Casualties
editThe calculation of casualties for the battle is difficult, because it depends on which time frame and which area is choosen. The scope can vary all the way from just the fighting within the city and suburbs itself all the way to the inclusion of almost all fighting on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front from the spring of 1942 to the end of the fighting in the city in the winter of 1943. Different scholars have produced different estimates depending on their definition of the scope of the battle.
Axis
editIn the city the fighting didn't started until September 1942 and lasted until the surrender of the 6th Army and the elimination of the remaining pockets of resistance. The majority of the casualties were Germans from the 6th Army (together with few thousand Romanians and HiWis), which was completly destroyed. Estimates for overall casualties in the encircled city range from as low as ~250,000 up to ~300,000 men. Of those about 90,000 - 100,000 men were captured by the Soviets and about 25,000 - 30,000 wounded were flown out of the city. The rest was killed in the fighting[1][2][3]
Axis casualties for the whole Stalingrad campaign are harder to determine. Together with the destruction of the Hungarian, Romanian and Italian armies, Axis casualties for the whole battle of Stalingrad were probably about 850,000 men.[4][5]
Overall Axis casualties from the period from July 1942 until the surrender of the 6th Army during the Case Blue operation were about 1 million men, but this includes all battles in southern Russia.[2]
Material losses for Axis in Stalingrad were 900 aircraft (including 274 transports and 165 bombers used as transports), 500 tanks, 6,000 artillery pieces.[6]: 122–123 Soviet reports claim the capture of 5,762 guns, 1,312 mortars, 12,701 heavy machine guns, 156,987 rifles, 80,438 sub-machine guns, 10,722 trucks, 744 aircraft, 1,666 tanks, 261 armored vehicles, 571 half-trucks and 10,679 motorcycles during and after the battle[7]
Soviets
editFor the whole battle of Stalingrad in an around the city (during the so called Stalingrad Defensive and Stalingrad Offensive Operations), the USSR , according to archival figures, suffered 1,129,619 total casualties: 478,741 personnel killed or missing and 650,878 wounded or sick. On the material side for USSR lost 4,341 tanks destroyed or damaged, 15,728 artillery pieces, and 2,769 combat aircraft.[8][9]
In comparison, overall Soviet casualties during Case Blue in whole southern Russia from July 1942 to February 1943 were 2,226,416 men: 1,111,681 killed or missing and 1,114,735 wounded and sick.[10][Note 1]
Anywhere from 25,000 to 40,000 Soviet civilians died in Stalingrad and its suburbs during a single week of aerial bombing by Luftflotte 4 as the German 4th Panzer and 6th Armies approached the city;[11] the total number of civilians killed in the regions outside the city is unknown.
Luftwaffe losses
editAircraft losses of the Luftwaffe for the supply of the 6th Army at Stalingrad, and the recovery of wounded from 24 November 1942 to 31 January 1943:
| Losses | Aircraft type |
|---|---|
| 269 | Junkers Ju 52 |
| 169 | Heinkel He 111 |
| 42 | Junkers Ju 86 |
| 9 | Focke-Wulf Fw 200 |
| 5 | Heinkel He 177 |
| 1 | Junkers Ju 290 |
| Total: 495 | Equivalent to five squadrons or more than an air corps |
These losses amounted to about 50% of the total used units. In addition, the training program was stopped for the air supply and Luftwaffe sorties in other theaters of war had been significantly reduced to save fuel for use at Stalingrad.
References
edit- Footnotes
- ^ Soviet casualties from the Voronezh Defense, the Stalingrad Defense, Stalingrad Offensive, the North-Caucasus Defense and the North-Caucasus Offensive Operations which mirror the German Case Blue operations.
- Citations
- ^ Beevor (1998), pp. 439–440.
- ^ a b Antill (2007), pp. 87-88
- ^ Ziemke (1989), pp. 501-502
- ^ Richard Overy The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia (2004), ISBN 0-7139-9309-X
- ^ Craig, William (1973). Enemy at the Gates: the Battle for Stalingrad. New York: Penguin Books (ISBN 0-14-200000-0 & ISBN 1-56852-368-8).
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Bergstrom2007was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ http://militera.lib.ru/h/isaev_av8/21.html
- ^ Гриф секретности снят: Потери Вооружённых Сил СССР в войнах, боевых действиях и военных конфликтах: Стат. исслед. / Г. Ф. Кривошеев, В. М. Андроников, П. Д. Буриков. — М.: Воениздат, 1993. С. 178—182, 369—370. ISBN 5-203-01400-0
- ^ Glantz (1995), p. 295.
- ^ Glantz (1995), p. 295.
- ^ Geoffrey Roberts (2002). Victory at Stalingrad: the battle that changed history. Pearson Education. p.77. ISBN 0-582-77185-4