihlus1#German_casualties_on_the_Western_Front. Zetterling is a researcher at the Swedish Defense College. He has written or co-written several books about World War II, see the page https://www.amazon.com/Niklas-Zetterling/e/B0028F28T6. --Cortagravatas (talk) 23:54, 7 January 2017 (UTC). Edit --Cortagravatas (talk) 23:58, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd suggest listing both the US Army figure and Overmans' figure, noting that both are estimates. I used this approach in the Air raids on Japan article, where there are a large number and range of casualty figures with some being statistical estimates. Per WP:V there seem to be no grounds to exclude either figure unless reliable sources say they are no longer considered credible, which doesn't seem to be the case. Nick-D (talk) 04:38, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

That would be in line with my suggestion for the footnote text, which is the following:

"Rüdiger Overmans (Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Oldenbourg 2000, pp.265-272) estimates that the German armed forces suffered about 1,230,000 deaths in the "Final Battles" from January to May 1945 and that about 2/3 of these deaths occurred on the Eastern Front. This would leave 410,000 deaths attributable to the Western Allied invasion in 1945, a figure considerably higher than the 263,000 German military fatalities on the Western Front reported by US General George Marshall for the period from July 1, 1943, to June 30, 1945 (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). Regarding differences between Overmans' estimates and figures from German and other records, see German casualties in World War II."

But what should be stated in the info field?

Stating Marshall's figure of 263,000 killed would be wrong, as this figure refers to at least the period from 6 June 1944 to 8 May 1945, and not to the period from 22 March to 8 May 1945 that is covered by the page Western Allied invasion of Germany.

Stating Overmans' figure of 410,000 would also be wrong, independently of my arguments against its reliability, as this figure refers to the period from January to May 1945, and not to the period from 22 March to 8 May 1945.

Stating Müller-Hildebrand's figure of 265,000 dead and 1,012,000 missing and POWs (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II#Das_Heer_1933.E2.80.931945_by_Burkhart_M.C3.BCller-Hillebrand) would also be wrong, as this figure a) refers to the period from Jan 1, 1945 - April 30, 1945, and not to the period from 22 March to 8 May 1945, and b) covers all fronts, including the Eastern Front, the Western Front and the Italian Front.

This means that the only accurate statement for the period from 22 March to 8 May 1945 that can be placed in the info field is "unknown killed and wounded". There are no estimates at all of German dead and wounded in this specific period.

Can you agree to this?--Cortagravatas (talk) 14:42, 8 January 2017 (UTC). Edit: added "and POWs".--Cortagravatas (talk) 14:47, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

There's no need to limit the date ranges in that way: we can just say what the differing date ranges for the figures are. 22 March is a rather arbitrary date given that there had been substantial fighting in the lead-up to the crossing of the Rhine. We should make the best of what we have, while making things clear to readers. Nick-D (talk) 07:26, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that we should make the best of what we have, while making things clear to readers.

Making the best of what we have, while making things clear to readers, is precisely what I am proposing. Stating "410,000 killed" on the German side vs. (15,009 + 1,482 =) 16,491 killed on the Allied side, a fantastic ratio of 25:1 not borne out by any evidence and at odds with the available evidence about German casualties in the major engagements of the period in question, be it in (maximum) absolute terms or in relation to Allied casualties, is not making the best of what we have let alone making things clear to readers. It is making the worst of what we have, misinforming, misleading or at the very least confusing readers.

Let me ask you a question Nick. And please don't answer along the lines of "Overmans is a reliable source, so he is right until a more reliable source has refuted him". That's an argument from authority, i.e. a fallacious argument or no argument at all.

My question is: considering the arguments I have presented in my discussions with you and with Nihlus1, and considering all you have read or otherwise learned yourself about World War II in general and the theater and period in question in particular, do you consider it even remotely plausible that there should have been about 410,000 German military fatalities on the Western Front between January and May 1945, vs. only 16,491 military fatalities on the Allied side, a ratio of 2,486:100 or about 25:1 (or let's say twice that many, assuming that the 16,491 figure refers only to the period from 22 March to 8 May 1945 - the ratio would still be a fantastic 1,243:100 or about 12:1)? If so, on what basis do you consider this plausible?

Even General Patton's Third Army didn't inflict enemy casualties at that ratio. According to its own summary of activities,

The Third Army liberated or captured 81,522 square miles of territory. An estimated 12,000 cities, towns, and communities were liberated or captured, including 27 cities of more than 50,000 in population. Third Army captured 765,483 prisoners of war. 515,205 of the enemy surrendered during the last week of the war to make a total of 1,280,688 POW's processed. The enemy lost an estimated 1,280,688 captured, 144,500 killed, and 386,200 wounded, adding up to 1,811,388. By comparison, the Third Army suffered 16,596 killed, 96,241 wounded, and 26,809 missing in action for a total of 139,646 casualties.

The ratio of enemy KIA vs. Third Army's KIA, according to the above-quoted source, would be 871:100 (about 9:1) if you consider only the 16,596 stated as killed on Third Army's side, or 482:100 (about 5:1) if you assume that about half the 26,809 missing of Third Army were also dead.

However, Fuller's review of Third Army records, referred to on the page George S. Patton, while confirming the claimed number of POWs, found that the number of enemy KIA and WIA was significantly lower than claimed by Third Army, respectively 47,500 killed and 115,700 wounded. So the ratio between German fatalities inflicted by Third Army and Third Army's own fatalities was actually 286:100 (about 3:1) if you consider only the 16,596 stated as killed on Third Army's side, or 158:100 (about 2:1) if you assume that about half the 26,809 missing mentioned in the above quote were dead.

Another source on Third Army vs. enemy casualties contains the following information:

In 281 days of combat, Third Army saw 21,441 men killed, 99,224 wounded, and 16,200 missing. Non-battle casualties stood at 111,562. Patton’s Third Army managed to seize 81,823 square miles of territory . . . . Estimated casualties among the German forces that faced Third Army in battle accounted for 47,500 killed and 115,700 wounded. In total, Third Army captured 1,280,688 German military personnel between 1 August, 1944 and 13 May 1945.

So the ratio of enemy vs. own fatalities was 222:100 if you consider only the 21,441 men stated as killed on Third Army's side, 161:100 if you assume that about half the 16,200 missing mentioned in the above quote were dead - roughly a ratio of about 2:1 in either case. Note that this quote is meant to make the case that Patton's Third Army was a highly effective organization. In fact, I submit that the Third Army was the most effective fighting organization of its size among all Allied forces in Europe, and that you cannot show me another army on the Allied side whose combat-effectiveness compared to that of Patton's Third Army.

Now, if the most combat-effective of all Allied armies in Europe inflicted a fatality ratio of only about 2:1 on the enemy forces facing it, then how is it even remotely plausible to assume that Allied forces on the Western Front in 1945 inflicted a fatality ratio of about 25:1, or at least about 12:1, on the German forces facing them?

Or, for that matter, that in the whole period from 6 June 1944 to 8 May 1945 Allied forces inflicted 654,891 fatalities on the enemy (the sum of Overmans' figures for the periods June to December 1944 and January to May 1945, respectively 244,891 and 410,000), while losing only 196,000 killed of their own as stated on the page Western Front (World War II), a ratio of 334:100 (about 3:1)?

Also note that, assuming (2 x 16,491 =) 32,982 Allied fatalities in 1945 as I did above, this would mean 244,891 German vs. 163,018 Allied fatalities between June and December 1944 (a ratio of 150:100), and 410,000 German vs. 32,982 Allied fatalities between January and May 1945 (a ratio of 1,243:100). How on earth could the "kill ratio" in favor of the Allies have improved by a factor of about 8.3 between 1944 and 1945? And what evidence is there to support the notion that this happened? None at all, if you ask me.

The figures juxtaposed on the page Western Allied invasion of Germany suggest an even more absurd leap in the "kill ratio", from 244,891 German vs. 179,509 Allied deaths between June and December 1944 (a ratio of 136:100) to 410,000 German vs. 16,491 Allied deaths between January and May 1945 (a ratio of 2,486:100). So while the Allies would have inflicted fatalities more or less equal to their own on the enemy in 1944, the "kill ratio" in their favor would have improved by a factor of 18.3 in 1945, i.e. they would have killed about 25 of the enemy for every dead of their own in 1945 although fatalities on both sides were more or less evenly matched in 1944 (despite the Allies' also overwhelming material and especially air superiority in that year).

Please tell me honestly, Nick: do you consider any of the hypotheses suggested in the previous four paragraphs even remotely plausible? If so, on what basis?

In case you might be reluctant to provide a straight answer to the above questions out of concern that I might be pursuing an ideological agenda that involves systematically challenging the accepted results of historical research, I can assure you that you need not have such concern. My name is Roberto Muehlenkamp, I'm a German citizen living in Portugal. Since 2006 I've been writing articles on the blog site "Holocaust Controversies", hereinafter "HC", which was initiated by a British historian and is dedicated to the refutation of Holocaust denial claims. I'm also one of the authors of HC's white paper, which has been quoted in at least one academic publication and is also referred to on several pages of the "Debunking Holocaust Denial" section of Emory University’s website "Holocaust Denial on Trial". So you can rest assured that I'm not pursuing any agenda that goes against established historiography. I'm only interested in getting historical facts as right as possible. And if that requires criticism of a source as respectable as Rüdiger Overmans, so be it.

That said, I look forward to your reply.

Regards,--Cortagravatas (talk) 13:35, 9 January 2017 (UTC). Edited source references.--Cortagravatas (talk) 15:07, 9 January 2017 (UTC). Deleted duplication of period "own summary".--Cortagravatas (talk) 15:11, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

All Wikipedia content needs to be referenced to reliable published sources - please see WP:V. This isn't an "argument from authority", but a core element of how Wikipedia works. If you get your analysis on this topic published somewhere, it can then be referenced. Given that I agree that the different statistics are apples and oranges, but think that they can be used if this is made explicit, it's not clear why you're dividing them by each other to declare that they can't be right (eg, you can't divide the German casualties between January and May by only the US Army's casualties from March to May or arbitrarily double those figures to get a meaningful figure - aside from the different time periods, this excludes the casualties suffered by the other Allied armies who made up around half of the total Allied force by this stage of the war, not to meantion casualties in the Allied air forces which would have inflicted many of the casualties on the German forces). More generally, given that the time period in question includes the German Army's disastrous defeat in the Battle of the Bulge and the final period of the war in which the Allies enjoyed a massive advantage in firepower and armoured vehicles and the German units were increasingly manned by semi-trained soldiers around 400,000 German fatalities and significantly lighter Allied losses seems entirely credible. Nick-D (talk) 07:45, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply, which I shall comment below.

1. »All Wikipedia content needs to be referenced to reliable published sources - please see WP:V. This isn't an "argument from authority", but a core element of how Wikipedia works. If you get your analysis on this topic published somewhere, it can then be referenced.«

Fair enough. As a Wikipedia editor, you are bound by Wikipedia's rules. That I can understand.

The rest of what you wrote, however, you should have kept to yourself, for the sake of your credibility. Here's why:

2. »Given that I agree that the different statistics are apples and oranges, but think that they can be used if this is made explicit, it's not clear why you're dividing them by each other to declare that they can't be right (eg, you can't divide the German casualties between January and May by only the US Army's casualties from March to May or arbitrarily double those figures to get a meaningful figure - aside from the different time periods, this excludes the casualties suffered by the other Allied armies who made up around half of the total Allied force by this stage of the war, not to meantion casualties in the Allied air forces which would have inflicted many of the casualties on the German forces).«

You either read my arguments very hastily and carelessly or lack the comprehensive capabilities necessary to understand them. One of my last arguments, to sum it up briefly, was that if Patton's Third Army - the most effective fighting force of its size that the Allies had - inflicted fatalities at a ratio of "only" about 2:1 on the German forces facing it, it is wholly implausible that the Allied forces on the Western Front as a whole should have inflicted fatalities at a much higher ratio on all German forces facing them. Another of my last arguments, to sum it up briefly, is that Overmans' figures for the periods June to December 1944 and January to May 1945, vs. Allied casualty figures in each of these periods as suggested by the infoboxes of the pages Western Front (World War II) and Western Allied invasion of Germany, would imply more or less evenly matched casualties in the former period versus fantastically lopsided casualties in the latter period, without there being any evidence whatsoever to suggest such a fantastic leap in the enemy versus own casualty ratio. And these are only the arguments you at least tried to address, however feebly. The others you simply ignored.

3. »More generally, given that the time period in question includes the German Army's disastrous defeat in the Battle of the Bulge and the final period of the war in which the Allies enjoyed a massive advantage in firepower and armoured vehicles and the German units were increasingly manned by semi-trained soldiers around 400,000 German fatalities and significantly lighter Allied losses seems entirely credible.«

Bravo, Nick. That one really made my day. If I had a say in who gets to edit Wikipedia pages on certain topics, that statement would get you removed from editing any pages related to the Second World War, or at least to the theater and period in question, for it suggests elementary flaws in the knowledge about and the grasp of the subject under discussion.

A one-sided massacre of the proportions you consider "entirely credible" would require not only the Allied side's massive advantage in firepower, armored vehicles and air power (the last of these you forgot to mention), versus semi-trained soldiers with comparatively little hardware on the other side, but also the willingness and ability of German commanders to recklessly sacrifice their semi-trained soldiers in suicidal frontal attacks on an enormous scale, besides the willingness of such semi-trained soldiers to let themselves be slaughtered like lambs on the block, instead of just dropping their weapons and surrendering to the Allies on the next possible occasion. Is there any evidence to support what you are proposing? No, there is none. Let's look once again at German vs. Allied casualty ratios in the major engagements of the period in question:

3.1 Battle of the Bulge, 16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945: Allied casualties were 89,500 Americans (19,000 killed, 47,500 wounded,23,000 captured or missing) and 1,408 British (200 killed, 969 wounded, and 239 missing). German casualties were 67,459 (10,749 dead; 34,225 wounded; 22,487 captured) – 125,000. German casualties were either lower or not much higher than Allied casualties.

3.2 Operation Nordwind, 31 December 1944 – 25 January 1945: 29,000 US and 2,000 French versus 23,000 German casualties. German casualties were lower than Allied casualties.

3.3 Operation Blackcock, 14 January 1945 – 27 January 1945: 1,152 Allied vs. ~ 2,000 German casualties. Ratio of German KIA+DOW+WIA vs. Allied KIA+DOW+WIA: about 1.74:1.

3.4 Operation Veritable, 8 February–11 March 1945: 15,634 Allied casualties, ~44,239 German casualties (thereof 22,239 POWs and about 22,000 KIA+DOW+WIA). Ratio of German KIA+DOW+WIA vs. Allied KIA+DOW+WIA: about 1.41:1.

3.5 Operation Grenade, starting 9 February 1945: 7,300 casualties of US Ninth Army, which "captured 29,739 prisoners during the operation, and estimated to have inflicted 16,000 other casualties on the German army". Assuming that the latter estimate is not as exaggerated as the Third Army claim mentioned in item 1, this would mean a casualty ratio (only KIA+DOW+WIA, not including POWs) of about 2.2:1 in favor of the Allies.

3.6 Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine, 25 August 1944 – 7 March 1945: about 279,600 Allied casualties, thereof 247,234 US from 15 September 1944 – 21 March 1945 (50,410 dead, 172,450 wounded, 24,374 captured or missing) and 32,366 UK (thereof, assuming same distribution as US casualties, 6,599 dead, 22,576 wounded and 3,191 captured or missing). Total Allied killed: 57,009. German casualties: about 400,000, thereof about 40,000 dead, 80,000 wounded and 280,000 captured. Total German casualties including POWs were higher than Allied casualties, but casualties in KIA+DOW+WIA were lower.

3.7 Ruhr Pocket, March 7 to April 21, 1945: U.S.: 4,131 casualties (928 killed, 3,314 wounded). Germany: ~400,000 casualties, thereof 317,000-325,000 captured, which would leave 75,000-83,000 KIA+DOW/WIA, an improbably high figure as the Germans didn't put up much of a fight in the Ruhr Pocket. More realistic figures are given on the German Wikipedia page "Ruhrkessel": about 10,000 dead including civilians on the German side, about 1,500 dead on the US side. Even assuming that 90 % of the German dead were soldiers, the ratio of deaths between the German and the Allied side in the Ruhr Pocket would be 6:1, making this the only one of the major engagements wholly or partially taking place in 1945 in which the number of German deaths significantly exceeded the number of Allied deaths. And even in the Ruhr pocket the ratio was way below the 25:1 ratio that the casualties of both sides stated on the page Western Allied invasion of Germany would imply.

Please feel free to correct me if you should think that I left out any major engagement of the period in question, or if you should have sourced figures other than those above whereby the German vs. Allied casualty ratio in these engagements was far more lop-sided in favor of the Allies than the above figures suggest. Blunt statements of what you consider "entirely credible" or not won't do to refute the above.

In my discussion with Nihlus1 (who was a bit more reasonable than you are being now, by the way) I also put together the following maximum German military fatality figures in the major engagement of the period under discussion, as follows:

3.1 Battle of the Bulge: applying Vogel's breakdown (10,749 dead; 34,225 wounded; 22,487 captured) to the 125,000 casualties estimated by Cirillo and Astor yields 19,917 dead, 63,416 wounded and 41,667 captured. Of the 83,333 KIA+DOW+WIA, 23.9 % would be KIA+DOW. Applying the ratio of KIA+DOW vs. WIA according to the page Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine, i.e. one-third vs. two-thirds, we would have 27,778 KIA+DOW vs. 55,555 WIA. Though I consider this one-third vs. two-thirds ratio improbable, I'll apply it in the following as the purpose of this exercise is to establish the maximum number of German military fatalities in the major engagements that wholly or partially occurred in 1945 on the Western Front.

3.2 Operation Nordwind: assuming that the figure of 23,000 German casualties refers only to KIA+DOW+WIA, not including POWs, applying the above one-third vs. two-thirds relation yields 7,667 dead.

3.3 Operation Blackcock: assuming that the figure of about 2,000 German casualties refers only to KIA+DOW+WIA, not including POWs, applying the above relation of one-third vs. two-thirds yields 667 dead.

3.4 Operation Veritable: one-third of about 22,000 German casualties not including POWs would mean 7,333 dead.

3.5 Operation Grenade: one-third of about 16,000 German casualties not including POWs would mean 5,333 dead.

3.6 Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine: about 40,000 dead according to that page.

3.7 Ruhr Pocket, "Ruhrkessel": a maximum of 9,000 German military dead, see above.

3.8 Sum of 3.1 to 3.7: (27,778+7,667+667+7,333+5,333+40,000+9,000 =) 97,778 as the maximum number of German military fatalities in the major engagements that wholly or partially occurred in 1945 on the Western Front.

This sum total, which includes a sizable number of deaths in 1944, is completely incompatible with the assumption that 410,000 German military fatalities occurred on the Western Front in 1945 alone. Even if all 97,778 deaths in the major engagements had occurred in 1945, it would imply that only 23.85% of those 410,000 alleged deaths occurred in the major engagements whereas 76.15% (312,222 deaths) occurred in minor engagements of the period. This is extremely improbable and completely at odds with the evidence, to put it in the most polite terms.

Again, feel free to correct me if you should think I left out any major engagements that might account for the missing 76.15% of German fatalities between January and May 1945. What could those be?

Pitched fights for major German cities, perhaps? Let's see.

The battle for Cologne seems to have been little more than the famous tank duel by the dome on 6 March 1945.

The battle of Würzburg, 31 March to 6 April 1945, claimed about 1,000 lives including civilians on the German side vs. 300 military fatalities on the Allied side.

The battle of Nuremberg, 16 to 20 April 1945, claimed the lives of 130 combatants on the Allied side versus 400 combatants plus 371 civilians and forced laborers on the German side.

In the battle of Aschaffenburg, according to an article in a German paper, there were about 3,000 dead and wounded on the American and 1,620 dead and wounded on the German side. On page 137 of a US Army research paper about the battle, one reads something about 1600 killed and wounded on the German vs. 20 killed and 300 wounded on the American side, but the American figure is obviously a mistake as the narration of the battle points to much higher American casualties (see for instance pp. 100/101, 103, 104, 116, 120, 125, 129).

Anyway, Aschaffenburg was one of the very few German cities in which Allied troops met significant resistance in the final months of the war, according to Max Hastings' Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45 (I'll look up the page where that is stated).

Another was Crailsheim, where "hundreds" of people, soldiers and civilians, were killed in the last weeks of the war. Also not exactly like the Battle of Berlin.

So where are we now, Nick? The five comparatively minor urban engagements listed above (Cologne, Würzburg, Nuremberg, Aschaffenburg, Crailsheim) accounted for 2,300 German military fatalities at the very most, assuming 400 for each Cologne and Nuremberg and 500 for each Würzburg, Aschaffenburg and Crailsheim. Let's add a fudge factor and make that 3,000 for good measure, then you still have (312,222 - 3,000) = 309,222 deaths outside the major engagements to account for. Where on the Western Front are these 309,222 missing German fatalities supposed to have occurred?

Of course you may also argue that the 7 listed major engagements accounted for far more than the 97,778 deaths I estimated as a maximum, i.e. for the bulk of those 410,000 German military fatalities you consider "entirely credible". If you have any sources pointing to much higher German fatalities in each of these engagements, please provide them. I'm all ears.

However, I submit that you can do neither. You are not able to substantiate a figure much higher than 97,778 deaths for the major engagements, let alone to dig up 309,222 deaths in comparatively minor engagements other than the aforementioned five city battles, for the simple reason that there was not much fighting on the Western Front in the final months of the war. Most German troops surrendered en masse. Most German cities and towns received the Allied troops with white flags hanging out of every window. Places like Aschaffenburg were rare exceptions.

There's one last thing you should bear in mind regarding your "entirely credible" figure of German military fatalities. As a rule of thumb there are at least 2 wounded in battle for every man killed, so 410,000 fatalities would mean three times as many total casualties, an entirely fantastic 1,230,000 casualties for the Western Front alone. If Overmans' total figure of 1,230,000 deaths in the "Final Battles" in East and West were correct, there would have been at least 3,690,000 German dead and wounded in the period between January and May 1945, thereof 2,460,000 wounded, 820,000 of them on the Western Front. How come there are no military and medical records whatsoever that would point to such enormous numbers of servicemen wounded in the "Final Battles"?

So much for today. Please forgive me if my tone in this reply was a bit aggressive. Such may happen when carefully constructed, logical and well-supported arguments are consistently met with ill-reflected dismissive three-liners suggesting that my interlocutor didn't even bother to read what I wrote.--Cortagravatas (talk) 18:47, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

PS: Here's what Hastings writes about Aschaffenburg (Armageddon, p. 500):

Aschaffenburg earned a reputation as one of the very few towns - Hameln was another - where local civilians fought energetically against the Third Army. 'There was some of the hardest fighting of the war in that town,' recorded an American officer. 'Hitler had said every man, woman and child should fight... this town was the only place where that was really carried out. Everybody fought the Americans.' In the ruins of Aschaffenburg, men of XV Corps found the bodies of boys of boys of twelve and thirteen, who had chosen to die fighting for their Führer.'

And here's another quote from Hastings' book that may interest you (p. 112):

To grasp the nature of the war against Germany, a crude rule of thumb is useful. Every mile of front on which the Americans and British fought, every German soldier deployed in the west, was multiplied three- or fourfold in the east. The disparity of casualties both suffered and inflicted during the last year of the war, when the Western allies were fighting in north-west Europe, was even greater. Eisenhower's armies suffered some 700,000 casualties - killed, wounded and taken prisoner - between D-Day and the end; the Russians suffered well over two million during the same period. Between June 1941 and December 1944, Germany lost 2.4 million battlefield dead on the Eastern Front, against 202,000 killed fighting the Americans and British in North Africa, Italy and north-west Europe together. The conflict between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht dwarfed the western campaign in scale, intensity and savagery.

But relax, I don't think Hastings is very good when it comes to figures (or do you think he is, Nick?), so I won't hold the above against good old Rüdiger Overmans.

Cheers,--Cortagravatas (talk) 23:22, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

If you want me to be frank, I'm not reading your lengthy posts and I suspect that no-one else is. I don't intend to be rude and I'm not incurious, but these posts are simply not relevant: we need to use figures published in reliable sources. As I noted earlier, the article should report the full range of these figures, noting any differences in their definitions, time periods etc, and the more figures we can find the better. Your own analysis is not relevant to this I'm afraid, and you'd be better off publishing or discussing it on some other website where some use can be made of it. Your snarky remarks are also not helpful. Nick-D (talk) 10:58, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply.

You could have avoided those "snarky remarks" if you had limited yourself to pointing out Wikipedia's policy on sources (which I acknowledged, see item 1 of my previous reply) and admitting right away that you did not read my arguments, instead of adding some half-baked responses to these arguments (one of them obviously based on a misunderstanding of what my arguments were, the other ridiculously far-fetched), which are also irrelevant as you don't intend to consider any arguments that do not come from a "reliable source".

That said, I'll proceed as you suggested.

Regards,--Cortagravatas (talk) 11:43, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

PS:

If, as you say, the article "should report the full range of these figures, noting any differences in their definitions, time periods etc, and the more figures we can find the better", then why is Overmans' figure the only one mentioned in the infobox's footnote? Shouldn't one also mention the figures of Müller-Hillebrand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II#Das_Heer_1933.E2.80.931945_by_Burkhart_M.C3.BCller-Hillebrand), General Marshall (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II#United_States_Army_Figures_for_German_and_Italian_Losses) and Hastings (see previous reply), so that the reader can see that there are various widely differing estimates? And shouldn’t one also point out, by reference to the page German casualties in World War II, that Overmans’ total figure of German military fatalities in World War II is more than one million above the total that follows from the records of the German military search service(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II#Records_of_German_military_search_service)?

And why is Overmans' figure stated in the infobox, as if it were the only or the most reliable of the range of available figures (also) covering the period and theater that the page refers to? With such wide differences between estimates, wouldn't the statement "unknown killed and wounded" (or, if you prefer, "various estimates about the number of killed and wounded" or simply "various estimates"), with a footnote listing all available estimates, be more accurate and informative? If you absolutely need to have a figure in the infobox, I suggest "up to 410,000 killed", signaling that this is the maximum estimate. --Cortagravatas (talk) 12:07, 11 January 2017 (UTC). Edit --Cortagravatas (talk) 12:16, 11 January 2017 (UTC). Edit--Cortagravatas (talk) 14:44, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

PPS:

Here's my translation of what the Amazon reviewer thinks of Overmans' overblown figure for the "Final Battles" in 1945. I know the reviewer's assessment doesn't count as a "reliable source" according to Wikipedia's definition because it has not been published in an academic paper, but it's interesting nevertheless, and a reminder that "reliable sources" can be dead wrong whereas sources not meeting Wikipedia's formal criteria can be spot-on:

The year 1945 has always been a problem. Now, for the "Final Battles" O[vermans] strangely no longer differentiates between theaters of operation. He determines exactly 1,230,045 deaths. More precisely: (1) killed, (2) missing, (3) otherwise deceased (without prisoners of war), as is differentiated on p. 272. However, many of the missing (O. calculates exactly 697,319) were first taken prisoner and died only in captivity. Nevertheless O. boldly claims that "300,000 soldiers per month" (p.275), "that is, 10,000 men per day" (p.279, cf. p.283, strikingly also stated in the introduction) actually lost their lives – a conclusion that contradicts the previous differentiation and is mistaken anyway. Thereafter O. estimates that of the 1,230,045 deaths (only Eastern and Western Front, without Italy, without deaths in captivity etc.) about two-thirds occurred on the Eastern Front (p.265). This would however mean that in 1945 about 400,000 soldiers were killed in the West alone – a glaringly high number not even remotely confirmed by any other source (for the Ardennes Offensive one must assume a maximum of 20,000, for the Ruhr Pocket 10,000 dead). In total the number of deaths on the Western Front in 1945 was probably less than 100,000. A basic problem of O.’s study is anyway the one that his individual figures are hardly ever compared with estimates from works of military history. And when in the summary (p. 321) O. sees his total of 5.3 million dead confirmed only by Soviet author Urlanis (Bilanz der Kriege, 1965), he overlooks that Urlanis’ figure of 5.5 million fallen on p. 181 expressly refers to "Germany and its former Allies", i.e. it includes Italy, Romania etc., whereas for Germany itself 4 to 4.5 million dead (pp. 185f.) are assumed throughout [Urlanis’ book].

The reviewer's reading of Urlanis seems to be right, judging by a German review of Urlanis' book, which mentions that Urlanis estimates over four million German military fatalities in World War II and apparently considers this too high.--Cortagravatas (talk) 10:57, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

German casualties on the Western Front

Undid removal of my comments about Rüdiger Overmans' statistical nonsense. Don't see why Wikipedia readers should be fed that nonsense uncommented, just because Overmans' study was sponsored by the German Ministry of Defense.Cortagravatas (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:11, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

This is a violation of the rule of Wikipedia:No original research. Leave your arguments and allegations on whatever forums you frequent.--Nihlus1 (talk) 00:37, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

What I provided was not so much "original research" as a reality check of the claim, implied in Overmans' book, that Germany suffered about 410,000 military fatalities fighting the Western Allies between January and May 1945. That claim is so nonsensical that it shouldn't show on a Wikipedia page if the goal of Wikipedia is to provide information and not disinformation. Let me explain why that claim makes no sense whatsoever:

1. Together with the 244,891 deaths on the Western Front between June and December 1944 claimed by Overmans, it would imply about 655,000 German military fatalities fighting the Western Allies in 1944-45. That number is about 2.5 times higher (a difference of 392,000) than the 263,000 German fatalities on the Western Front in 1944/45 claimed by the US military. Have you ever seen a military source that underestimated military casualties inflicted on the enemy side? I haven't. On the contrary, military sources tend to overestimate, or deliberately exaggerate, the number of casualties inflicted on the enemy side. Especially if the casualties of their own side were high and they thus have a vested interest in pointing out that the enemy suffered more. Case in point, Patton's Third Army claimed to have killed, wounded, or captured 1,811,388 German soldiers, six times its strength in personnel. Included in that figure were 1,280,688 prisoners taken prisoner and 530,700 German soldiers allegedly killed or wounded fighting the Third Army. Fuller's review of Third Army records found that the number of prisoners was accurate (which is no surprise, as POWs can be precisely counted), but that the number of enemy killed or wounded was much lower than claimed (47,500 killed and 115,700 wounded for a total of 163,200 enemy bloody casualties between August 1, 1944 and May 9, 1945, vs. the 530,700 claimed by Third Army, whose claim thus exaggerated bloody casualties inflicted on the enemy by a factor of more than 3). If Marshall used the enemy casualty figures claimed by Third Army, which is not unlikely, his total of 263,000 German military fatalities in the 1944/45 campaign is much too high. Yet Overmans' study would imply that, instead of being too high as the above reasoning and sources suggest, or at the very best fairly accurate, Marshall's figure amounts to a mere 40 % of the actual total of German fatalities in fighting the Western Allies. This is extremely improbable, to say the least.

2. Allied casualties mentioned on the page Western Allied invasion of Germany were just (62,704 + 6,298 =) 69,002, thereof (15,009 + 1,482 =) 16,491 killed. So the claim of 410,000 killed on the German side would imply a fantastic ratio of about 25 German soldiers killed for each Allied soldier killed. How on earth could the Germans have incurred such wildly disproportionate battle casualties in 1945? Did they blindly and senselessly send masses of untrained recruits in suicidal frontal attacks against Allied firepower? There's no evidence whatsoever to suggest that. Did the Allies essentially wipe out their opponents with air power and artillery, with little commitment of their own ground forces? There's no evidence to suggest that either. There's also no evidence that Allied soldiers in 1945 were one-man-army Rambos who in each engagement inflicted vastly higher enemy casualties than they suffered themselves. What the evidence shows is that a) the Allies in 1945 advanced rather slowly and cautiously, for the understandable reason that they knew they had won and no one wanted to be the last one to be killed in the war, and b) the Germans were increasingly prone to offer but token resistance and surrender en masse, especially in the last months of the war (the note following the one I edited mentions that ~3.3 million German soldiers were captured from late March to early May 1945). Let's look at what the relation of casualties was in the major engagements that wholly or partially occurred in 1945 on the Western Front:

2.1 Battle of the Bulge, 16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945: Allied casualties were 89,500 Americans (19,000 killed, 47,500 wounded,23,000 captured or missing) and 1,408 British (200 killed, 969 wounded, and 239 missing). German casualties were 67,459 (10,749 dead; 34,225 wounded; 22,487 captured) – 125,000. German casualties were either lower or not much higher than Allied casualties.

2.2 Operation Nordwind, 31 December 1944 – 25 January 1945: 29,000 US and 2,000 French versus 23,000 German casualties. German casualties were lower than Allied casualties.

2.3 Operation Blackcock, 14 January 1945 – 27 January 1945: 1,152 Allied vs. ~ 2,000 German casualties. Ratio of German KIA+DOW+WIA vs. Allied KIA+DOW+WIA: about 1.74:1.

2.4 Operation Veritable, 8 February–11 March 1945: 15,634 Allied casualties, ~44,239 German casualties (thereof 22,239 POWs and about 22,000 KIA+DOW+WIA). Ratio of German KIA+DOW+WIA vs. Allied KIA+DOW+WIA: about 1.41:1.

2.5 Operation Grenade, starting 9 February 1945: 7,300 casualties of US Ninth Army, which "captured 29,739 prisoners during the operation, and estimated to have inflicted 16,000 other casualties on the German army". Assuming that the latter estimate is not as exaggerated as the Third Army claim mentioned in item 1, this would mean a casualty ratio (only KIA+DOW+WIA, not including POWs) of about 2.2:1 in favor of the Allies.

2.6 Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine, 25 August 1944 – 7 March 1945: about 279,600 Allied casualties, thereof 247,234 US from 15 September 1944 – 21 March 1945 (50,410 dead, 172,450 wounded, 24,374 captured or missing) and 32,366 UK (thereof, assuming same distribution as US casualties, 6,599 dead, 22,576 wounded and 3,191 captured or missing). Total Allied killed: 57,009. German casualties: about 400,000, thereof about 40,000 dead, 80,000 wounded and 280,000 captured. Total German casualties including POWs were higher than Allied casualties, but casualties in KIA+DOW+WIA were lower.

2.7 Ruhr Pocket, March 7 to April 21, 1945: U.S.: 4,131 casualties (928 killed, 3,314 wounded). Germany: ~400,000 casualties, thereof 317,000-325,000 captured, which would leave 75,000-83,000 KIA+DOW/WIA, an improbably high figure as the Germans didn't put up much of a fight in the Ruhr Pocket. More realistic figures are given on the German Wikipedia page "Ruhrkessel": about 10,000 dead including civilians on the German side, about 1,500 dead on the US side. Even assuming that 90 % of the German dead were soldiers, the ratio of deaths between the German and the Allied side in the Ruhr Pocket would be 6:1, making this the only one of the major engagements wholly or partially taking place in 1945 in which the number of German deaths significantly exceeded the number of Allied deaths. And even in the Ruhr pocket the ratio was way below the 25:1 ratio that the casualties of both sides stated on the page Western Allied invasion of Germany would imply.

So here's another reason why it's utterly unreasonable to assume that the German armed forces had 410,000 fatalities fighting the Western Allies in 1945. The fantastic disproportion of German vs. Allied KIA that this figure suggests, besides being rather improbable at first glance already, is radically at odds with the casualty figures for the major engagements that wholly or partially took place in 1945.

3. Let's now calculate and add up the maximum number of German military fatalities in the major engagement mentioned under item 2 above:

3.1 Battle of the Bulge: applying Vogel's breakdown (10,749 dead; 34,225 wounded; 22,487 captured) to the 125,000 casualties estimated by Cirillo and Astor yields 19,917 dead, 63,416 wounded and 41,667 captured. Of the 83,333 KIA+DOW+WIA, 23.9 % would be KIA+DOW. Applying the ratio of KIA+DOW vs. WIA according to the page Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine, i.e. one-third vs. two-thirds, we would have 27,778 KIA+DOW vs. 55,555 WIA. Though I consider this one-third vs. two-thirds ratio improbable, I'll apply it in the following as the purpose of this exercise is to establish the maximum number of German military fatalities in the major engagements that wholly or partially occurred in 1945 on the Western Front.

3.2 Operation Nordwind: assuming that the figure of 23,000 German casualties refers only to KIA+DOW+WIA, not including POWs, applying the above one-third vs. two-thirds relation yields 7,667 dead.

3.3 Operation Blackcock: assuming that the figure of about 2,000 German casualties refers only to KIA+DOW+WIA, not including POWs, applying the above relation of one-third vs. two-thirds yields 667 dead.

3.4 Operation Veritable: one-third of about 22,000 German casualties not including POWs would mean 7,333 dead.

3.5 Operation Grenade: one-third of about 16,000 German casualties not including POWs would mean 5,333 dead.

3.6 Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine: about 40,000 dead according to that page.

3.7 Ruhr Pocket, "Ruhrkessel": a maximum of 9,000 German military dead, see item 2.7 above.

3.8 Sum of 3.1 to 3.7: (27,778+7,667+667+7,333+5,333+40,000+9,000 =) 97,778 as the maximum number of German military fatalities in the major engagements that wholly or partially occurred in 1945 on the Western Front.

This sum total, which includes a sizable number of deaths in 1944, is completely incompatible with the assumption that 410,000 German military fatalities occurred on the Western Front in 1945 alone. Even if all 97,778 deaths in the major engagements had occurred in 1945, it would imply that only 23.85% of those 410,000 alleged deaths occurred in the major engagements whereas 76.15% (312,222 deaths) occurred in minor engagements of the period. This is extremely improbable and completely at odds with the evidence, to put it in the most polite terms.

4. Conclusion: in stating that 410,000 German military fatalities (vs. only 16,491 Allied fatalities) occurred in the Western Allied invasion of Germany, Wikipedia is providing information that is obviously and demonstrably false.

I don't think this is the purpose of Wikipedia.

I understand the rule against including original research in a Wikipedia article.

But I'm sure there is also a rule against including obviously false information in a Wikipedia article, even if that false information comes from a study by a renowned military historian sponsored by the German Ministry of Defense.

Overmans may be considered an authority on the subject, but please bear in mind what Carl Sagan said about arguments from authority:

"Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts."

Studies based on statistical samples, like that of Overmans, carry the risk of yielding results that are wildly unrealistic, which is why the results of such studies should always be subjected to a reality check, to see whether they are plausible and compatible with the available evidence. Overmans obviously failed to do that.

If you read German you may be interested in the review of Overmans' book by "Hobbyhistorian" on the Amazon page https://www.amazon.de/Deutsche-milit%C3%A4rische-Verluste-Weltkrieg-Milit%C3%A4rgeschichte/dp/3486200283. It sums up what I just wrote and contains pertinent further arguments against Overmans' methodology and results. In case you don’t read German, the key statement in that review translates as follows:

"Thereafter O. estimates that of the 1,230,045 deaths (only Eastern and Western Front, without Italy, without deaths in captivity etc.) about two thirds occurred on the Eastern Front (p.265). This would mean, however, that about 400,000 soldiers were killed in the West alone – a blatantly high number not confirmed even remotely by any other source (for the Ardennes offensive one must assume a maximum of 20,000, for the Ruhr Pocket 10,000 deaths). In total the number of deaths on the Western Front in 1945 was probably less than 100,000."

You may also be interested in the critique of Overmans' work written by Swedish historian Niklas Zetterling, which you will find under https://web.archive.org/web/20060219111518/http://web.telia.com/~u18313395/overmans.pdf.

I hope the above will persuade you to at least replace the information about German casualties on the page Western Allied invasion of Germany by "unknown". That would be the most accurate information Wikipedia can provide in this respect. Best regards,--Cortagravatas (talk) 15:24, 2 January 2017 (UTC), last edit--Cortagravatas (talk) 19:28, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

You've obviously put a lot of thought into this, but I'm sorry, this just isn't what an Encyclopedia is for. That's why the Wikipedia:No original research rule exists. An Encyclopedia is supposed to be a comprehensive list of sources, not original research on its own. As an academic study endorsed by the German Ministry of Defense, Overmans' work fits just about every criteria for being a reliable source.

But even ignoring that, there are many problems with your logic. The most basic being that 263,000 dead is the most accurate figure available and there's a 0% chance of it being underestimated. In fact, looking at other numbers on the same document gives us every reason to believe that it is. The same page lists 201,367 deaths for the US military in the whole war, while we know that US military deaths were twice that. A similar thing applies to the Japanese numbers. The author estimates on page 202 that Japanese military deaths were 1,219,000... but we know from Japan's own medical records published by the Ministry of Health and Warfare that the true number was 2,121,000. This indicates that either they're outright underestimating by a factor of x2 for all countries involved, or they're using a selective method of counting they're using is one that underestimates deaths by about x2 even when the true numbers are known for a fact (while Overmans counts overall deaths from all causes). In any case that would be pretty consistent with Overmans' 655,000 estimate for deaths on the Western Front 1944-1945, as that's around twice the 263,000 number.

One last note. It's 410,000 dead for the year (including deaths in POW camps after the war and presumably deaths by bombing; as noted, Overmans estimates ~80,000 German soldiers died in Western POW camps), not in the Western Allied invasion of Germany specifically. As noted in a (rather long) conversation further up on my talk page, if you look at the month by month losses by cause, and subtract soldiers who died as POWs or in other theaters, 554,446 German soldiers were killed in action in the three months of March, April, and May (284,442 + 281,848 + 94,528 = 660,818, 660,818 - 106,372 = 554,446). Assigning 1/3 of those deaths to the Western Front means 185,000 died in the invasion. Regards. --Nihlus1 (talk) 02:28, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply.

Your second paragraph, in which you claim that there are problems with my logic, addresses but one of my three arguments, namely the first one whereby an estimate of enemy casualties by the US military is likely to be on the high rather than on the low side. The fact that Marshall underestimated the casualties of his own side is no argument that would invalidate my argument, as underestimating their own casualties is what belligerents tend to do. The fact that Japanese records later revealed Japan's casualties to be higher than estimated by Marshall (who referred to "Japanese losses in the Eastern battlefronts, including China, since Pearl Harbor", i.e. not including Japanese losses against China and the USSR between 1937 and 7 December 1941) is also no valid counter-argument in this context, as Overmans' estimate is not a figure based on German records. Those records, mentioned on the page German casualties in World War II, point to German military fatalities significantly lower than those estimated by Overmans, who claims that those records are incomplete. Overmans's figures are mere extrapolations from a statistical sample, which may be wildly off the mark as all extrapolations from statistical samples can be. Examples:

I) the USSBS, Morale Division's 1947 study "The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale" estimated about 900,000 Japanese civilians killed by US bombing, which is more than twice the highest estimate borne out by Japanese records. On the page Air raids on Japan it is mentioned that "the USSBS' investigators regarded the work of their statistical teams as unsatisfactory, and the researchers were unable to calculate the error rate of this estimate".

II) the Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties, which have been subject to the pertinent criticism mentioned on the cited page.

That's why Overmans should have checked whether the results of his extrapolations are compatible with what becomes apparent from the available evidence, which is something he failed to do.

My arguments numbered 2 and 3 you ignored completely. I pointed out that the 410,000 figure, which would imply a fantastic ratio of 25:1 between German and Allied military fatalities that is not borne out by any evidence, is at odds with a) the ratio of German vs. Allied casualties in the 7 major engagements wholly or partially occurring in 1945, and b) the maximum death toll on the German side in the 7 major engagements wholly or partially occurring in 1945. It beggars reason that the overall ratio of military fatalities in 1945 should have been 25:1 in favor of the Allies, when in the 7 major engagements I listed German fatalities were either lower or not that much higher than those of the Allies. It is equally implausible (even assuming that all the listed major engagements wholly occurred in 1945, which is not the case as a significant part of at least two of them occurred in 1944) that the major engagements should have accounted for only 23.85% of those 410,000 alleged deaths whereas 76.15% (312,222 deaths) occurred in minor engagements of the period. So if there are any problems with logic, they are on the side of who entertains either of these absurd propositions.

As to Overmans' figure for the 1945 "Final Battles" including deaths in captivity, that's not my reading of Overmans' book. It's also not the reading of the reviewer on https://www.amazon.de/Deutsche-milit%C3%A4rische-Verluste-Weltkrieg-Milit%C3%A4rgeschichte/dp/3486200283, whose key statement I translated, and who also cites Overmans' claim, on pp. 275, 279 and 283 of his book, that during the "Final Battles" of 1945 German military deaths were about 300,000 per month and 10,000 per day. It's neither the reading you see reproduced on the page German casualties in World War II, where you find the following list of Overmans' figures "By Front":

Eastern Front until 12/31/44: 2,742,909

Western Front until 12/31/44: 339,957

Final Battles in Germany (East & West fronts Jan.-May, 1945): 1,230,045

Other (Germany,Naval, Poland etc.): 245,561

Italy (until the surrender in 1945): 150,660

The Balkans (until Oct. 1944): 103,693

Northern Europe (Scandinavia without Finland): 30,165

Africa: 16,066

Prisoners of War: 459,475

Total: 5,318,531

The highlighted figure, on which the estimate of one third = ca. 410,000 for the Western Front is based, clearly does not include deaths in captivity, and it neither includes any theater other than the Eastern Front against the Red Army and the Western Front (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Germany and Austria) against the Western Allies.

As to Overmans' study being an "academic study endorsed by the German Ministry of Defense" and thus fitting about "every criteria for being a reliable source", I'm afraid that you are indulging in the argument from authority fallacy mentioned by Carl Sagan, who I quoted. However high an authority may have "endorsed" Sagan's study, this is no guarantee against the study being deeply flawed in many respects. And if you invoke a German governmental authority, you should also bear in mind that, as mentioned on the page German casualties in World War II, the German government still maintains that its records list 4.3 million dead and missing German military personnel from World War II, which is about 1 million below Overmans' total figure of German military fatalities.

As to an encyclopedia being "supposed to be a comprehensive list of sources, not original research on its own", I agree with that, but I don't think this precludes an encyclopedia's being critical of the sources it refers to, especially when an uncritical reference to these sources leads to the absurd claims under discussion, and thus to the encyclopedia's not fulfilling its essential purpose, which is that of providing information that is as accurate and complete as possible.

As concerns German military fatalities in the Western Allied invasion of Germany, once again, the most accurate information that Wikipedia can provide to its readers is that the number of these fatalities is unknown. There is no source currently available that contains a reliable accounting of the number of German soldiers killed fighting the Western Allies in 1945. Overmans' study is so obviously flawed in this respect that it doesn't qualify as a reliable source, regardless of whoever endorses it.

Now, let me make a suggestion on how our disagreement can be solved by editing the page Western Allied invasion of Germany in such a manner that it neither contains original research nor misleads its readers, but offers them the available sources and allows them to draw their own conclusions:

1. The expression "410,000 killed" is replaced by "unknown killed and wounded".

2. The related footnote is worded as follows:

"Rüdiger Overmans (Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Oldenbourg 2000, pp.265-272) estimates that the German armed forces suffered about 1,230,000 deaths in the "Final Battles" from January to May 1945 and that about 2/3 of these deaths occurred on the Eastern Front. This would leave 410,000 deaths attributable to the Western Allied invasion in 1945, a figure considerably higher than the 263,000 German military fatalities on the Western Front reported by US General George Marshall for the period from July 1, 1943, to June 30, 1945 (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). Regarding differences between Overmans' estimates and figures from German and other records, see German casualties in World War II."

I hope we can agree on this solution.

Best regards,--Cortagravatas (talk) 16:15, 3 January 2017 (UTC). Last edit --Cortagravatas (talk) 18:21, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm afraid you missed the point of my objection. The fact that Marshall underestimated the casualties of his own side is no argument that would invalidate my argument, as underestimating their own casualties is what belligerents tend to do would only be a valid rebuttal if the official figures of about 407,000 dead weren't maintained by the US government since nearly immediately after the war and weren't publicly available, when in fact both of those things are true. Meaning Marshall must have been using a selective method of counting that didn't include total dead, for all countries.

Similarly for Japan. Excluding deaths in the China Theater prior to Dec. 7 1941 won't change the fact that the estimates he gives, as revealed by Japanese records, are entirely too low. Those figures could be excluding all deaths in the China Theater in total and it would still be a drastic underestimation. This pretty much entirely eradicates your argument that the true German losses must be lower than what Marshall has listed, and can in no way be higher. The point of that objection was that the available evidence (which says that, in the face of more or less indisputable casualty numbers, the cited document underestimates them by about x2) points towards German fatalities far higher than 263,000, which is consistent with Overmans' estimate.

I also think you misread what I said. The 1.23 million doesn't include deaths in captivity, but it does include deaths for the entire year and Overmans breaks them down by month (I brought up deaths in captivity listed separately to subtract them to get 1.23 million). if you actually tally by month, as noted further up on this page, the German fatalities for the three months of March, April, and May (which our page says is the duration of the operation covered by the page Western Allied invasion of Germany) would be 554,446- which is 185,000 for the West given his 1/3 estimate. Not 410,000 which would be the whole year.

But in the interest of compromise, sure. I see your point and that seems fine for the specific page Western Allied invasion of Germany, just as long as there's not an attempt to put forward Marshall's number as the end-all figure in light of the evidence that it's an underestimation (if we're applying the same standard to Overmans' 1945 estimate likely being an overestimation). Also perhaps note the month by month breakdown would leave 185,000 rather than 410,000 deaths attributable for the operation as defined by the page (March to May rather than January to May).--Nihlus1 (talk) 05:03, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply, which I will comment below.

«I'm afraid you missed the point of my objection. The fact that Marshall underestimated the casualties of his own side is no argument that would invalidate my argument, as underestimating their own casualties is what belligerents tend to do would only be a valid rebuttal if the official figures of about 407,000 dead weren't maintained by the US government since nearly immediately after the war and weren't publicly available, when in fact both of those things are true. Meaning Marshall must have been using a selective method of counting that didn't include total dead, for all countries.»

Marshall only counted battle casualties, and in this respect his estimate is to be compared not with the 407,316 military deaths in battle and from other causes, according to the Congressional Research Service Report about "American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics" (https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf), but with the 291,557 battle deaths in World War II mentioned in that report. I'm not aware of either figure having been stated by the US government at the same time as Marshall's report (in fact I remember having seen Marshall’s figure of battle deaths stated in the 1966 "American Heritage Picture History of World War II"). Could you please point out the US government source that stated the higher figure "nearly immediately after the war"? I don’t want to conclude that Marshall used a "selective method of counting" that didn’t include total (battle) deaths, without having ruled out the hypothesis that at the time of Marshall’s report a complete count of US combat casualties was simply not yet available.

«Similarly for Japan. Excluding deaths in the China Theater prior to Dec. 7 1941 won't change the fact that the estimates he gives, as revealed by Japanese records, are entirely too low. Those figures could be excluding all deaths in the China Theater in total and it would still be a drastic underestimation. This pretty much entirely eradicates your argument that the true German losses must be lower than what Marshall has listed, and can in no way be higher. The point of that objection was that the available evidence (which says that, in the face of more or less indisputable casualty numbers, the cited document underestimates them by about x2) points towards German fatalities far higher than 263,000, which is consistent with Overmans' estimate.»

You may argue that Marshall's figure of German deaths alone is not an argument against the accuracy of Overmans' much higher estimate (for only about half the period covered by Marshall's figure), but that wasn't my only argument – I added another two, which you have not addressed so far. It's also fallacious to conclude that, because Marshall's figure for Japanese deaths turned out to be an underestimate in light of Japanese records, his figure for German dead must also be an underestimate, moreover by the same factor. The latter doesn't logically follow from the former, while on the other hand the figures for the major engagements mentioned in my arguments numbered 2 and 3 suggest that Marshall’s figure for Germany was not as far away from actual German military fatalities as his figure for Japan was from Japan's military fatalities.

The OKW figures published by Percy Schramm, cited on the page German casualties in World War II, mention 107,042 dead and 409,715 "missing and POW" for the period from Sept 1, 1939 to Jan 31, 1945. Under the realistic assumption that the overwhelming majority of the "missing and POW" were POWs (on the Western Front German troops were more prone to surrendering when beaten than on the Eastern Front, where they would fight on even in hopeless situations for fear of the Red Army), the OKW's figures are an indication against the accuracy of Overmans claim that there were 244,891 military fatalities on the Western Front between June and December 1944. And if Overmans' figure for that period is too high, the same may apply for his "Final Battles" figure. According to Müller-Hillebrand's OKW figures, cited on the same page, the Wehrmacht on all fronts lost 1,965,324 dead and 1,858,404 missing and POWs in the period of Sept 1, 1939- Dec 31,1944, and about 265,000 dead and 1,012,000 missing and POW in the period from Jan 1, 1945 - April 30, 1945. Of course you may argue, as you (and I) do regarding Marshall's US casualty figures, that these are underestimates, and you would probably be right. But are they underestimates to the extent claimed by Overmans? Postwar figures independent of military interests, namely the West German government's 1960 demographic estimate whereby Wehrmacht military fatalities amounted to 4,440,000, and the files of the Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt), which as of 2005 listed 4.3 German million military deaths (3.1 million confirmed dead and 1.2 million missing) in World War II, suggest otherwise. Do you seriously believe that the WASt, which has collected data on 18 million German servicemen since the end of World War II (including the many search requests from relatives about servicemen reported missing, mostly on the Eastern Front) undercounted German military deaths by more than 1 million, as claimed by Overmans? I consider that rather improbable.

In any case, you cannot argue (as you may regarding Japanese deaths) that Marshall's figure of German deaths must be an underestimate in light of what becomes apparent from German records. All German records rather tend to confirm Marshall's figure, or even suggest that it is too high (so, by the way, does the difference between US Third Army claims of German dead and wounded and the much lower figure established by Fuller on the basis of Third Army records, which I mentioned in my argument number 1 and you also did not address). The only source suggesting that Marshall's figure is too low is a demonstrably flawed extrapolation from a statistical sample.

As a further argument showing that Overmans' extrapolations are flawed at least as concerns the "Final Battles", please consider the following: in the entire western campaign from 6 June 1944 to 9 May 1945, the Allies had 766,294 total casualties including ~196,000 killed, according to the page Western Front (World War II). Of these, if the page Western Allied invasion of Germany is to be believed, a mere 69,002, including 16,491 killed, occurred in 1945, which would mean that 179,509 deaths occurred in 1944. Assuming that Overmans' figure of 244,891 military fatalities on the Western Front between June and December 1944 is correct, this would mean a fatality ratio of about 1.36:1 in favor of the Allies between June and December 1944 – high but not implausible considering the Allies' superiority in material and especially their virtually unchallenged domain of the skies. In 1945, if the figures on the page Western Allied invasion of Germany (410,000 German dead vs. 16,491 on the Allied side) are to be believed, the kill ratio would all of a sudden have jumped from 1:36:1 to a fantastic 15:1. There's no plausible explanation let alone any evidence for such incredible leap in the ratio of military fatalities, which is further proof that the figure of 410,000 German military dead on the Western Front in 1945 is utter nonsense.

Incidentally, Overmans didn't reveal how he arrived at his two-thirds vs. one-third division of deaths in the 1945 "Final Battles" between Eastern and Western fronts, unless I missed something. I thought he might have applied the relation according to his figures for the months June to December 1944, but that would be 883,130 on the Eastern Front vs. 244,891 on the Western Front, a relation of 78.29% in the East vs. 21.71% in the West. If Overmans had applied that ratio to his "Final Battles" figure of 1,230,045, the distribution (963,005 deaths in the East, 267,040 in the West) would be more in line with evidence about the comparative scale, intensity and ferocity of fighting on either front, though the figure for the West would still be glaringly high and at odds with the evidence. Instead Overmans not only claimed too high a death toll for the "Final Battles", but also seems to have plucked a rather improbable split of that death toll out of thin air.

«I also think you misread what I said. The 1.23 million doesn't include deaths in captivity, but it does include deaths for the entire year and Overmans breaks them down by month (I brought up deaths in captivity listed separately to subtract them to get 1.23 million). if you actually tally by month, as noted further up on this page, the German fatalities for the three months of March, April, and May (which our page says is the duration of the operation covered by the page Western Allied invasion of Germany) would be 554,446- which is 185,000 for the West given his 1/3 estimate. Not 410,000 which would be the whole year.»

If the 1.23 million deaths in the "Final Battles" are for the whole year 1945 and do not include deaths in captivity, what is supposed to have caused deaths outside captivity during the about 7 months after 9 May 1945? Do you understand Overmans' argument in the sense that a majority of those 1.23 million deaths were deaths from battle wounds after the end of the war? That would be a rather absurd assumption (and, needless to say, one that is not borne out by any evidence).

Also, if the 1.23 million deaths in the "Final Battles" are for the whole year 1945, why did Overmans baldly state, as he did on pp. 275, 279 and 283 of his book, that during the "Final Battles" of 1945 German military deaths were about 300,000 per month and 10,000 per day?

« But in the interest of compromise, sure. I see your point and that seems fine for the specific page Western Allied invasion of Germany, just as long as there's not an attempt to put forward Marshall's number as the end-all figure in light of the evidence that it's an underestimation (if we're applying the same standard to Overmans' 1945 estimate likely being an overestimation). Also perhaps note the month by month breakdown would leave 185,000 rather than 410,000 deaths attributable for the operation as defined by the page (March to May rather than January to May).--»

Your 185,000 figure is speculative and doesn’t seem to be based on sound reasoning (on the part of Overmans, if your reading is correct).

However, I am glad that we reached a compromise, and shall therefore, with your assumed permission (as I won’t be trying to "put forward Marshall's number as the end-all figure", despite there being no reason to assume that it's an underestimate like his figure for Japanese deaths) edit the page as suggested in my previous reply, in the certainty that the quality of Wikipedia information will benefit from this edit.

Meanwhile, I suggest you consider whether the figures for Allied casualties on that page should be left as they are. The page mentions only US and Canadian casualties. What about the rest of the British Empire? And what about the French, who did much of the fighting in southern Germany in 1945? At least a statement that British and French casualties are unknown seems to be appropriate.

So much for now. Thank you for your understanding and for the interesting conversation.--Cortagravatas (talk) 13:56, 4 January 2017 (UTC). Edit--Cortagravatas (talk) 15:17, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

German casualties on the Western Front in 1945

Hello Nick-D,

The edit you reverted on the page Western Allied invasion of Germany was agreed with Wikipedia editor "Nihlus1", see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nihlus1#German_casualties_on_the_Western_Front

I explained to "Nihlus1" in great detail why the figure of "410,000 killed" on the German side, which is based on Rüdiger Overmans' Deutsche Militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg, makes no sense and must be dismissed as grossly exaggerated.

If you have any arguments to add to those of "Nihlus1", please write them down in response to this message.

Otherwise, I kindly request that my edit be left as it is, in the interest of Wikipedia's quality of information.

Regards, --Cortagravatas (talk) 13:26, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

That's a discussion which should have taken place on the article's talk page so that it was visible to all the editors with an interest in this topic. The statement that the casualties are somehow "unknown" is totally wrong: there are at least two reliable estimates, and you did not provide a reference to support a view that there are no figures. The usual solution to this kind of issue is to include all the reliably-sourced estimates of casualties in the article rather than to attempt to pick and choose between them. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 07:14, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply.

Are there really at "least two reliable estimates" of German casualties for the period covered by the article Western Allied invasion of Germany, which is stated to be "22 March – 8 May 1945"?

Actually there are no estimates at all covering specifically that period.

General Marshall's figure of 263,000 doesn't refer to the period from 22 March to 8 May 1945. It refers to the period from 6 June 1944 to 8 May 1945, or to a longer period (Marshall's report, which also mentions Axis deaths in Tunisia, Sicily and Italy, is stated to cover the period from July 1, 1943, to June 30, 1945).

For the period from January to April/May 1945, there are the following figures:

I) 265,000 killed and 1,012,000 missing and prisoners of war on all fronts according to Das Heer 1933–1945 by Burkhart Müller-Hillebrand, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II#Das_Heer_1933.E2.80.931945_by_Burkhart_M.C3.BCller-Hillebrand;

II) 1,230,045 deaths on the Eastern and Western Fronts alone according to Overmans, thereof two-thirds on the Eastern Front and one-third on the Western Front according to that author (the two-thirds vs. one-third split, as I pointed out in the discussion with Nihlus1, seems to have been plucked out of thin air; a split based on the relation of casualties on either front between June and December 1944, according to Overmans' own figures, would be 78.29% in the East vs. 21.71% in the West). The resulting figure of about 410,000 deaths on the Western Front between January and May 1945 is everything other than a reliable figure. It is, to borrow one of your expressions, totally wrong. It is a glaring exaggeration at odds with all known evidence about the fighting on the Western Front in that period. The Amazon reviewer of Overmans' book who I quoted in my discussion with Nihlus1 considers the figure exaggerated by at least a factor of 4. I tend to agree, for the reasons I explained to Nihlus1 on his talk page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nihlus1#German_casualties_on_the_Western_Front. I don't think there's a point in repeating my arguments here; please read what I wrote and let me know if you have anything to add to Nihlus1's arguments.

The bottom line is that, if the information "410,000 killed" is left on the page Western Allied invasion of Germany, the reader will be badly misinformed. He will be induced into believing that this is reliable estimate, when in fact it is everything other than that. And if he doesn't look up the footnote, as will be the case with many a reader, he will be further induced into believing that the figure refers to the period of 48 days between 22 March and 9 May 1945 and that during this period Allied forces killed 410,000 German soldiers (about 8,542 on average every day, go figure) while losing only (15,009 + 1,482 =) 16,491 killed of their number (344 per day on average), a fantastic kill ratio of about 25:1. Everyone who is familiar with the history of World War II in general and of the theater and period in question in particular (in which there was no longer much fighting on the Western Front as German troops were increasingly prone to offer but token resistance and surrender en masse, quite unlike on the Eastern Front where fear of the Red Army kept them fighting to the bitter end - in the final days many German soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front tried to make it to the lines of the Western Allies in order to surrender to them rather than to the Soviets) will acknowledge that this is utter nonsense, not supported by any evidence. It is hardly compatible with the informative purpose of Wikipedia to offer such utter nonsense to its readers.

The most accurate information that Wikipedia can provide to its readers in this respect is that German casualties on the Western Front in the period from 22 March to 9 May 1945 are unknown, because there are no reliable estimates (actually no estimates at all, see above) covering that period.

Considering the above, I hereby request permission to reintroduce the edit that I proposed, and that Nihlus1 has already agreed to. Regards, --Cortagravatas (talk) 11:30, 6 January 2017 (UTC). Edited --Cortagravatas (talk) 12:46, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

As above, I have no intention of discussing this kind of stuff on individual editors' talk pages. For that reason, I started a discussion yesterday at Talk:Western Allied invasion of Germany/Archive 1#German casualties. As a note, if you want to include material disputing Overmans' figures in the article, you will need to cite reliable sources which make this argument and not your own views or those of Amazon.com book reviewers, given that Overmans is clearly a reliable source. Nick-D (talk) 21:28, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Why, that rules out any discussion, since no "reliable source" has so far undertaken to dispute Overmans' figure, if only because such sources probably don't hang around Wikipedia and thus haven't yet fully realized what trash "reliable source" Overmans produced.

I'd say you're taking a rather easy and comfortable way out of addressing pertinent arguments against Overmans' figure - they are either my own or those of the mentioned Amazon reviewer, so however logical and well-supported they may be, they don't count because they are not from a "reliable source", i.e. an "authority" on the subject.

Maybe you should bear in mind what Carl Sagan wrote about the value of an argument from authority, which is essentially what your argument amounts to:

"Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts."

And I also duly note your conveniently ignoring my argument that for the specific period in question, 22 March to 9 May 1945, there is not even an estimate from Overmans. There is no estimate at all.

Anyway, I'll post my arguments against Overmans' figures on the Talk:Western Allied invasion of Germany/Archive 1#German casualties, so readers can see what nonsense Wikipedia is offering them claiming that it comes from a "reliable source".--Cortagravatas (talk) 17:28, 7 January 2017 (UTC). Edit: where I wrote "9 May 1945", read "8 May 1945".--Cortagravatas (talk) 19:38, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

References