Lw-losses without enemy actions!

[ju55dk]

According to a document in BA/MA Freiburg, Luftwaffe lost the following number of flight crew+passengers:

24577 killed
5244 badly wounded
14095 lightly wounded.

Timeframe: 01.09.39-30.06.44.

Junker

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi.

Up and until January 10th 1945, the numbers are:

Combat losses flying units:
KIA: 23132 (of these 4341 are officers)
WIA: 16567 (of these 3000 are officers)
MIA: 26153 (of these 4227 are officers)
POW: 4104 (of these 767 are officers)

Non-combat losses flying units:
KIA: 10387 (of these 1284 are officers)
WIA: 4815 (of these 676 are officers)
MIA: 347 (of these 35 are officers)

Schools and other units:
KIA: 9303 (of these 803 are officers)
WIA: 6067 (of these 477 are officers)
MIA: 266 (of these 28 are officers)


and so on and so on for Flak, Ground personnel, etc

coming to a grand total of:

Reported Luftwaffe personnel losses from 01.09.1393 to 10.01.1945:
KIA: 112493 (of these 8996 are officers)
WIA: 212701 (of these 9??? are officers document damaged)
MIA: 152934 (of these 7643 are officers)
POW: 8995 (of these 904 are officers)



Aircraft losses:
Combat losses flying units:
Damaged: 20492 (of these 820 are training and other non-firstline aircraft)
Destroyed: 40613 (of these 1774 are training and other non-firstline aircraft)

Non-combat losses flying units:
Damaged: 15171 (of these 1614 are training and other non-firstline aircraft)
Destroyed: 10457 (of these 1043 are training and other non-firstline aircraft)

Schools and other units:

Damaged: 9931 (of these 5537 are firstline aircraft)
Destroyed: 12442 (of these 5059 are firstline aircraft)

It is possible to add the additional data up until March 1945 from existing data.

Regards,
Andreas

[Jens]

According to Overmans losses of Luftwaffe in WW2 were 430.000 KIA.

[Boandlgramer]

According to A.Galland/K.Ries/ R.Ahnert in "Die Deutsche Luftwaffe" (Karl Müller Verlag) the Luftwaffe lost 1939-44 = 96 917 dead, wounded and missing.
i guess thats just the flying personal of the Luftwaffe.
probable not counted are the Luftwaffe Felddivisionen and the Flakpersonal.

[Jens]

It is the flying personal, compare with Bekker: Angriffshöhe 4000.

[Boomerang]

As per previous post in this thread, my very old copy of The Luftwaffe War Diaries states total aircrew losses from 1 Sept 1939 - 31 Dec 1944 as 96,917. This figure comprises:

60,102 killed and missing in operational units
9,521 killed and missing in training units
21,301 wounded and injured in operational units
5,993 wounded and injured in training units

Definitely no flak/field division/ground personnel/etc losses in the above figures. The Luftwaffe Quartermaster General is given as the source.

Unfortunately there is no breakdown of the losses in operational units into combat and non-combat categories.

Boomerang

[ju55dk]

Originally Posted by ju55dk

According to a document in BA/MA Freiburg, Luftwaffe lost the following number of flight crew+passengers:

24577 killed
5244 badly wounded
14095 lightly wounded.

Timeframe: 01.09.39-30.06.44.

Junker

Just to come back to the first post! These losses are all in connection with flights, that had nothing to do with enemy actions!!!!! It has nothing to do with Flak or other ground units exept if they went along for a flight!!! And these figure ar from Luftwaffes own papers in BA/MA Freiburg, not from a book.

Junker

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi.

I also use the original documents from the archives, no authors as go-betweens.

I just wanted to relay these numbers as they are what the Luftwaffe statistical department themselves used. And before anyone suggests these are doctored numbers.. these were not numbers that were supposed to be exposed to the public, but the Luftwaffe's own book-keeping...

As one of the posters mentioned the Gefechtsverbände, and Felddivisionen. In the grand total number which is mentioned by me, these are included.

I relay these also here for those interested:

Feldtruppen:
KIA: 12296 (373)
WIA: 38246 (836)
MIA: 7805 (172)
POW: 420 (not readable, but under 10, single digit only)


Fallschirmtruppen:
KIA: 20718 (706)
WIA: 54911 (1175)
MIA: 42928 (886)
POW: 2121 (66)



Before we start analyzing the numbers too much, remember that the numbers reported by authors, usually rounded to even thousand also must be analyzed. If You look at casualties, where do you stop? I know that some authors would combine all above numbers and say that the Luftwaffe in grand total lost:

KIA: 112493 (of these 8996 are officers)
WIA: 212701 (of these 9??? are officers document damaged)
MIA: 152934 (of these 7643 are officers)
POW: 8995 (of these 904 are officers)

= 487123 (some 20000 of those would hold officer rank)

In a book this would then be published as such: The Luftwaffe lost 487000 people in combat from 1.9.1939 until 10.01.1945.

This would in fact be a number much larger than the actual headcount.

Why?

Well, the number of people counted as wounded is not a per person count, but a per incident count. So.. a person wearing some of the higher valor Verwundetenabzeichen (Silver is for 3 or 4 times wounded, Gold for 5 or over), would count 3 - 5 or even more in the WIA count above.

The bookkeeping was quite tedious as an excerpts from the Ergänzungen and Berichtigungen for a report date would show. As soon as a person was reported as killed in action rather than missing, this was corrected, as soon as a person reported wounded was reported as unhurt this count was also updated. Corrections to the totals in this headcount was posted the 2nd of every month. For example, on October 2nd 1943, a correction to the number of personnel listed for as far back as July 1940 was entered (2(1) added to the total of KIA's for this month, 2(1) deducted from the total of MIA's for this month, for those interested, this was an Oblt from KG 3 and an Uffz from LG 1 declared dead by the Luftwaffe Personalamt). The count for several months in '41, '42 and '43 were also of course updated.

So - in my opinion and until further documentation appear, we will have to rely on the above mentioned 'grand totals'. BTW - this count also includes Hiwi's, Luftwaffe helferinnen and Blitzmädel, some of the personnel categories that one probably would not count as a battle casualty in it's strictest form.

In my opinion, the real number of casualties in the Luftwaffe flying units should be counted as the number of KIA's + the number of MIA's (well, those still listed as MIA today not in the scrolls of the Legion Etrangere that is.....)

Regards,
Andreas

[ju55dk]

I was'nt after your numbers Andreas, but others qouted books! Anyway try to figure monthly losses, in flying accidents, that had nothing to do with enemy actions, meaning training and transport and so on! It is a high figure.

Junker

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, Jörn

I understood that, and tried mostly to explain what kind of figures we both are quoting, and tried to make some of the others aware that this kind of information must at least be treated with caution coming from a published source.

Also, I totally agree, the numbers are very high. I have as You know been working with the summary losses of the Luftwaffe for a while, the DVD will be sent you saturday btw, and done a bit of analysis on these.

JG 5 is of course what I analyzed first for some peculiar reason, and the numbers are striking!

Of the 1278 aircraft losses recorded by the JG 5 from January 1942 through January 1945, only 38.1% was recorded as being due to any kind of enemy action (this includes ground attacks (3.6%), aircraft missing to unknown reasons on operative flights (10.4%) etc), while the rest, 61.9% were damaged and destroyed due to non-enemy action (mostly take-off and landing accidents).

I would be very surprised if this is not the case in the other fighter units also (the data I have already gathered points in that direction... will come back on this). So, a 40/60 split is realistic, thus a fair bit more than half the aircraft that were destroyed or damaged in the Luftwaffe fighter arm were in fact destroyed by the Luftwaffe themselves.....

Regards,
Andreas