----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Pretty" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 12:26 AM
Subject: Re: Historians and Soviet death tolls 1941-45 ...
Subject: RE: Historians and Soviet death tolls 1941-45 ...
Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 14:13:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jon Petrie <[log in to unmask]>
I suggested in a 30 April posting that Soviet death
tolls resulting from the Great Patriotic War are of
the order of 18 million not circa 24 million.
(Emigration, Shoah deaths, and deaths from Stalinist
terror should, I suggested, be excluded from net
population losses in a calculation of war deaths. The
generally accepted figure for Soviet population loss
1941-1945 is 26-27 million.) (1)
I have revised my views.
Maksudov suggests the 26-27 million net population
loss *includes* circa seven million excess deaths due to
the deterioration of living conditions within Soviet
territories not occupied by German armies. (Footnote
21, Ellman/ Maksudov, "Soviet Deaths ...": Europe-Asia
Studies 46:4)
If the excess death toll in unoccupied Soviet Union
was in the millions, then the unmodified statement:
"Current research suggests that the Soviet non-Shoah
death toll as a consequence of the German instigated
total war of 1941-1945 was circa 18 million" would, in
my view now, seriously misinform.
For me, and I suspect for most people, an unmodified
"X million deaths due to German aggression" suggests
that those X millions died as a direct result of
German military actions (bombing, shooting etc) and/or
died within German occupied areas as a direct
consequence of brutal German policies.
The circa 2 million victims of the Bengal famine of
1943 are, to my knowledge, never included in
calculations of British Commonwealth war casualties,
yet there is little doubt that the war caused the
famine -- the interruption of rice supplies from Burma
etc. (See
http://www.duo.uio.no/publ/statsvitenskap/1997/514/3/7/8.html)
A fair summary of the Ellman/ Maksudov article in my
view: "The Soviet death toll as a direct consequence
of Hitler's war was circa 11-13 million. Excluded from
this death toll are circa three million Jewish 'Final
Solution' deaths, three million victims of Stalinist
repression, and an estimate of seven million excess
deaths in the never occupied Soviet Union." (2)
A significant error in the Ellman/ Maksudov article:
"... it is necessary to take account of natural deaths
of serving members of the armed forces. With total
armed forces of 11-12 million, using ... age specific
death tables ... one would expect about 70 000 deaths
a year (0.7 per thousand), or for four years about 300
000 ... Also ... it is necessary to deduct natural
deaths [of POWs in captivity] about 100 000" (p. 675)
A "0.7 per 1,000" death rate produces circa 7,100
deaths a year in a population of 11-12 million NOT
circa 70,000, the Ellman/ Maksudov figure. Thus the
Ellman/ Maksudov claim of 400,000 natural deaths to be
expected in the combined Soviet armed forces and POW
population is too high by about 300,000. (And
consequently their reduction of the 8.7 million semi
official Soviet figure for military losses by 900,000
is too great by 300,000.)
[For a 2003 reconsideration of Soviet WWII death tolls
that does recognize emigration as part of the 26-27
million "losses" figure see Mark Harrison's paper:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/harrison/papers/losses.pdf
]
Jon Petrie (3)
(1) Robert Thurston in a 10 May posting asked what I
mean by "Stalinist repression." I employ "Stalinist
repression" as a synonym for "Soviet repression/
Stalinist terror." Per a posting on H-Holocaust 20 Nov
2003 a recent estimate of ethnic Polish losses to the
Soviets is circa 700,000. And figures sent off line by
Simon Ertz (from Mezhdunarodnyj fond “Demokratija”:
GULAG (Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerej) 1918—1960) suggest
the excess death toll in Soviet camps -- excess above
the age appropriate death rates for 1941-1946 of
Soviet citizens in non-camp unoccupied Soviet Union --
was circa 500,000. I would include both these death
tolls in any calculation of "Soviet repression" death
tolls.
Per footnote 21 of the Ellman/ Maksudov article
"Soviet repression (deaths in camps and among the
deported nations) probably claimed another 3 million."
I do not know who Maksudov includes/ excludes.
In my view any serious scholarly accounting of Soviet
WWII death tolls has to subtract from the total of
excess deaths of 1941-1945 some estimate of the excess
deaths that are not directly related to the war -- or
clearly state that such excess deaths are not excluded
and per one Soviet academic's estimate are circa half
the total excess death toll.
[Acknowledgment here: John Radzilowski, 13 Jan 2004,
on H-Holocaust questioned Soviet death tolls and this
questioning lead to my rereading of Ellman/ Maksudov.
Dr Radzilowski: "... we can trust ... Soviet
statistics (!)... there was no Stalin, no gulags, no
NKVD, no forced resettlement of the Chechens, Tatars,
and other groups ..."]
2) Circa a million Jewish Polish citizens of August
1939 who were Soviet citizens in 1941 are part of the
Soviet 'Final Solution' dead, similarly a few hundred
thousand Jews of the Baltic republics are counted as
Soviet losses in Soviet population calculations.
Circa half a million 1941 conscripts captured by the
Germans do not appear in the Soviet 8.7 million figure
of military deaths. (See my earlier posting and p. 675
Ellman/ Maksudov). Since the chance of survival for a
Soviet POW captured in 1941 was very low, I think we
should add circa 500,000 to the Ellman/ Maksudov 7.8
million revised figure of military excess deaths. And
this revised 8.3 million figure should be adjusted
upward for the circa 300,000 error in the Ellman/
Maksudov calculation of expected military natural
deaths (see main text above). So per my calculations
the "true" Ellman/ Maksudov figure for military deaths
is circa 8.6 million. (And perhaps to this figure we
should add a figure for deaths of militarized railway
men etc.)
Adding the 8.6 million military figure to the figure
of 4 million non-Jewish excess deaths in the occupied
territories (Ellman/ Maksudov footnote 21) yields 12.6
million -- but the 500,000 conscripts added to the
Ellman/ Maksudov military deaths figure were
presumably virtually all from territories occupied by
Germany and thus probably should be subtracted from
Maksudov's 4 million figure of excess non-military
Gentile deaths in these occupied territories (footnote
21), so perhaps a "truer" Ellman/ Maksudov estimate of
the Soviet death toll resulting directly from German
aggression and German occupation policies is circa 12
million.
A different calculation: subtract from the 26-27
million population loss figure 2.7 million emigrants,
3 million Shoah victims, 3 million victims of Stalin,
and the 7 million excess deaths in unoccupied
territory (all figures within the Ellman/ Maksudov
article) for a total of circa 11 million.
(3) Some H-Russia readers who are unfamiliar with my
other h-net writings may think that I have a political
agenda, that I have an interest in minimizing Soviet
WWII death tolls.
I have a belief, evidenced by few historians, that
accurate history and the dissemination of accurate
history is of real importance. My writings and actions
are evidence of that belief.
As far as I know I am the *only* protester of the
significant *minimization* of WWII Soviet suffering and
death within the displays of prestigious Western
museums -- museums staffed (and praised) by well
respected historians. See my:
>http://www.berkeleyinternet.com/iwm/soviet.html<
>http://www.berkeleyinternet.com/ushmm/soviet.html<
And my "D-Day" posting on H-Museum 13 May 2004.
A quote from the .../iwm/ ... web page:
>>No 'innocent' visitor will come away from this
"Soviet Invasion" Imperial War Museum display case
with an accurate sense of the massive Gentile Soviet
death tolls of 1941 and early 1942. To convey
effectively these death tolls -- and to do justice to
the Soviet Barbarossa experience -- visuals that
direct attention to the Jewish POW experience need to
be removed from the display. And the main text of the
display needs to state clearly and forcefully that
total Soviet military losses (prisoners and killed) in
1941 were over three million and that of the over two
million Soviets captured by the Germans about 85% were
dead by the spring of 1942.
... a film entitled 'Barbarossa' gives no indication
of total 1941 Soviet losses and leaves listeners with
the impression that the Germans captured less than a
million prisoners in 1941, not over two million. And
the film gives no indication that most of the Soviet
1941 prisoners were dead within six months ...
[A] display titled "Prisoners of War" ...:
"The war of rapid movement ... lead to unprecedented
numbers of combatants being taken prisoner.
Conditions varied greatly in prisoner of war camps.
While most POW's suffered levels of privation and
boredom, the situation of Soviet and German captives
on the Eastern front was particularly harsh."
This statement is the sole prominent reference to the
fate of Soviet prisoners at German hands within the
IWM's World War II exhibit. The Soviet prisoner death
toll was over three million.<<
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