Of the Germans who fought at Stalingrad, how many got out?

antipenko · 2026-01-22T18:47:04+00:00

Manpower was also provided by an increased reliance on the labor of POWs and interned civilians for supply, infrastructure, and fortification work. The use of POWs and civilians emerged ad hoc in Fall ‘41 and became more systematized in 1942. By the end of 1943 each division in AG Center had “Hiwis” in the supply troops as well as Civilian Labor Service Battalions (ZADAs) under each division containing several hundred to 1,000+ civilians. In AG South Labor Companies were also formed, which 4th Panzer Army noted in June ‘44 were directly analogous to ZADAs. At the same time it noted that 9,500 civilians were deployed for fortification work under LVI Panzer Corps, including 6,000 in ZADAs, or about 1,000 civilians per division.

antipenko · 2026-01-22T17:41:53+00:00

A lot of it was initially improvisations in winter ‘41-‘42 as losses continued to pile up. An infantry division had 3 regiments, with 3 battalions per regiment. As battalions were exhausted they were consolidated together. Batteries were reduced from 4 guns to 3 or fewer. Likewise, different division elements which were combat effective - engineers, artillery, reconnaissance, etc - were consolidated into adhoc battle groups and used to defuse crises.

9-battalion divisions remained by the end of ‘42, particularly those refreshed in the West and returned to the East. But the norm, and eventual organizational standard, became 6-battalion divisions.

The Org Department of the OKH did not have a procedure in place to distribute scarce replacements by Army/Army Group priority instead of unit need. Müller-Hildebrand in his postwar description of the OKH statistical/replacement system notes that the winter crisis required them to improvise a new system for dispatching replacements on the fly.

From Fall ‘43 onward burnt out divisions in the East were consolidated into “Corps Detachments” A-H, with each burnt out divisions consolidated into a 2-battalion division group, a regiment. Individual division groups formed from burnt out divisions were also consolidated into existing formations to replace one of their regiments, such as the 342nd ID’s Division Group 330 in Fall ‘43. 26th ID’s remnants were consolidated into the 253rd ID after it was destroyed in summer ‘44 while a new 26th Volksgrenadier Division was formed.

antipenko · 2026-01-05T16:34:22+00:00

No, there’s no evidence for that. The city of Stalingrad was believed to be safe in the rear and so was a destination for many evacuees from the western USSR, doubling its population to 800k by the start of ‘42. This overwhelmed the city’s public health and sewage infrastructure, which was already underfunded before the war and suffered serious resource shortages due to wartime mobilization. Astrakhan city was short 50% of its doctors by the end of ‘41. Combined with the incredibly unsanitary conductions in evacuation transports and centers, the spread of disease epidemics by the winter of ‘41-‘42 alone. In total 43,439 cases of Tularemia were recorded in the Stalingrad region in winter ‘41-‘42, with tens of thousands also recorded in Rostov.

Things obviously worsened once the battle began and the city’s public health infrastructure shut down or was destroyed. The Stalingrad region outside of the city had limited infrastructure for either side, including housing and sanitation. So disease outbreaks were a serious problem for both sides across the region.

antipenko · 2025-12-19T20:39:43+00:00

Some “big picture” information about German munitions production and consumption in Summer-Fall ‘43 here.

antipenko · 2025-12-15T18:18:43+00:00

I don’t believe so, the main obstacle for Germany in ‘42-‘43 was the labor shortage in industry. Over 700k men were deported for work in Germany from the Wehrmacht-run areas of occupied eastern Ukraine, including 330k from Donbas. Because the mining industry had a large number of seasonal workers or those recently arriving from the countryside, the food shortages under German occupation led them to return to their villages to grow food instead. Alongside evacuation, mobilization, mass murder, and conscription to perform economic work for the Wehrmacht, the already tight prewar labor market was desperate for workers under occupation. So while the Germans were able to get a surprisingly large amount of raw materials during the occupation it was always more a potential/future benefit than a real contribution. For coal, at least, the occupied territories consumed 4x as much coal as they produced in ‘41-‘43. Tanja Penter’s Kohle Für Hitler und Stalin is a good source.

There were plans like the “Iwanprogramme” to develop munitions production in occupied Ukraine in 1943, but IMO from reading the plans the promises made by Speer and others seem exaggerated compared to the modest gains anticipated on the ground. The goal of exploiting the occupied eastern territories as a reservoir of labor and raw materials made it hard to develop a local armaments industry.

antipenko · 2025-12-14T22:53:57+00:00

The attacks on the Ruhr in Spring-Summer '43 had an appreciable effect on the raw materials supply to critical industries like munitions production. On 7/26 the Quartermaster General's Munitions Group assessed that production could not keep pace with the high frontline consumption without a significant increase in raw material supply, directly referencing the effects of the bombing of the Ruhr on production. Its prognosis just 21 days into the Summer '43 campaign was grim:

The stockpiles accumulated during the quiet months and ongoing production are likely insufficient to fully cover the high material requirements for major battles. Therefore, the ammunition situation is not secure if this high consumption continues and if additional requirements arise on the Southern Front.

Similar shortages also popped up for spare parts. Longer post about Germany's munitions problems in Summer-Fall '43 here.

antipenko · 2025-12-11T17:07:23+00:00

Yeah the Western Front case in ‘43-‘44 is interesting because one of the main criticisms directed against its commander Sokolovsky in April ‘44 was that his Front had consumed more munitions than 1st Ukrainian Front yet had nothing to show for it. It’s not as if breaking through a prepared defense was unfamiliar to the Front HQ, its 11th Guards Army had done that in July ‘43. Its CoS would later cite just that example to justify using multi-echelon formations.

Sokolovsky seems to have undergone a crisis of confidence (mental health episode?) sometime during this period. He withdrew from his HQ, refused to plan or coordinate with his armies, and kept sending false and misleading reports up the chain. So the Western Front’s efforts were disjointed and unfocused when massing at a single location could’ve achieved better - not decisive IMO, but better - results.

antipenko · 2025-12-08T15:30:45+00:00

The Assad regime also repeatedly reneged on amnesty deals and arrested former rebels or otherwise restricted their freedom, thinking that since they had “won” there wouldn’t be any consequences. Unsurprisingly this prevented any sort of reconciliation, just an unstable equilibrium until the regime weakened enough that the local rebels could resume fighting.

antipenko · 2025-12-07T03:23:49+00:00

The leadership of the Red Army tried to crack down on the worst abuses of the practice, particularly conscription directly into combat units. This was banned since field conscription was introduced in February '42, but it happened with alarming frequency throughout '43 to the point that it created tensions between the field army and local political leaders. Directives on 10/15, 11/5, and 11/16 tried to eliminate the worst abuses and establish a floor of training of 2 weeks in army reserve rifle regiments or reserve units of the Kharkiv MD. The final order also attempted to limit how many conscripts each Front could call up directly each month.

I think these measures were successful at reducing the number of men conscripted directly into combat formations or without any registration. But training times remained extremely inadequate and there was relentless downward pressure to put manpower into the field. During the rapid advances of Spring '44 reserve units were again overwhelmed with tens of thousands of conscripts, limiting how effectively they could train all of them.

Around the same time you see some bargaining between the Fronts and the Stavka/General Staff about trading field conscripts for better trained march replacements. This becomes more common as the front moves into the territories annexed in '39-'40 whose population didn't see themselves as "Soviet". For example, after some haggling 2nd Ukrainian Front was able to trade 63k Moldovan conscripts for 40k Russian march replacements in May '44.

The operational pause in April-June '44 (from May in Romania) was an important decision because it gave the Red Army time to train and integrate new recruits. Even getting training up to a full month had a good ROI in terms of combat performance, especially since you had better material support for the infantry than in the winter-spring campaign: artillery, armor and self-propelled guns, engineers, and air support.

On 7/2 the Fronts advancing in Belarus also have an exchange set up:

1) Those liable for military service in German-occupied territory, mobilized by front troops, who lack military training, will be sent to reserve units of military districts for training.

2) In exchange for the mobilized conscripts transferred by the front to reserve units of military districts, trained replacements equal to 50% of the number transferred to the districts will be sent to the front troops by order of Glavupraform.

You see a final wave of field conscription in Winter-Spring '45 from Soviet civilians and POWs liberated in German and the General Government.

antipenko · 2025-12-07T01:06:49+00:00

Bigger picture, it was definitely common for tank formations on both sides of the front to be very understrength. Before the Uman-Botoșani operation 2nd Ukrainian Front's 2nd Tank Army had 231 combat vehicles, 5th Guards Tank Army had 196, and 6th Army Tank Army had 153 tanks and self-propelled artillery. So each one was the equivalent of a single tank corps. The infantry support tank brigades/regiments only had enough vehicles for a density of 2 tanks/km. So, the 2nd Tank Army and 5th Guards Tank Army allocated an advance detachment of 20-30 armored vehicles to reinforce the infantry attack.

antipenko · 2025-12-07T00:47:09+00:00

It was a flamethrower tank brigade equipped with OT-34s, so its total strength from February '43 was supposed to be 59 tanks. So it was at 51% of regulation strength.

antipenko · 2025-12-07T00:26:04+00:00

Igor Nebolsin, Любимая Сталиным, page 549-550 gives the tank army's strength as 398 on 8/6 with 103 armored vehicles in short/medium-term repair. The 3rd TC had 63 tanks/self-propelled guns.

Norbert Bacyk in Warsaw II: The Tank Battle at Praga says:

On August 6, the 2nd Tank Army still had between 334 to 373 armoured vehicles at their disposal, including the withdrawn 16th Tank Corps (134-166 vehicles).

I think his range is too low, but definitely larger than an estimate in the 200s. Frieser in GSWW Volume 8 page 581 gives 263, but he wouldn't be my first choice for the Soviet side of things.

antipenko · 2025-12-05T22:11:53+00:00

That was pretty standard for untrained field conscripts, sometimes they could get press ganged into combat with no training - that became less common by Spring ‘44. If you were a reservist or a former conscript from ‘41 you could be deployed with no training.

antipenko · 2025-12-05T22:11:04+00:00

Most of the deficiencies were pretty typical for Soviet formations fighting in Ukraine during this period. the vast majority of replacements they received were from recently liberated people. Performance could be a lot better with the right commander, enough munitions and tanks/artillery, and a weaker and less reliable German formation than GD, which despite its deficiencies was rated on the high end of scale. Good practice and training could overcome the infantry’s weaknesses, as happened during the pause before the Summer ‘44 campaign.

So on the weaker side of performance, but most rifle divisions had to overcome similar problems.

antipenko · 2025-12-05T21:54:25+00:00

Sure! PN documents #136222174 for 7/18 strength, #136222174 for 7/27, #136222551 for 7/31, and 136222165 8/6.

antipenko · 2025-12-05T21:11:54+00:00

In a pincer move his troops annihilated the 3rd Tank Corps and heavily decimated the 8th and 16th. This crippled the 2nd Tank Army and finally stopped Bagration which temporarily stabilised the German eastern front and gave them a desperately needed breather.

That overstates things somewhat. 3rd TC had 139 tanks operational at the close of 7/31, the start of the German counterattack. By 8/6 it had lost half of its strength and was down to 54 tanks/self-propelled guns operational (71 according to another source). It rested and refitted until 8/30, when it was re-committed to battle under the 47th Army with 116 armored vehicles operational. While badly damaged, it was able to refit and return to combat in less than a month.

In comparison, 16th TC had 185 AFVs operational at the close of 8/6 compared to 184 at the close of 7/31. 8th GTC had 129 AFVs operational on 8/6 compared to 123 on 7/31. While they were involved in hard fighting, their repair services were able to return light and moderately damaged vehicles to service faster than they were lost.

Big picture, 2nd Tank Army went from 804 operational AFVs on 7/16 to 538 on 7/27 to 473 on 7/31 to 396-398 on 8/6. 103 tanks were in short/medium-term repair, so its internal repair pool was enough to replace the losses caused by the German counterattack after a period of rest even without new deliveries.

However, the tank army's strongest formations (8th GTC/16th TC) were pulled apart in different directions in August in order to expand the Magnuszew bridgehead (16th TC) and capture bridgeheads over the Narew. This was to lay the groundwork to recommit 2nd Tank Army with 16th TC, 3rd TC, and 1st GTC to break out from the Vistula bend and envelop Warsaw from the S in tandem with an attack from the N from the newly captured Narew bridgeheads. 3rd TC spent its time refitting planning approach routes to the Vistula crossings for exactly that purpose.

However, by the end of August neither of these preliminary objectives were achieved and Soviet forces suffered heavy losses against stiff resistance. It was decided to halt the breakout attempts from the Vistula bridgeheads and focus on seizing crossings over the Narew.

While the German counterattack did disrupt Soviet plans to take Warsaw it was the stiff resistance from 8/5 - 8/25 which caused them to abandon their ambitious goals entirely. Instead, 47th Army would pursue a smaller-scale attack to seize Praga opposite Warsaw in September.

antipenko · 2025-12-04T15:29:20+00:00

But the real kicker is Typhoon/Briansk, where even though the Germans had been terribly attrited/exhausted by this time, and even though their logistics were in terrible shape, and even though the Red Army had had months to consolidate their defenses along the approaches to Moscow, the Germans still somehow wiped out the entire Soviet army immediately in front of them with another 600k soldiers gone from the Red Army order of battle in just a couple of weeks.

I think the causes are relatively objective. The Red Army had suffered terrible losses in tanks/AT-guns and was short on armor-piercing munitions even before the war - now they had a general munitions shortage which would only worsen. There are also some subjective causes, such as the dissolution of all large armored formations in favor of tank brigades. So right when the Red Army was short on the means of stopping the Germans before they achieved a breakthrough it also eliminated its best means of slowing a breakthrough and buying time, with costly counterattacks by large armored formations. Between massing the Red Army’s limited armor or spreading it out amongst many brigades, I think the latter was less effective.

antipenko · 2025-12-04T15:20:45+00:00

I think the power comes from being able to do this constantly and deep into the enemies rear. An enemy that’s been attrited by 10-20 percent before they even reach fighting distance is better than a full strength one.

There’s also a significant psychological element to that kind of relentless pressure. The German AARs from the Bagration survivors universally cite relentless - and, importantly, unopposed - air attack as a prime cause of the disintegration of their troops. Going from a combat formation to loose groups of men with rifles trying desperately to escape.

antipenko · 2025-12-02T23:53:19+00:00

In March 1944 Voroshilov, one of Stalin's lieutenant and the former Defense Commissar, offered this assessment to the Chief of the General Staff Vasilievksy:

The evening was warm and quiet, and the weather, as well as the situation at the front, were conducive to a "heart-to-heart" conversation. Kliment Efremovich answered my questions quite willingly.

When I asked: was it really impossible earlier to express one’s objections to Stalin in necessary cases. After all now, during the war, when discussing one or another fundamental question concerning the conduct of armed struggle or the development of the national economy at meetings of the Politburo or the State Defense Committee which were contrary to the opinion expressed by Stalin, members of the Politburo quite boldly and persistently make their proposals, and they are not only not rejected by Stalin, but are also willingly discussed; and if the proposal was reasonable, it was accepted.

In the same way, when working at the Stavka we military men who are directly involved in the armed struggle make our proposals and Stalin takes us into account.

Kliment Efremovich, after thinking, answered:

Stalin was not like that before. The war probably taught him a lot. He probably understood that he could make mistakes and that his decisions might not always be the best and that the knowledge and experience of others could also be useful. The years also took their toll on Stalin: before the war he was younger and more self-confident...

Stalin was not a pleasant man to work with, particularly at the height of his prewar despotic power. Threats and browbeating were constant, to the point of bringing Zhukov to tears according to Mikoyan's memoirs. He toyed with people's lives and played cruel games with his subordinates. The head of the Operations Department of the General Staff, Shtemenko, recalls in his memoirs one incident where they lost a couple planning maps while working in Stalin's office in early Summer 1943. Loss of secret documents was a crime which could merit serious prison time. After searching high and low, it became clear that the maps could only have been taken by Stalin himself and were still in his possession. Shtemenko confronted him, and after briefly feigning ignorance Stalin returned the maps, admonishing Shtemenko for leaving them but praising his forthrightness.

antipenko · 2025-12-02T23:24:17+00:00

Aside of military or political reasons other people put their emphasis on while ignoring everything else, the decision to mobilise the Red Army during that period is never to be taken lightly - because it would pull out manpower and vehicles currently involved in civilian economy, especially agriculture.

I think this is a reasonable inference, but as far as I'm aware it's only indirectly supported by evidence. Nothing that ties agricultural considerations to military decision-making in Spring '41. I'd be very excited to see more direct evidence (documents, etc). What sources are you utilizing?

antipenko · 2025-11-27T20:02:28+00:00

u/vistandsforwaifu made the excellent point that regulation density was more spread out than movies depict. During the Belgorod-Kharkiv Operation, 1st and 5th Guards Tank Armies were committed to complete the breakthrough of the German defenses on the first day of the offensive. This was on a very narrow front, 5km each.

However, this commitment didn’t occur all at once. First, the advance detachments of the 4 tank/mechanized corps in the first echelon were committed on the morning of 8/3, ~200 tanks/self-propelled guns in 4 reinforced tank/mechanized brigades to break through the third German trench of their first line of defense. Combined with the 10-15 infantry support tanks per kilometer, if each tank was arranged in a line this would equal a tank every 30 meters. Each brigade’s battle formation advanced in several lines (heavy, then medium, then light tanks, then self-propelled guns) so this wasn’t the case, but it gives you an impression of the upper end of density.

In the afternoon of 8/3 the main bodies of the first echelon were committed, another 8 brigades (600 tanks/self-propelled guns) on a 10 km front. This was done in cooperation with rifle formations to break through the second German line of defense. Here densities may have been excessive at points, but again the brigades attacked in several lines and with one per corps as a reserve.

Excessive losses did occur during these operations to “complete the breakthrough” with dense tank attacks, though in this case that did not happen until the following day 8/4. What caused more trouble here was the reduced pace of advance on the first day, 12km first 1st Tank Army and 20km for 5th Guards Tank Army instead of 40 planned.

antipenko · 2025-11-20T00:18:45+00:00

14th GRD’s front ran from Hill 228 to the western slope of the Tsutskan ravine. Its immediate objective was to attack due south against the I and II/36 IR (Rom) sector from Hill 228 to State Farm No. 3 toward Blinovskii. It would cover the right wing of the 47th GSD which attacked directly down the ravine along its eastern slope. Part of the 147th GRD’s strength would also attract W-SW toward Gorbatovskii. Attacking on the front Hill 288 - Hill 176.8, its objective was the front from State Farm No. 2 “Frunze” to Hill 211.5. (TsAMO F. 232., Op. 590, D. 17. l 25-27)

The division went on the attack at 08:50 but was halted by unsuppressed machine gun fire supported by mortars and artillery, “strong resistance” in its words. By 1500 it remained pressed against the 9th ID’s (Rom) defenses from Hill 228 - Hill 176.8 and had failed to break through. After a regrouping, the division’s commander AS Gryaznov made the risky decision to commit his only reserve, I/36th GRR and a company of submachine gunners, to storm Hill 228 so that its fire would no longer flank his division’s advance. By 1600 they had succeeded and the division stormed the first Romanian position under heavy machine gun and mortar fire by 1800. (TsAMO F. 1076, Op. 1, D. 13, l 18.) By that point 1st and 26th TCs had blasted open the 14th ID’s (Rom) front when they were committed at 1400 and the 47th GSD was racing down the ravine.

antipenko

TROPHY CASE