----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Pretty" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 1:21 PM
Subject: Soviet deaths due to the Great Patriotic War
& historians' treatment of numbers ...
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 15:41:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jon Petrie <[log in to unmask]>
Last year I suggested the conventional figure for
total Soviet LOSSES 1941-1945 [circa 26-27 millions]
almost certainly includes circa 2.5 million emigrants.
(H-Russia, 23 Feb 2003) and thus the Soviet *death* toll
1941-1945 according to our best estimates is circa 24
million.
I recently reread the key article on Soviet losses/
deaths in the Great Patriotic War and came to some new
understandings. (1)
Footnote 21 of the Ellman-Maksudov article estimates
the Soviet death toll 1941-1945 as a consequence of
Stalinist repression as circa 3 million and the Jewish
death toll ('Final Solution' deaths presumably) as
also approximately three million.
So per the key article, circa 18 million Soviet
citizens died as a direct or indirect consequence of
German Nazi aggressive war (excluding Soviet Jewish
Shoah deaths), not 26-27 million, the conventional
"losses" figure. (2)
I am curious as to whether the rather simple
calculation of subtracting from total Soviet losses
emigration, Stalinist repression losses, and Jewish
Holocaust losses has been made before.
I am also wondering about the academic community's
toleration of the circulation of misleading and false
figures of death tolls by historians and by
prestigious institutions who should, and often do,
know better.
Within Holocaust studies an invented figure of "five
million" non-Jewish victims of Nazi terror is
sometimes employed by historians and respected
institutions and has received essentially no
criticism. (3)
The circa 1.8 million figure of Gentile Poles who died
at Nazi hands per major Holocaust museums probably is
off by circa 40% -- Polish ethnic death tolls in WWII
may have been circa 1.8 million but this death toll
includes deaths due to Soviet repression of Poles,
circa 700,000, and also circa 100,000 deaths in
Ukrainian-Polish ethnic conflict (see my H-Holocaust
posting 31 Dec 2003).
In my view getting the numbers right in any history
narrative is as important as getting the numbers right
in a company's annual report. The evidence above
suggests, however, that many historians (and museums),
if they were held to the same standards as
accountants, would have been indicted. (4)
Jon Petrie
(Even God cannot change the past, Agathon)
1) Ellman, Michael; Maksudov, S. "Soviet deaths in the
Great Patriotic War: a Note" *Europe-Asia Studies*
(46:4, 1994, 671-80) (On the web thru JSTORE:
>http://uclibs.org/PID/19850< -- on the web page cited
hit "search" and enter Ellman next to "author,"
then hit "search" again.) The article should be read
carefully and the footnotes consulted for full
understanding. (Ellman's 1992 "On Sources: A Note" in
*Soviet Studies* (44:5) aids serious reading of the
1994 article.)
2) The 18 million plus figure includes deaths amongst
populations in territories annexed to the the Soviet
Union 1938 - June 1941 (total population in these
territories circa 20 million), includes circa seven
million excess deaths due to the deterioration of
living conditions within Soviet territories not
occupied by German armies, includes something over
eight million military and POW deaths, and includes
circa four million non-Jewish civilian deaths in
German-occupied areas -- Leningrad death is included
in this four million figure.
The circa 18 million figure does not include the huge
birth deficit (net of infant mortality) for the years
June 1941-December 1945 -- estimated on H-Russia last
year as 11.5 millions.)
(3) Per the computer screens of London's Imperial War
Museum:
>>Victims of the Nazis ... 1,800,000 [sic] non Jewish
Poles and many hundreds of thousands [!!] of
Ukrainians, Belorussians, Czechs and other Slavs were
killed. In total, some eleven million people
[including six million Jews] are estimated to have
been killed by the Nazis and their collaborators for
racial and political reasons.<<
Also see my posting on H-Holocaust 9 Jan 2004 and last
paragraphs of my H-Holocaust posting of 30 Jan 2004.
(4) The conventional figure for Soviet POW deaths in
German hands is 3.3 million. Yet the Ellman-Maksudov
article (p. 675) suggest 1.2 million died in German
captivity. Apparently this figure excludes deaths
amongst the 500,000 conscripts captured by the Germans
in 1941 before the reached their units (also see p.
675). But even assuming all of these conscripts died
in German captivity we still have a discrepancy of
close to 50% between the conventional figure and the
Ellman-Maksudov figure. Has anyone in Soviet Studies
noted this discrepancy, commented on it ?
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