Post by Odin of Ossetia on Jan 17, 2006 16:16:59 GMT -5
What a bunch of slanderous crap and nonsense that is mis-leadingly mis-represented as "unbiased" and "balanced" history.
"A word or two must be said about the casualty and loss figures found in most of the operations described. Wherever possible, German figures have been used because they are believed to be more accurate than the numbers found in the postwar Yugoslav literature for several reasons. In almost all cases the Germans were advancing across the terrain and the Partisans withdrawing, and this fact gave the Germans a much better opportunity to count dead enemy bodies as they came upon them. The German figures all come from their primary source documents written at the time of the operation and are thus less susceptible to being “massaged” for political purposes. The postwar Yugoslav literature is reasonably accurate in relating the course of the fighting, but conveniently omits details on battles the Partisans lost and casualty figures in cases where they lost more than the enemy. Their claims or estimates of enemy losses are also grossly overstated. The German figures, on the other hand, represent both enemy combatants killed together with Partisan sympathizers and other civilians massacred or executed during the operation, but conveniently fail to make this important distinction or even refer to it. In one case involving some 1,200 “counted enemy dead” where a comparison could be made to Yugoslav figures, it was found that only about 150 of that number were Partisan combatants. The rest were villagers and farmers, men women and children, shot down for being “Partisan sympathizers” who were suspected of giving shelter and food to the enemy."
www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=7430
There are at least several falsehoods here:
1)
How come the German figures can be more accurate if out of 1 200 "counted enemy dead" there were only 150 real Partisans? The rest were not necessarily any real Partisan supporters or sympathizers, but innocent elderly men, women, and children. The authors of the above are blatantly self-contradicting themselves here.
2)
a. What "political messaging"? I suppose you want me to believe that in the post-war Yugoslav books the historians writing them completely ignored primary records from their own side?! I am sure that Yugoslav Partisans also had battle reports and war records, and very much doubt that they all sat in the archives untouched by the local historians, or that they were ignored by them in their own books. That was certainly not the case with the Polish pre-1990 historians.
b. Who said that the German primary sources are all that truthful and accurate?
[glow=red,2,300]
Might want to check this:[/glow]
"Bogdan Hillebrandt in his Partyzantka na Kielecczyznie lists many instances where the German losses, as reported by both Germans and Poles, differed considerably. Also, in some cases the Germans gave a very general account of some actions, without giving any specific numbers as to their losses, or even hid their losses altogether; in such instances only the Polish sources could be relied on for such information. Finally, many documents have been lost during the war, and also many actions during which the Germans suffered losses were never reported at all. The latter was especially true for minor actions which were quite numerous; for example many ambushes on columns and individual vehicles were never reported, unless some higher-ranking German was killed. At last one has to point out that the German reports were not all that truthful; "reducing" and even hiding their own losses (and at the same time exaggerating the losses of the resistance fighters, often very heavily) was nothing unheard of.
A good example of such a "fine" German reporting is mentioned by Piotr Pawlina in his book, when he describes an engagement against a Wehrmacht horse-drawn column of about 300-400 troops (Germans, Vlasovites, and Ukrainians) that took place early in the morning on 02 August of 1944, near the village of Slupia; the losses inflicted on the Axis just by his own unit (a few other BCh units also took part in the action and inflicted additional losses on the enemy) amounted to 74 killed and 47 captured (lots of equipment was also captured). Interestingly, a German military report about this very same engagement, which the author found after the war, stated that a group of 26 troops from the 8th Transportation Squadron of the 17th Panzer Division was attacked, and only a few of them were killed. Aside from the date and location of the engagement, no other information given in the German report was true. The author included a photograph of the 47 captured Axis in front of page 337 of his book (see below). Hillebrandt incorrectly states in Partyzantka na Kielecczyznie that the German Tagesmeldung WK GG from 3.VIII.1944 admitts to 18 troops of the 8th Fahrschwadron of the 17th Panzer Division being killed in this very action, since this document does it only in an indirect manner; only a "few" of the troops (including the squadron's commander) are explicitly mentioned as being killed. The timing listed on the German document also appears to be incorrect; the engagement began around 05:00 (and not 09:00), albeit it did last for close to five hours, so perhaps the document was referring to the end time. The partisans suffered only nine killed (including those who later died of their wounds) along with four wounded. About 130 BCh partisans participated in this engagement. Hillebrandt's comment that the arrival of a couple of Red Army armoured recon vehicles saved the day for the BCh partisans, is not really true either, as Pawlina explicitly states that the Soviets arrived already after the battle was over.
But Hillebrandt also does notice "under-reporting" in the German documents; coincidentally, a separate engagement that took place also on 02 August, 1944, involved the AL partisans chasing away a column of Kalmuck troops near Sniadka, during which 13 Kalmucks were killed. The German Tagesmeldung WK GG from 3.VIII.1944 only mentions about a clash of a Kalmuck unit with a "200-strong band" without mentioning their quislings' losses in men and equipment (for a more detailed description of this engagement see the page on 1st AL Brigade "Imienia Ziemi Kieleckiej" [which, it looks like, is unfortunetly gone now, together with the rest of the site])."
web.archive.org/web/20050306215753re_/wolnapolska.boom.ru/index-axis.html
3)
To claim that the the post-war Yugoslav historians ignored the data from the lost battles and only concentrated on the victorious ones is outright preposterous. Don't have Yugoslav experience in this matter, but judging from the Polish books from the pre-1990 period I very much doubt that was the case. If you don't believe me you can verify it (if you know Polish that is ;D) for yourselves, by just reading the books written by Polish historians and listed on this page:
wolnapolska.boom.ru/index-axis.html (But it looks like my site is unfortunetly gone. You can sill try the link provided above.)
4)
Their claims are grossly overstated? Any real evidence for that? Did it ever occur to you that the Axis under-stated or under-reported their own losses? See above in 2).
By the way, my Web site is gone; I think the Nazis took it out.
How "nice" of you; your "I am not a Nazi" denials do not sound that convincing to me.
That also means that the Partisans cannot even defend themselves anymore; how sad that there is not even a level playing field in this presumably so "unbiased" and "balanced" democratic world?