“The corpses filled the enemy”: what were the losses of the Soviet army?

The Soviet authorities hid the dark sides of the war in the face of the fate of the Soviet POWs, serious attempts to cooperate and discuss these issues were not allowed and suppressed. But when it was possible to talk about it, many people began to believe the same legends, but with the opposite sign. Including in the legend “corpses filled the enemy”. In this regard, especially speaks historian Sergei Solovyov.

In fact, the military losses of the USSR are comparable to the losses of the Third Reich and certainly do not exceed them several times. According to the Ministry of Defense, the losses of the Red Army were 8 million 866 thousand 400 people (including 2 million 665 thousand 935 Soviet prisoners of war who died in German captivity), German troops lost six million people.

In March 1946, Stalin commented on Churchill’s speech that as a result of the German invasion, the USSR lost about seven million people. But later, during and after Khrushchev’s rule, this figure multiplied. Often this was done deliberately for the sake of propaganda effect. How did it happen that the Red Army lost more than the German army? When comparing losses on the German side, usually only losses among military personnel, and on the Soviet side, losses of the entire population, including military personnel and civilians, were taken into account. Also, taking into account the German losses, the Austrians, Hungarians, Romanians, Italians, Finns, Latvians, with whom the Red Army also fought, the Ukrainian collaborators killed at the front were not taken into account at all, and they often fought worse than the Germans.

Finally, 15% of Germans died in Soviet captivity, almost half, or according to some sources, Red Army soldiers and officers died in German captivity. According to official data, 86.5%, or 3,787,000 soldiers, returned home from Soviet captivity, and 44.2%, or 2,016,000 soldiers, returned from German captivity.

“If the Soviet people did not kill and feed the German prisoners of war, and the Germans did not kill and feed our prisoners of war, then the irreparable losses of Germany’s military personnel and their allies on the Eastern Front in the period after 1941 until 1945 were the Red Army’s will be more than double their losses”, – pointed historian and publisher Leonid Maslovski.

Based on false data on the losses of the Red Army, a legend is created about Zhukov, who “throws the enemy with meat” and says “Women give birth to new ones.” Firstly, I didn’t throw it away, and secondly, this phrase seems to have folklore roots and even French origins – it seems that Generalissimo Prince de Conde, looking at the Senef battlefield full of corpses on August 11, 1674, said: “Okay, okay, this is just one in Paris night.”

Regardless, the legend of the Red Army’s greatest losses in the Great Patriotic War was started at the suggestion of biased Western historians and became popular in the 90s in a wave of smears of the past. And among ordinary readers it was reproduced at the suggestion of journalist Maxim Sokolov, fiction writers Mikhail Weller, Alexander Bushkov.

The decisions of Marshal Zhukov, in turn, did not lead to greater, but often smaller losses than the decisions of other front commanders. This can be seen in the counteroffensive and other operations near Moscow. The legend of drowning in corpses may have been born due to the difficult capture of Berlin. But here it must be said that the capture of such a fortified city and the approach to it could not do without losses, without great losses. In addition, Berlin, where the Germans drove the most elite units, was taken by force by the Red Army, because, by agreement with the allies, whoever took Berlin had an advantage over other members of the anti-Hitler coalition. After all, it essentially ended the war – the Germans could continue to resist until Berlin was taken.

Historian Sergei Solovyov noted that the version of the victory of the USSR by numbers alone was untenable, since in the new conditions it was clearly not enough just to throw corpses at the enemy: “This was an economic, technological, socio-political war. systems.” Even if you at least keep this nuance in mind, you will not want to talk about victory “by numbers, not by skill.”

The author’s view may not coincide with the editors’ position.

Author biography:

Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military observer for socialbites.ca, a retired colonel.

He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-aircraft Missile School (1976).),
Air Defense Military Command Academy (1986)).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile battalion (1980-1983)).
Deputy Commander of the Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment (1986-1988)).
Senior officer of the Air Defense Forces Main Staff (1988-1992)).
General Staff Main Operations Directorate Officer (1992-2000)).
Graduate of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003)),
Editor-in-Chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015)).