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----- 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.<<