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By Root 861 0

üdiger Overmans. Overmans, working mainly from Wehrmacht retrospective estimates (basically an attempt later to calculate from personnel records who had been trapped inside the Kessel), puts the figure of surrounded Germans as low as 195,000, the Hiwis at 50,000 and the Romanians at 5,000, a total of approximately 250,000. Kehrig had estimated 232,000 Germans, 52,000 Hiwis and 10,000 Romanians, a total of approximately 294,000. Another more recent study estimates a total on 18 December of 268,900, of which 13,000 were Romanians and Italians, and 19,300 Hiwis.

This latest breakdown, allowing for the difference in dates and consequent casualty figures, tallies fairly closely with the total compiled on 6 December by the Sixth Army’s Oberquartiermeister. This ‘Sixth Army ration strength in the Kessel’ gave a total of 275,000 men, including 20,300 Hiwis and 11,000 Romanians. (Romanian army sources assert that they had 12,600 men in the Kessel. There were also several hundred Italians.) If one adds to these figures the 15,000 men lost ‘only inside the Kessel’ between 21 November and 6 December, that would mean that almost 290,000 men had been surrounded on 22 November.

All writers are agreed that around 25,000 wounded and specialists were flown out, but there is little certainty over the numbers killed or taken prisoner. The truth will never be known in the chaos after the Soviet offensive of 10 January 1943 to crush the Kessel. All that we can be fairly sure of is that just under 52,000 members of the Sixth Army had died between 22 November and 7 January, but it is not stated how many of these were Hiwis. The Soviet figure of prisoners taken between 19 November and 31 January – 111,465 as well as 8,928 in hospitals – does not specify how many were German nor, more important, how many belonged to the encircled troops, as opposed to those captured during Operations Winter Storm and Little Saturn.

The Soviet onslaught of Operation Ring on 10 January 1943, added to the effects of disease, cold, starvation, exhaustion and summary execution, suggests that losses soared – they may well have doubled to around 100,000, including Hiwis. Both Kehrig and Overmans estimate German losses from 22 November until the surrender at close to 60,000. They naturally make no attempt to estimate the number of Hiwis who died during the fighting. One can only assume that very few got away with their lives afterwards.

References

ARCHIVAL SOURCES

AMPSB

Arkhiv Muzeya Panorami Stalingradskoy Bitvi (Archive of the Panoramic Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad), Volgograd

APRF

Arkhiv Prezidiuma Rossiyskoy Federatsii (Archive of the Presidium of the Russian Federation), Moscow

BA-MA

Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg im Breisgau

BZG-S

Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte – Sammlung Sterz, Stuttgart

GARF

Gosudarstvennyy Arkhiv Rossiyskoy Federatsii (State Archive of the Russian Federation), Moscow

MGFA-P

Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt library, Potsdam

ÖStA-AdR

Österreichisches Staatsarchiv – Archiv der Republik, Vienna

ÖStA-KA

Österreichisches Staatsarchiv – Kriegsarchiv, Vienna

PRO

Public Record Office, Kew (UK)

RGALI

Rossiyskiy Gosudarstvennyy Arkhiv Literaturi i Iskusstva (Russian State Archive of Literature and the Arts), Moscow

RGVA

Rossiyskiy Gosudarstvennyy Voennyy Arkhiv (Russian State Military Archive), Moscow

RTsKhIDNI

Rossiyskiy Tsentr Khraneniya i Izucheniya Dokumentov Noveyshey Istorii (Russian Centre for the Conservation and Study of Documents of Contemporary History), Moscow

TsAMO

Tsentralnyy Arkhiv Ministerstva Oborony (Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence), Podolsk

ΤsKhIDΚ

Tsentr Khraneniya i Izucheniya Dokumentalnikh Kollektsiy (Centre for the Conservation and Study of Historic Document Collections), Moscow

TsMVS

Tsentralnyy Muzey Vooruzhyonnykh Sil (Central Museum of the Armed Forces), Moscow

VOTsDNI

Volgograd Oblast, Tsentr Dokumentov Noveyshey Istorii (Volgograd Regional Centre for Documents of Contemporary History)

(NB. German documents cited from Russian archives