German Generals killed in WW2

[Steen Ammentorp]

This little encounter between Spidge and myself occurred sometime ago in the Generals – Born on This Day thread at http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/general...ur-own-12.html I just thought that I would bring it to peoples attention so that it doesn't disappear in the listings of generals.

Originally Posted by spidge

Do you have any info on the numbers of German Generals killed during WW2?

There has been a figure of over 900.

Do you disagree or concur?

Originally Posted by Steen Ammentorp

Spidge,

It depends on how you define "killed": is it KIAs? And how do you define a KIA? Do you include MIAs, deaths related to battle stress and accidents? The list could be long and it of course also depends on who you count as generals: Do you include W-SS officers, Police and officials of the Ministries with ranks equivalent to generals.

Anyhow in my understanding of "killed" then the number 900 is too high, because it includes those who died following the war as POWs or as a result of being condemned to death for war crimes.

According to this source: Josef Folttmann and Hanns Möller-Witten: Opfergang der Generale : die Verluste der Generale und Admirale und der im gleichen Dienstrang stehenden sonstigen Offiziere und Beamten im Zweiten Weltkrieg Then the numbers is listed as such:

Heer – H
Luftwaffe – L
Marine – M
Waffen-SS – W
Polizei – P
Total – T

KIAs
H: 223
L: 20
M: 18
W: 19
P: 9__
T: 289

Accidents
H: 30
L: 15
M: 4
W: 9
P: -__
T: 52

Suicides
H: 64
L: 16
M: 11
W: 12
P: 7__
T: 110

Executed by the Germans
H: 20
L: -
M: 1
W: 1
P: -__
T: 22

Executed by the Allies
H: 33
L: 4
M: -
W: 16
P: 5__
T: 58

Died as POWs
H: 128
L: 27
M: 16
W: 4
P: 13__
T 188

Died of health problems
H: 145
L: 25
M: 20
W: 3
P: 3__
T: 196

MIAs
H: 32
L: 6
M: 3
W: 5
P: 2__
T: 48

Total
H: 675
L: 113
M: 73
W: 69
P: 39_
T: 969

Now these numbers is from June 1952, and there came a second and revised edition in 1954 but as I remember the number didn't change that much. However there were still a number of POWs in SU who died before the release in 1956 of all German prisoners.

The number regarding the army generals mentioned in French Maclean's Quite flows the Rhine. German General officer casualties in WWII from 1996 is the same. But then of course he has used the above mentioned as source.

Before people get carried away by these numbers I would like to mention that within the same period 1939-1952 the SU lost 680 generals (or equivalents) with 245 as KIAs. So Germany wasn't the country where the toll was heavy on this cast. (Source: a search in my incomplete database)

I hope you find this useful.

[Steen Ammentorp]

Going through the numbers again I just discovered a small typo. W-SS lost only 3 generals due to accidents and not 9 as listed. This of course brings the total down to 963. Sorry.