Looking for Manpower Statistics Source

[Frundsberg13]

Hi All,

Can anyone recommend a good source for Manpower Statistics for the German Army, Air Force,
Navy and Waffen-SS? Ideally, I would like them broken down by theater, by year, by month and
to include the corresponding losses.

Thank You,
Frundsberg13

[Christoph Awender]

Good luck! :-)

[MadDog]

There are loss figures by front and date in the T78 (OKH) rolls, if that is what you are looking for.

Mad Dog

[lwd]

There are some stats here:
http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=2838

[Frundsberg13]

Thanks for the replies, after heading to the link provided by LFD, here are some of the sources that were used on that link to obtain the statistics.
Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg by Rüdiger Overmans
The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich by Richard Overy
Forgotten Legions by Antonio J Munoz
Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS 1939-1945 by Georg Tessin
Contributions from Ron Klages and John Mulholland

Perhaps this would be a great book idea for someone. There doesn't seem to be a comprehensive source that looks at the statistics of the armed forces of the Third Reich between 1939 - 1945. I'm sure the publishers would rush with lucrative offers.

Thanks,
Frundsberg13

[Christoph Awender]

Hello Frundsberg13,

The problem with such a book is that it would be a tremendous effort to gather the information from all the scattered sources.
The second problem is that many original documents in this matter are lost and it would be impossible to get a comprehensive nearly correct overlook.

/Christoph

[Frundsberg13]

Christoph,

Yes, I agree with you but, it would be nice to have as much data as is known in one source book. It would be a tremendous amount of work and the author would probably never receive the monetary rewards earned. I would be happy to have a book that provided as much of the data as is known with the appropriate caveats & notes on the material that is estimated. There are some statistics that will never be known because, as you said, the documents are lost.

I just found and read an article about Overman's book, it appears that his statistics were derived from methods that some people don't feel are proper. As a result, his estimations of casualties are higher than the previous calculations. I consider all of the data in this subject close estimations, especially the data from 1944-45.

Thanks for the reply!
Frundsberg13

[Christoph Awender]

Hello

Especially casualty figures are often asked for and more often discussed. Several people on this and other forums have long, long discussions about exact figures for casualties etc... I never participate because by many years of research I learned that you will never get an satisfying overview how they want it. The system how casualties were reported, counted and filed was not suitable for giving exact numbers 70 years after. The files making it possible are long lost already during the war.

/Christoph