THE EASTERN-PRUSSIAN OPERATION, 1945

[Igorn]

Drop the pretense boy, coming over all polite doesn't fool anyone, especially as the substantive points made are still as ridiculuous as ever.

Relax my friend. Where you have answered the following questions I raised with the reference to facts and archival documents:

I am not your friend, nor do you consider me your friend, and you have never the seen so much as a whiff of an archival document, so drop the crap. If you want to find the answers to your questions, all you have to do is go back in this thread. If you want to see the documents Krivosheev has used, by all means visit the archives. If you want to know about the tank losses and figures, get Krivosheev, or Zaloga, or any other work dealing with the subject and read for yourself.

Clown,

Read this thread thoroughly and you will see that compared to you I always supported my arguments by the solid sources like works of Ziemke, Glantz, Duffy, Russian Generals Vassilevsky, Rokossovsky, Gorbatov etc. and German Generals like Raus, Guderian, Lasch etc. As far as your hatred and sick statements are concerned, the only argument I hear from thread to thread is that Germans fought better than Russians because Russians suffered more casualties and the only source from thread to thread is Krivosheev. Relax and cool down. Russian solders proved on the battlefield that their were superior warriors to the Nazi Germans. And the Red Banner over the Reichstag in May 1945 is the historic fact that even such morons like you can not deny.

As far as Steven Zaloga is concerned, I highly recommend his books to all Feldgrau visitors. There you will find a lot of honest and unbiased information about Russian Army and their tanks. For example, Steven Zaloga, Bagration 1944, The destruction of Army Group Centre, Osprey, 2004.

Best Regrads from Russia,

[Michate]

Relax and cool down.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Qvist]

Writing what you are writing and simultaneously asking someone to "relax and cool down" is some nerve. I guess it'll be up to anyone who's interested to decide for himself who's the clown in the preceding pages, and I'm not exactly going to lose much sleep worying that anyone will think it's me.

[Igorn]

Qvist,

So far, I have not seen any answer from your side to the questions I raised. Just emotions.

Best Regards from Russia,

[Igorn]

Gents,

Some more info on the German losses in East Prussia.

"The Second Army had been cut off in its entirety, and it was falling back east towards West Prussia and the fortress complex of Danzig and Gotenhafen...Fourth Army disintegrated against the shores of the Frisches Haff. Three divisions were cut off at Leysuhnen and lost, while the rest of the forces crouched among the hundreds of vehicles at Rosenberg under heavy artillery and air attack, or, like the remnants of the 24th Panzer Division, hastened north along the Haff road to a final defensive line which was forming across the little Balga penisula... On the landward side of Balga a small rearguard from the 562th Division stood and fought under Colonel Hufenbach, who was ultimately killed along with his men...
93,000 German troops lost their lives in the battle for the Heiligenbeil Cauldron between 13 and 28 March 1945. A further 46,448 men fell into Russian hands, along with 605 tanks and assault guns, 3,559 field guns, 1,441 mortars and 128 aircraft...
On 21 March 1945 the Russians eliminated the remaining pockets of resistance in Altdamm town, by which time they claimed they had killed some 40,000 Germans in the area of the bridgehead and captured 12,000 more, together with 126 tanks and assault guns, over 200 artillery pieces and 154 mortars. More significantlly still, the right wing of the 1st Belorussian Front as a whole was now free to redeploy for the Berlin operation, which was going to end the war.

Christopher Duffy, Red Storm on the Reich, PP.205-238

On top of above German losses in East Prussia one has to add casualties at Konigsberg, where apart from KIA (42,000) according to Duffy, 30,000-35,000 surviving German troops marched out to captivity and in Samland, where, according to Glantz, on 8 May, 22,000 surviving Germans surrendered.

Best Regards from Russia,

[cpa95]

.... surviving German troops marched out to captivity and in Samland, where, according to Glantz, on 8 May, 22,000 surviving Germans surrendered.

Hi Igor,

can you please tell me the title of the book from Glantz, written about the Samland-battle.

Regards
Thomas

[Igorn]

Hi Igor,

can you please tell me the title of the book from Glantz, written about the Samland-battle.

Thomas, it is ''When Titans Clashed''

Best Regards from Russia,

[cpa95]

Thanks, Igor.

Best Regards from Heidelberg
Thomas

[Hans Weber]

Hello Qvist

I don't see any reason to doubt G.F. Krivosheeva numbers. Even if we allow for some errors in recordkeeping (of records that were not for the Russian public and probably therefore close to the truth, undiluted by propaganda) the Russian losses are staggering. I recently came across an article by Sönke Neitzel in the German MGZ that just crossed my mind while checking the thread. Sönke quotes from Kirosheeva and gives the Russian losses for the Battle of Berlin in the time from 16. April till capitulation as 352'475, among them 78'291 KIA. This is certainly comparable with the German losses at Stalingrad. Mueller-Hillebrand puts the loss of 6. Armee from the beginning of the encirclement to capitulation at 209'500. The really interesting question is of course how these losses were incurred. That the Russians won in the end and flew their flag from the the Reichstag is a rather simplistic approach. Regarding these losses, Sönke questions if we still have to assume that the Russian military grew more professional the longer the war lasted. He hints at incompetence at the highest and middle echelon, maybe even down to the indivdiual soldier and wonders about the effect of German radio intelligence (an interesting topic, I recently came upon a lot of intercepted messages in a KTB which certainly helped in the conduit of the combat) and the difference in armement. I think we all know that the German Army was out on their last leg at this time in every aspect. Even if we deduct some thousand deads, still these losses call for an explanation. It seems that no scientific study has been undertaken in this respect (Neitzel uses this as an argument to stress the need for more study on operational history, obviously the popular books on the Battle of Berlin seriously lack in this departement, that's why they readable to the public). Any opinions on the phenomen of such high losses?

Cheers
Hans

[MD650]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Hans Weber]

Thanks MD

Very enlightning, although a little bit on the monosyllabic side. You sure can hit that "z" key.

Anybody else?
Cheers
Hans

[Michate]

Hans, could you provide some more data on the MGM article (which year, number, pages etc.), I would like to have a look at Neitzel's article.

BTW, somewhat OT, but are you aware of Lakowski's book on the Seelow battle as well as the articles of said author and K.-H. Frieser in another book (an article collection edited by the MGFA), going into the same direction?

[Hans Weber]

Hello Michael

Thanks for your reply.

Sönke Neitzel, Des Forschens noch wert? Anmerkungen zur Operationsgeschichte der Waffen SS, MGZ 61 (2002) S. 403 ff.

Regarding K.H. Frieser, do you refer to: Operatives Denken und Handeln in deutschen Streitkräften im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert? Afaik it contains an article by Frieser on the v.Kleist push in France and one on the Defensive Battles on the Weichsel 1945 by Heinz Magenheimer.

I haven't read Selow 1945 by Lakowski yet. I thought it more as an guide to the Battlefield, but from your reply I take it has more to it.

Cheers
Hans

[Michate]

Hello Hans,

thanks for the data on the Neitzel article.

Frieser has published several articles on the battles of Sedan, Charkov and Kursk, but the one I had in mind is included in the following book:

- "Seelower Höhen 1945". Vorträge zur Militärgeschichte Band 17. Herausgegeben vom Militärgeschichtlichen Forschungsamt. Berlin und Bonn 1998.

Lakowski's book is indeed in the first instance a battlefield guide, but has some good operational data on the battle in general and some detailed tactical data on some specific fighting as well.

BTW, both Frieser and Lakowski often make use of a study created by the old Nationale Volksarmee shortly before the farewell of the GDR (Friedrich-Engels-Militärakademie or so, author Karl Stich, see also here), which seems to contain even more detailed stuff. Unfortunately so far I have been unable to locate a copy.

[Hans Weber]

Hello Michael

Thanks very much for the tips. Militärverlag NVA, that's something. Hard to come by at my place.
Cheers
Hans